# David Strittmatter — all essays (full text) > Essays on ambition, communication, relationships and well-being by David Strittmatter, founder & CEO of ICODOS. 192 essays. Generated from https://davidstrittmatter.com. --- # Role Modeling - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/role-modeling - Date: 2024-06-23 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being When working out in the gym in Düsseldorf today, I was coincidentally listening to AVICII. AVICII died on the 1st of Apr 2018 in Maskat, Oman. He committed suicide at the age of 28. He was a multi-millionaire, loved by his fans and fellow musicians. He could fly around the world, play gigs for tens of thousands of people, and live a life that is difficult to even imagine for a normal human being. Yet, he couldn’t sustain what life brought upon him. His whole life he suffered from a severe anxiety disorder. All the traveling and the shows were against his nature. To live up to his own standards and those of his management, he used drugs to compensate for it. He could eventually quit and focus on spending time in his studio and with his family despite pressure from his management to continuing to perform live. Though already too late: Not many months later, he ended his life. * * * * * * This tragedy reminds me of the importance of having a firm purpose in life. Life is hard. Every year about 700 000 people commit suicide because life is too hard for them. That’s more than the number of people living in Düsseldorf – the city where I’m currently living. About every 2nd adult in the Western world has not felt true happiness for more than two years. My heart hurts when I’m contemplating this. And I feel deeply grateful for having a firm sense of purpose. * * * * * * Finding purpose is easy but committing and truly believing in it is hard. I spent hours and hours to reflect and refine my thinking. And it’s a never-ending exercise. My purpose is to live the happiest life possible. To make every second of life count. To live life to the fullest. But how to put this into practice? My current thinking is to be a *great role model* – not for everyone but for myself. I strive to be the person I would aspire to be if I were a few years younger. This person doesn’t care about monumental achievements, grand gestures, titles, or salaries. This person cares about integrity and living values every day: To think long-term, to be never satisfied but always grateful, to always give 100%, to appreciate the beauty of life, and to experience fun, joy, and pleasure. * * * * * * Building a hard startup is freaking hard. It’s like a marathon in sprints without assurance to ever finish the race. A major share of founders suffer from depression and anxiety. Some of them abuse drugs as well. They jumped into the founder journey without having a strong why and being mentally prepared. To not only sustain it but to make it a stepping stone towards my purpose to live the happiest life possible, I regularly ask myself what would a *great role model* do. For instance: How to enjoy the highs of the entrepreneurial journey like closing a new customer or signing with a new A-player? How to reframe anxiety when a key partner decides putting our collaboration on hold? How to overcome fear of missing out and work through the weekends to deliver on a project? --- # I categorize decisions into three types: shirts, hiring, and tattoos. - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/i-categorize-decisions-into-three-types-shirts-hiring-and-tattoos - Date: 2024-02-18 - Categories: Goal Achievement The bulk of decisions are like shirts. You try one and if you don’t like it, swap it. The stakes are low, so optimize for speed. Fewer decisions are like hiring. When you make a wrong hiring decision, you lose energy, money, and time. Yet, you cannot let fear hinder action – you have to make this decision. Don’t be scared of hiring but sincere. If it doesn’t work out, by this time next year you will have moved on and so will everyone else. Rare but pivotal decisions are like tattoos. These stick with you and you have to live with them. These demand deliberate thought and consideration, as their impact last years if not forever. So, move slowly and think carefully. Choose wisely: speed for shirts, diligence for hiring, and profound consideration for tattoos. How do you think about making decisions? --- # Creating vs. consuming: two ways to spend your lifetime - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/creating-vs-consuming-two-ways-to-spend-your-lifetime - Date: 2023-10-14 - Categories: Communication Dear friend, Together with my girlfriend, I went to Mallorca in the summer for seven days. It was wonderful weather. We had a clean, spacious apartment in Alcúdia. Shops, gym, beach, pool – everything was easily accessible. And via a quick car ride, we could go on great hiking routes. This year’s vacation was different, though. I’ve become a founder. Taking days off felt like leaving a newborn child of mine at home. I tried my best to be present. But every day for a few hours, my thoughts revolved around my startup. This is natural behavior considering the analogy of a newborn child. Luckily: Children become adults; startups become grown-ups. And the intensity with which a “parent” thinks about its “creation” diminishes. Nevertheless, things will never be the same. ## **Creating vs. consuming** During the vacation and lying in the sun, I reflected for hours: Am I happy? Hell yeah! But: I work so much. For most of my lifetime, I was working – *creating.* How can I be so happy? Most people dislike working, right? They would rather receive their salary without work in exchange and use the time to *consume*: watch Netflix, meet friends for brunch, go to parties, etc. I wouldn’t prefer that. I worked on my startup for half a year without a single penny gaining from it. Why? I concluded: There are two ways of spending time: *creating* and *consuming*. And I LOVE *creating.* There is nothing in life that brings me more joy than *creating*. Ideally, I *create* together with like-minded people. Creating: elaborating a concept and convincing people of it; writing a blog post to help people make better decisions; sowing tomato seeds and watering them; teaching a toddler how to pronounce a word correctly; cooking dinner for your parents; etc. Consuming: going out with friends; eating in a restaurant; watching a soccer game; flying to Mallorca for vacation; playing card games with your siblings; etc. There are different people. And it’s totally fine being someone who enjoys *creating* more than *consuming*. Or what do you think about how to spend our lifetime? All the best to you and yours, David --- # How I deal with difficult conversations - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-i-deal-with-difficult-conversations - Date: 2023-08-20 - Categories: Communication Dear friend, How to… deal with daunting conversations that leave us wishing for an escape route: * Talking to a colleague about her offensive remarks * Ending a relationship or terminating employment * Addressing issues with personal hygiene with a coworker * … My latest read “Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When Stakes Are High” (authors Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler) provides an amazing, proven guideline to best deal with this type of conversation. Patterson and colleagues could prove organizational performance and the quality of relationships improve significantly when people learn the skills to handle these crucial conversations effectively. In my role as the CEO of a fast-growing company, it’s been a no-brainer to read this book and use it to further enhance my communication skills. If I dodge or mishandle these talks, it ripples throughout the company and determines how my company will be able to strive. So, what did I learn? Too much to digest in one blog article. But one of the greatest levers to improve in crucial conversations, “to make it safe”, is what I will share with you here: **The Power of Safety:** The underlying principle is simple: if participants feel safe, they can express almost any idea without fear of retaliation or humiliation. The moment participants feel unsafe, the conversation is at risk. The direction veers towards two unhealthy extremes: silence or violence. In silence, people withhold crucial information, masking their true feelings or avoiding the subject entirely. In violence, people force their viewpoints on others, using tactics like controlling, labeling, or outright attacking. **Recognizing and Addressing Threats to Safety:** Being a skilled communicator means spotting safety risks as they arise. When they sense the conversation’s safety is compromised, they step out of it temporarily, rebuild safety, then dive back in, ensuring meaningful dialogue can continue. **Skills to Make it Safe** The book emphasizes 3 skills that can redirect conversations that flow toward unsafe territories: 1. **Apologize:** True apologies are not just about admitting a mistake but recognizing the effect of your actions on the other party. 2. **Contrast:** If a misunderstanding arises because of unclear intent, contrasting can aid in clarifying your message and restoring safety. Contrasting statements are structured to clarify what was not intended (“Don’t”) and then to articulate the actual intent (“Do”). Example: Don’t Statement: “I’m not looking to blame anyone for what happened with our last project.” Do Statement: “I just want to find out how we can identify challenges before they become problems.” 3. **Create Mutual Purpose:** A shared purpose can unify conflicting parties. By identifying and committing to a higher, shared goal, conversations can be redirected towards collaborative solutions. Make a conscious effort to find a solution that satisfies everyone involved and vocalize this commitment. How do you deal with crucial conversations? All the best, David --- # More Than Just ‘Hola’: My Plan to Learn Spanish for a Greener Future - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/more-than-just-hola-my-plan-to-learn-spanish-for-a-greener-future - Date: 2023-07-29 - Categories: Goal Achievement May 9th, I made a decision: I’m going to learn Spanish. I become fluent in it. And I will make business in it. Did I speak a word of it? Not a single one. Yet, the quest was clear: to speak Spanish fluently by the year-end and to utter more than just “Hola” and “Gracias” but hold basic conversations in less than 3 months. Naturally, every brave knight needs a battle plan. Mine involved daily exercises with the Spanish language for at least an hour, coupled with at least one weekly tutor session, starting from June. I was taking baby steps, but hey, even Don Quixote started somewhere. Now, you might be wondering, “Why the sudden romance with Spanish?” Well, amigos, let’s just say that business can make you do crazy things. The answer lies in my startup, ICODOS. We’re in the business of developing technology to produce e-methanol. And where do you find the lowest cost sustainable electricity, crucial for e-methanol production? Southern Europe and South America, where Spanish reigns supreme. Adding to the plot, my co-founders can already Spanish their way through business deals. So, it was clear as a tapas menu that my Spanish fluency could be a game-changer. Just picturing myself, salsa-dancing through business deals in Spanish… I had to make it happen! Fast forward to more than 80 hours of practice and a dozen tutor sessions later, and it’s getting fun. I am proud to say that I am more than just a man with a Spanish dictionary. Meanwhile, I’m a man who can choose between a hotel or an Airbnb, express my foodie preferences, and sift through Spanish texts and emails understanding the core content. Of course, there’s still a long journey ahead. But the truly daunting phase – when you sit in a tutor session, taking an embarrassing minute to form a basic reply – is thankfully behind me. It’s no secret that learning a language from scratch to attain fluency is a Herculean task. But here I am, showing myself again that anything I set my heart on, I can achieve. I’ve learned to trust the process and embrace the challenge. And who knows, someday soon, even the tricky subjunctive might start to feel like a friendly ol’ amigo. So here’s to the next chapter in my Spanish journey. Que la aventura continúe! (Let the adventure continue!) --- # Changing your behavior won’t solve the climate crisis — why & what actually solves it - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/changing-your-behavior-wont-solve-the-climate-crisis-why-what-actually-solves-it - Date: 2023-07-22 - Categories: Goal Achievement Many people among us, probably also you, are motivated. Motivated to contribute something to the climate: eat less meat 🥦, don’t get on the plane ✈️ as often, buy fewer clothes 👕. While these efforts are praiseworthy, we need to face a sobering truth: our individual actions, no matter how well-intentioned, will not and cannot prevent the climate crisis. Why? The substantial proportion of emissions is out of the direct control of us individuals. The carbon footprints of various sectors — from 💊 medicine production, buildings and construction 🏗️, to housing 🏠 — can NOT be significantly impacted by individual consumption decisions. For instance, medicine manufacturing involves a lot of carbon both 🧪 materially and ⚡ energetically. 🧪 Materially means that there is carbon in it. The majority of medicines are nothing but complex carbon molecules. Aspirin, Penicillin, Paracetamol — you have certainly heard of them. For example, Aspirin is based on salicylic acid and acetic acid. And acetic acid, in turn, is made from methanol, which is obtained — today — from coal or gas. ⚡ Energetically means that heat and electricity are needed to convert the carbon molecules into more complex carbon molecules — i.e. methanol to acetic acid and acetic acid to Aspirin. Today, most of this comes from fossil sources, i.e. also coal and gas. 🏗️ Buildings & construction: Fortunately, we all have a roof over our heads. Cement the basic material of concrete produces about one tonne of CO2 per tonne of cement. This means that every building produced an incredible amount of CO2 emissions. 🏠 Housing: Not only do we want a roof over our heads, we also don’t want to freeze in winter. The energy, the heat, that we need for this is also very CO2-intensive as it is mainly coal and gas. And then there are so many other things that are indispensable to us: Furniture 🪑, electronic items 💻, cleaning products 🧽, toothbrushes 🪥, syringes 💉, clothes 👗. Not only the production, but also the transport 🚛 is very CO2-intensive. The majority of you will have a smartphones and use laptops to get work done. These goods do not come from Germany and certainly not from regional origins, but were transported halfway around the globe by ships 🚢. As you can see, the whole thing is not simple. To live today means to produce CO2 emissions, because everything today produces CO2 emissions. Fortunately, there is a way out: climate technologies. Only with climate technologies will we succeed in stopping climate change. I will talk to you about one climate technology in the following. This climate technology was developed by my startup ICODOS, co-founder Francisco and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. For this, let’s focus on shipping for a moment: Shipping causes about 3% of global CO2 emissions without climate technology — specifically, without green, alternative, CO2-neutral fuels, nothing will change. The shipping industry has now realized this. Leading shipping companies such as Maersk billions to operate their fleets in a climate-neutral way. But there is a lack of green fuels. The problem is green fuels, in this case green methanol, are still far too expensive and hardly available. Green methanol is three times as expensive as conventional fuels, i.e. marine diesel, and virtually unavailable. The shipping company Maersk alone will more green methanol than as the entire world produces today. And by 2030, demand will have >34x. And this is where ICODOS comes in. We have developed a new process. A patented climate technology that will make it possible on the one hand to produce green methanol at the cost of normal conventional fuels and on the other hand to harness various raw material sources to ensure rapid scale-up und thus availability. ICODOS climate technology will make green methanol cost-effective and available to make not only shipping but also chemistry and pharmacy carbon-neutral. And this is how we as a society will solve the climate crisis — by developing and scaling climate technologies. --- # How it Feels like Being an Early-Stage Startup Founder - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-it-feels-like-being-an-early-stage-startup-founder - Date: 2023-07-09 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being Being an early-stage startup founder is like being a trailblazer venturing into new territory. Each step you take leads you into the unknown, carving a path where none existed. Resources are scarce, like supplies in a backpack, and you must use them wisely to navigate your journey. Your personal time morphs into a rare commodity, like water in a desert. The burning flame of passion for your work is like a sun that never sets, relentlessly casting its light on your path. The boundaries between work and leisure blur as your startup’s demands often spill over into your supposed downtime. When you do carve out leisure time, it becomes a strange landscape. Your work, with its fast-paced dynamics and niche conversations, becomes a language that few outside your startup comprehend. And there is hardly more you can talk about. The disconnect leaves you on an island in the middle of a conversation, isolated by the very thing that impassions you. Leading this expedition brings a weight of responsibility akin to carrying a heavy backpack. Each decision is like choosing which path to take at a crossroad, knowing that each choice can lead to unknown challenges or unexpected breakthroughs. This weight is your constant companion, its presence felt with every step you take. Yet, in this challenging journey, there’s an exhilarating sense of freedom. No well-trodden path to follow, no guide telling you what to do — just you and your vision. It’s like standing on a cliff overlooking an untouched wilderness, knowing you’re free to explore any direction. This venture can feel isolating, like being the first explorer to traverse a remote landscape. You’re out ahead, your team relying on you to chart the course, while the world seems a distant memory, too far to lend immediate aid but close enough to hear your stories. As a founder, you’re constantly learning, like an explorer studying a new ecosystem. One day you’re figuring out legal compliance like decoding a strange map, the next you’re exploring the mysteries of financial management like learning to predict the weather. Each new learning adds to your survival skills, making you a better trailblazer. Failure, an inherent part of this journey, is like stumbling on hidden roots. It trips you up, might even wound you, but it’s also a lesson to keep your eyes on the trail. The journey isn’t about avoiding all obstacles, it’s about learning to rise each time you fall and keep moving forward. The sense of achievement doesn’t just come from reaching a destination, but from every milestone along the way. Each new customer, each forged partnership, each product enhancement is like a discovered landmark, marking your progress in this wild terrain. Being a startup founder is like blazing a trail in unexplored territory. It’s challenging, isolating, and fraught with unknowns. But with each step forward, each obstacle overcome, and each new discovery, you’re crafting a unique journey marked by resilience, continuous learning, and the satisfaction of seeing your progress. It may be a solitary trek, but for many trailblazers, it’s a journey well worth embarking on. --- # My trip to Paris – a story of resilience - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/my-trip-to-paris-a-story-of-resilience - Date: 2023-06-17 - Categories: Goal Achievement *You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.* – Wayne Gretzky Dear friend, My recent trip to Paris became a story of resilience and perseverance This past week, I journeyed to Viva Tech in Paris, one of the largest Tech/Startup conferences, via a surprisingly smooth train ride. The goal? Engage with approximately 15 new potential investors for my startup. With 1,700 investors attending sounds simple, right? The reality, however, was quite the contrary. I came alone and needed to start conversations with people I don’t know throughout the day, all while struggling with sweltering heat and surviving on less-than-ideal meals (on Wednesday I ate nothing more than 3 chocolate cookies until the evening). The app was meant to be a great networking tool where you could message everyone before and during the event. But wifi and cellular internet connection was not working. The worst part: Cold approaching people was highly inefficient. It was not possible to differentiate founders, students, corporates, investors, and other attendees. I planned to stay about 28 hours in Paris (arriving Wednesday morning and departing Thursday afternoon). On Wednesday evening I seriously considered canceling the trip and driving back. So, how did I remain resilient and made the best out of this trip? By framing this endeavor as a learning experience. Elaborating new ways and iterating my approach to reach more people. Constant reminders of my goal and its significance. Sprinkling in a bit of fun, by shit-talking with fellow founders about our experience and asking them to introduce me to potential investors. --- # Transforming into a great CEO – my first coaching sessions - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/transforming-into-a-great-ceo-my-first-coaching-sessions - Date: 2023-05-20 - Categories: Goal Achievement Dear friend, Let’s be honest: I suck. Not in an absolute sense. But compared to the person I’ll be in 5-10 years, I suck as the CEO of my startup ICODOS. Today, I’m the very right person for this job. But to maintain this position, I’ve to learn a lot. And I’ve to learn from the best. So, I got 3 coaches for my key responsibilities: Hiring, fundraising, and business development. I seek their advice not because I’m not good enough but because they will help me be even better. They will facilitate my journey towards being the best version of myself, contributing to ICODOS’ success. They have already made the learnings so I don’t have to make them. They provide insights, strategies, and best practices to help me to navigate challenges and accelerate growth. What I promise myself to obtain from the coaching, too: * **Accountability**: A coach holds me accountable to my goals and action items determined in each session, ensuring that I’m staying on track and pushing me to meet or exceed my benchmarks. * **Emotional support**: The pressure at the top can be intense. A coach can act as a sounding board, providing emotional support and strategies for dealing with difficult situations, e.g., conflicts within my founding team. * **Objective perspective**: As a CEO, it can be challenging to receive honest, unfiltered feedback. A coach offers a third-party perspective that’s unbiased, helping me see things that I might miss. The first sessions were already a great success. The insights gained, action items determined, and decisions made will have a significant positive impact on ICODOS. For instance (there are many more), … * I much better understand the investment process of venture capital funds; thus, I will have more success in finding the right lead investor * I received great feedback on our internal prioritization processes; thus, I’m more confident pushing these processes and know how to push them better (context > goals) * I conduct another market analysis for high-margin use cases for methanol; thus, I will be able to find additional off-takers. What I learned during these first sessions on how to be optimally coached: * **Being open and receptive:** A coach may challenge your beliefs or strategies, suggesting alternate ways to achieve your goals. It’s important to be receptive to these new perspectives, even if they initially seem uncomfortable or unfamiliar. * **Clarifying your goals:** Start by thinking broadly about what you want. Then, narrow it down to specific goals. For the follow-up session, I’ll develop specific goals and align them with my coaches. * **Engaging in the coaching process:** Active participation is key to getting the most out of the coaching process. This goes beyond simply showing up to sessions. It includes engaging deeply in the conversations: asking questions, seeking feedback, and – most importantly – applying the learnings. Have you ever considered engaging a coach? All the best to you and yours, David --- # Being sick - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/being-sick - Date: 2023-05-06 - Categories: Well-Being > *Health is not valued till sickness comes.* > – Thomas Fuller Dear friend, This week, I found myself battling an array of symptoms: headache, sore throat, cough, runny nose, aching limbs, and fever. I felt horrible. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the symptoms that bothered me the most; it was the daunting 20 meetings I had scheduled this week. Meetings with customers, investors, potential hires, advisors. While not every one of these 20 meetings was crucial, the majority certainly were. I’m grateful. It was a successful week. First employee signed. Amazing 3rd cofounder finally joined. The most important customer wants to proceed. 2 more investors want to deep dive into my startup. Advisors provided valuable input regarding public financing instruments. But it was a stretch. Painkillers became my lifeline during this trying time. And despite >10 hours of bedtime per day I was tired all day long. It was worth it though. When I look back 60 years from now, I won’t have any regrets about pushing through the pain and giving my all. But I’ll be proud that I truly lived my values. Indeed. My health suffered this week. The reason why I prioritize health over almost any other area of my life when I’m not sick. Doing sports, eating healthily, restricting alcohol, sleeping >8 hours per day, doing mental health exercises, taking supplements, etc. All these things allow me to perform – even when I’m sick. When there is one thing I learned this week: Health is paramount. And we only acknowledge this fact when it’s usually too late. How do you take care of your health? All the best to you and yours, David --- # Last-Minute Trip: Startup Glory or Waste of Time? - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/last-minute-trip-startup-glory-or-waste-of-time - Date: 2023-04-29 - Categories: Communication Dear friend, *How to determine what’s important?* It was Tuesday evening at 8 pm when my cofounder called me. I was sitting at my desk working on our hiring process. I thought he will give me a debrief of his day. He was at the MadBlue Impact Summit in Madrid (Spain), representing our startup. Maybe he met a particularly relevant partner for our first industrial plant? “We are in the finals!” Great news. Our startup ICODOS won the category *Clean Energy*. 1.500 EUR in cash and publicity. “We have to pitch!” “Awesome, what, when, how?”, I responded. “There is a finalist pitch battle. Tomorrow evening. In-person. In Spain.” Well! That’s great news I thought. But how can we make this possible? My cofounder will have to fly to Finland. We planned that he will attend only the first day of the MadBlue Impact Summit. “If we want to take part in the finals, you have to come to Madrid.” “I see. But that’s no dealbreaker.”, I said. I’m used to traveling. Spontaneous, straining traveling. But we have to be very conscious of our most valuable resource: time. “Let’s outline whether that’s actually reasonable”, I suggested. There are 3 options: 1. My co-founder stays in Spain and travels to Finland the day after → No option as he has to take part in a project meeting and connecting in-person is key. 2. I travel to Spain and do the pitch. → We will gain even more publicity in a core market for our technology. And we have the chance to win EUR 3,500 in addition if we win the finals pitch. 3. I stay in Germany → I can do all the scheduled meetings and do not lose valuable time for the priorities of the week. I quickly checked my calendar. I have no meetings in the early morning the next days. The meetings from 12:00 pm I could do in Madrid. There are only 2 meetings in the evening I would need to reschedule. I’m used to working during flights and taxi drives. And the stuff I was working on I could do during travel. The cost of travel ≈600 EUR was high. But the chance of winning the EUR 3,500 was conservatively estimated at 25% (4 finalist pitching). The expected value was EUR 875 (25% x 3,500). Hence, the rational decision-maker would take the risk. “I can do it and it seems reasonable to do it. Let me quickly check for flights. If there is a suitable one, I will book it and let you know. I checked possible routes. No direct connection. Hence, the shortest flight was about 5.30 hours. I had to wake up at 4:45 am to be in Madrid and attend my first scheduled meeting. The same for the return flight the next day. I had to wake up at 4:55 am. Damn. I quickly checked with my girlfriend. I take her advice seriously when it comes to health, sleep, and sports. And this travel would have an intense impact on it. Also, I would be wasted on Thursday evening – the only evening during the work week when we spend “romantic time”. She gave me her full support but told me from a health perspective that’s not good. I shall recover and sleep more at the weekend. All right. I booked the flight. I set the alarm at 4:45 am. I packed my bag. I went to bed. Retrospectively, it was the right decision to fly to Madrid. We didn’t win in the finals. The money went to a startup where it makes a real difference. In our case, the EUR 3,500 wouldn’t have made a real difference. Our first financing round will be >1000x larger. But the pitch was perceived very well. I got connected to further key players in the Spain ecosystem. We got even more publicity. And except for the cost of travel, we didn’t lose anything. I could do all meetings and was productive in the travel. So my friend, how do you determine what’s important? Best, David --- # Recipe for a happy and fulfilled life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/recipe-for-a-happy-and-fulfilled-life - Date: 2023-04-15 - Categories: Goal Achievement Dear friend, Do not compare yourself with others. Do not think in terms of averages. Below. Above. Mediocrity. It is just you versus you. Every day. Every hour. Every second. Think how you can live better than you did yesterday. Aim for incremental improvements. Every day. Improve what truly matters. To you. Not what others might expect from you. Or what you expect from yourself because of comparison with others. Whatever you seek: Short-term execution, long-term patience. Small improvements every day, gigantic ambitions for the next decade. What is *your recipe for a happy fulfilled life*? All the best, David --- # How I Find Joy in the Entrepreneurial Journey - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-i-find-joy-in-the-entrepreneurial-journey - Date: 2023-04-09 - Categories: Well-Being Dear friend, Founding a hardware startup, I made my biggest dream come true. I’m building *real things* to [make our world a better place](https://davidstrittmatter.de/this-is-david/). When I envisioned this future years ago, I couldn’t be happier. So, shouldn’t I be 10/10 happy all the time now? No. A permanent state of 10/10 happiness doesn’t exist. It’s an illusion. Something that cannot be achieved. I’ve no single reason to complain about my life. But 10/10 happy feeling all day long isn’t possible. But why? ## Hedonic adaptation Positive psychology – the science behind well-being and happiness – found the reason for this: Hedonic adaptation. Hedonic adaptation is why achieving a lifelong goal brings only temporary happiness. No matter what in life, we humans accustom to it: A perfect job, 3-star food, handsome and caring spouse, gigantic house, perfect children, your dream job… And once we get used to it, the 10/10 happiness falls back to baseline happiness. Hedonic adaptation results mainly from 3 factors: 1. Evolution: Our ability to adjust to new situations has been crucial for our survival. As we experience changes in our lives, our brains and emotions adapt to these new circumstances, whether they are positive or negative. This emotional adjustment allows continuous effective functioning. 2. (Neuro-)biology: According to *Set Point Theory*, each of us has a genetically determined baseline level of happiness. This set point is influenced by a combination of genetic factors, upbringing, and life experiences. While life events can cause temporary fluctuations in happiness, we tend to gravitate back towards our individual set point over time. 3. Habituation: Repeated exposure to stimuli, whether positive or negative, often leads to a decrease in emotional intensity over time. This process, known as habituation, can cause the emotional impact of both positive and negative events to diminish as we become accustomed to them. ## Science of well-being I knew that hedonic adaptation will kick in. About 2 years ago, I did an online course on positive psychology called “The Science of Well-Being”. It puts the together the latest and greatest research on “How to become a happy human being” and provides the tools to make use of it. My own experience, scientific research, and people writing about their experience (e.g., multi-millionaire Steven Bartlett in Happy Sexy Millionaire) – they all point in one direction: awesome stuff won’t make you happy. I knew the founding my own startup is “awesome stuff”. It’s an event. It’s no real experience. I knew the happiness that comes from… * making the decision * quitting my job, and * incorporating the legal entity … will wear off. However, being an entrepreneur, the journey of the next years is different. It’s not an event. It’s not a goal, it’s not static. It’s more a way of living. ## Pursuit of goals not the achievement of goals Based on the course on positive psychology and all my learnings, I decided to stop deriving my happiness from the achievement of goals. Yes, goals are paramount to happiness. But it’s the pursuit of goals not the achievement of goals that maximizes happiness. Not founding a startup but building a startup is what I want to make me happy. It’s not the success of a startup but the pursuit of maximum positive impact. It’s not the hire of a talented and motivated employee but the day-to-day collaboration with them. It’s not the finalization of a term sheet but the relationship building with various investors who share the same vision. ## Best time of my life Whenever there’s something I don’t like doing, I utilize this question: “How can I make this feel like the best time of my life?” In my role as a CEO, I have an unprecedented degree of freedom. So, I can design my life around my needs. This gives me a huge chunk of happiness every day. And helps me to deal with the challenges of being a founder. By focusing on the pursuit of goals rather than their achievement, I can create a life that feels like the best time of my life. So, dear friend, remember that happiness isn’t a destination, but a journey. Embrace the process, and find joy in the ups and downs of your own adventure. --- # The art of dealing with negativity: my unconventional approach - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/the-art-of-dealing-with-negativity-my-unconventional-approach - Date: 2023-03-19 - Categories: Goal Achievement *There is too much negativity in the world. Do your best to make sure you aren’t contributing to it.* ― Germany Kent Dear friend, I love conversation card games. You draw a card. Read the question out loud. And learn about yourself or another person something new. Last week, my girlfriend and I played a round of *We’re not strangers – couple edition*. I drew the card “What’s something you don’t feel comfortable talking about”. My girlfriend and I laughed: What a nasty question. I needed to think for about two-and-a-half minutes to formulate my answer. For me, it’s just one thing: I don’t feel comfortable talking about the negative stuff in my life. Stuff that brings my mood or the mood of others down. Stuff I reflect on at least once a week at a dedicated time but otherwise block out of my life. I don’t like talking about… * feeling like shit from time to time because I doubt my personal sense of life * worrying about friends and family who don’t live life to the fullest * being bullied when I was in my early teens * hating the fact that life is finite * and so many more things I don’t want to let too much negativity in my life. If you think life sucks, life sucks. We are born in an imperfect world. However, we have to deal with negativity. It’s vital for a happy and fulfilled life. Ignoring negativity leads to… * suppressed negative emotions, which can result in increased stress, anxiety, and other mental health issues over time * accumulation of resentment and misunderstandings, ultimately harming your connections with others * issues unresolved, which may worsen over time and lead to more significant problems The way I deal with negativity is a twofold approach: 1. Whenever there is an issue, I resolve it as fast as possible and ask the people around me for help. Once I reach the point where the issue is resolved or I cannot affect it anymore, I don’t think about it (involuntarily). 2. Once a week I reflect on the week including negative stuff. I let myself think about the stuff I cannot control. Even the most negative stuff like the fact that we all will die someday and lose all our loved ones. Thereby, I take care of all the negativity while letting it as little room as possible. However, this comes at a price. My girlfriend and I regularly have deep conversations. Yet, she cannot fully interpret me and my feelings. The same goes for my family and closest friends. They don’t really know when I have a shitty day unless I ask them for help to resolve the underlying issue. It’s like I sometimes have a *pokerface* and they cannot tell whether I have it or not. This makes me appear less authentic. When I don’t open up, friends and family feel uncomfortable opening up. Hence, I ask a lot of questions. As I love talking about the issues of another person. I love problem-solving. I love hearing the emotions-loaded stories of other people. What about you? How do you deal with negativity? What is something you feel uncomfortable talking about? All the best to you and yours, David --- # Almost every failed startup has a product but lacks traction - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/almost-every-failed-startup-has-a-product-but-lacks-traction - Date: 2023-03-04 - Categories: Goal Achievement *Traction is growth. The pursuit of traction is what defines a startup – Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares in Traction* Dear friend, I just finished reading *Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth –* it’s the “bible” for achieving growth as a startup. The 5 key messages are: * The pursuit of traction is what defines a startup and determines failures or success * Traction and product development are of equal importance and should each get about half of the founding team’s attention * Your traction strategy should always be focused on activities that result in a measurable, significant impact on your traction goal – and every startup needs a traction goal * There are 19 traction channels for each of which you have to elaborate a channel strategy when you set your next traction goal * To optimize efficiency, conduct cheap traction tests in 1-3 channels (ideally in parallel) that seem most promising, track results, and continue testing new channels until you prove with data the most promising one, which you then scale until you set the next traction goal As the CEO of the startup, I’m most concerned about finding the ideal first customer for our technology at the moment. There is already huge demand but each customer has different needs. The ideal customer is fully aligned with the current status of our technology. And there is little to adaptations needed from our site to fully satisfy their needs. I’m applying the learnings from the book in addition to what I already learned to identify, approach, and reach potential customers. In the coming months, once I reached our current *traction goal,* I’ll report on my experiences (traction channel, strategy, tests, etc.). Hope you learned something today! All the best, David --- # Consulting taught me how to achieve even my biggest dream - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/consulting-taught-me-to-how-to-achieve-even-my-biggest-dream-heres-how - Date: 2023-02-25 - Categories: Goal Achievement *A problem well stated is a problem half solved. –* John Dewey Dear friend, A key skill you learn in consulting is to break down even the largest problems into smaller problems achievable by anyone. This skill has instilled a huge amount of confidence in me. There is no problem I can imagine that cannot be solved (as long there is sufficient time, no violation of basic physics, and it’s good for humankind). The skill itself is valuable, but the confidence you obtain is even more. In my case, this changed my life and made me achieve my dream. For more than 5 years, I’ve wanted to become an entrepreneur. But back then, I told myself I first need an MBA from Stanford and +4 years of professional experience. The plan was to do my GMAT, enter consulting, work for 2-3 years, do my educational leave, and become a project lead. And then, start a startup. So,… I did my GMAT. I entered consulting. But then I learned: even the largest problems can be broken down into smaller problems achievable by anyone. Starting a startup, building a product, acquiring customers, generating enough cash flow, hiring a team, etc. are all problems that can be broken down into smaller problems achievable by anyone. For instance, starting a technology startup requires you as a business person to first find someone who can build a technology product. To find this person, you need to (A) talk to people and (B) convince someone to work together with you to build a technology product. Everyone can talk to people. And convincing someone is a skill everyone can learn. Yes, an MBA from Stanford, more professional experience, etc. help. But those are no prerequisites. As I gained more and more confidence, I decided that I will work towards the journey of becoming an entrepreneur – much earlier than 2027 when I would have finished my MBA and would have become a project lead. I hope this provided value to you! All the best to you and yours, David --- # From Mediocre to Great – How to Achieve Greatness in Work - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/from-mediocre-to-great-how-to-achieve-greatness-in-work - Date: 2023-02-18 - Categories: Goal Achievement *When leaders tolerate mediocrity, it’s a cancer that spreads like wildfire –* Frank Sonnenberg Dear friend, What distinguishes *great* from *mediocre work*? Even a little experience in a particular domain allows identifying great work quickly. We can immediately recognize greatness when we see it, even if we can’t always explain why. But what are the *underlying drivers* of *great work*? And what does it actually take to achieve *work perceived as great by others*? ## What does great work NOT look like? * Rushing through work without taking the time to review and make improvements * Treating the task as a duty and performing it exactly as instructed * Failing to take the initiative to explore new ideas or approaches to the task * Simply following the tried and true methods without any innovation or creativity * Working in isolation without seeking feedback or collaboration from others * … ## Underlying drivers of *great work* * Owning the task and taking full responsibility for the outcome, regardless of challenges or obstacles * Spending time to review and iterate the end product * Going above and beyond the basic requirements of the task * Collaborating with others to gather feedback and insights * Taking calculated risks and exploring new avenues for the task, without fear of failure or the unknown * … ## What does it take to achieve *great work* 1. Assume full responsibility for the outcome 2. Identify the “customer” of your work (is it your manager, is it a client, is it the department lead, is it an investor, …?) and tailor it to their needs 3. Review the work, gather valid feedback (ask people who can support you to better meet the needs of the “customer”), and iterate it 4. Take calculated risks by trying new approaches, failing early, and iterating fast based on the learnings 5. Bonus: Even for the most basic task: Find a way to make it at least 1% better Treat these 3 lists as a checklist if you want to perform exceptionally – no matter whether you’re an intern, new hire, experienced direct report to a manager, or like me (an upcoming CEO of a company). All the best to you and yours, David --- # From Complaints to Commitment: The Power of Effective Feedback - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/from-complaints-to-commitment-the-power-of-effective-feedback - Date: 2023-02-11 - Categories: Communication *We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.* – Bill Gates Dear friend, In the week of February 27th, I will attend the *Green Business Building Summit* in Berlin. Please let me know if you are down to meet me on March 1st or 2nd. And if you’re building a climate tech hardware startup and interested in the conference, also let me know. Currently, I’m reading and watching a lot about what makes an early-stage founder and CEO succeed in building an organization. 1 topic I deep-dived into the past days was feedback. If you work in a job or are still in your studies, the learnings I made and will outline here are of use to you too. So, continue reading: When talking to friends currently employed at startups and larger corporations, 90% of them complain about their leaders. It’s not that they are totally unhappy. But they have reasons to be dissatisfied. This dissatisfaction comes down to leaders incapable of giving and receiving feedback. Concretely: * They are not able to give objective feedback – i.e., do not provide concrete observations but make subjective claims about what should be improved, usually too intangible and inconsistent to act upon. * They are not able to receive (bottom-up) feedback – i.e., do not listen and act upon feedback they receive from their direct reports. * They are not able to provide appreciation (strength-based) – i.e., do not appraise the extra effort and time spent and above average performance. The consequence: My friends (their employees) are less motivated and will eventually churn (quit). No because their job sucks but their leaders. There’s is this saying: *People leave their bosses, not companies.* If you look at the data, that’s usually not true. Eventually, people quit their job (as you can read in this [Harvard Business Review article](https://hbr.org/2018/01/why-people-really-quit-their-jobs) – summary by ChatGPT below). However, the person responsible for the job and how people feel about it is the manager. Hence, it still comes down to the leaders of an organization whether a person stays (motivated) or eventually quits. All the best to you and yours, David Summary of HBR article by ChatGPT: *The article explains that people leave jobs, not bosses, according to the results of an engagement survey conducted by Facebook. The survey showed that people left their jobs when they did not find their work enjoyable, their strengths were not being utilized, and they were not developing in their careers. To prevent employees from leaving, the article suggests that managers should focus on designing work experiences that are enjoyable, utilize employees’ strengths, and accommodate personal priorities. This can include creating roles that align with employees’ passions, allowing them to utilize their strengths, and finding ways to minimize the trade-off between work and personal life. By doing so, managers can help create jobs that are too good to leave.* --- # Assertiveness: The key to the best possible life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/assertiveness-the-key-to-the-best-possible-life - Date: 2023-01-22 - Categories: Goal Achievement *Staying silent is like a slow-growing cancer to the soul and a trait of a true coward. There is nothing intelligent about not standing up for yourself.* – Shannon L. Alder Dear friend, Last week, my girlfriend and I celebrated her birthday. We went to a techno party in Cologne. It was a great party, but there was one nasty thing that happened. The line to enter the location was at least 100 meters. Hundreds of people needed to wait in front of the entrance as the security had only limited capacity. As there were 2 lines – 1 for women, 1 for men – and the line for men was much faster, my girlfriend and I were separated. I got into the location after 10 minutes and waited for my girlfriend to pass the security. While waiting, I stood at the entrance so that I could see my girlfriend entering the location. 5 minutes passed, and, suddenly the bouncers panicked. Some dudes tried to enter the location via the women’s line as there was a gap in the barrier, allowing them to enter the location without the security check. 1 bouncer started to shout. All people inside the location should go away from the entrance. I moved away, but not fast enough as the bouncer pushed me away. Through the push of the bouncer, my phone fell from my hand to the ground, destroying its display and touchscreen. Before talking to the panicking bouncer, who was still trying to bring the other people away from the entrance, I looked around me tried to find some people who witnessed the situation. Luckily, 2 people did. I asked them directly whether they could witness the situation and whether they could give me their phone numbers in case I needed to sue the security company. As I received their numbers and the situation calmed down, I approached the bouncer who was suddenly super angry. He was like “either you piss off or you will get thrown out”. I knew that I needed to protocol the situation, and I wanted to solve this issue without having to deal with a lawsuit. So, I went to a stand where some people from the organization team worked. I told them I want to speak to their manager. A few minutes later the manager arrived. He was not willing to solve the situation and referred me back to the security company. I should speak to the manager of the bouncers, who was currently too busy to speak. I should get back to him later. 3 hours later – in the meantime I had great fun dancing with my girlfriend – I got back to him and was introduced to the “deputy” of the security personnel. We got into a conversation. He refused to accept the fact that I was right. I told him that I can sue them as they damaged my property. But he argued that it was my own fault and that I should sue them if I want to. In the meanwhile, the bouncer who pushed me in the first place joined the conversation and got angry. He shouted it was my own fault. Suddenly, he grabbed my arm and told me if I don’t shut up, I will be gone. As I kept calm his colleagues stopped him and asked him to listen. I told them that I don’t want to make any trouble, but my property is damaged. And to file a lawsuit (which will then decide who is right) I needed to have the name of him the responsible person or the bouncer who pushed me. As they refused to provide me with the responsible manager’s name or the name of the bouncer, I threatened to call the police to obtain the information. Eventually, they gave me the number of the manager. The next day (Sunday) I called him and described the situation. I clearly made the case that I have multiple (neutral) witnesses. He should have a (commercial) liability insurance that should be able to pay for the damage done to me. He was open, listened to me, and told me that he will talk to his team the next day (on Monday) about their view on the situation. Eventually, he told me I was right and that he will wire me the money for the repair of my phone. The lesson I learned – or let’s say that was reinforced – is that assertiveness makes life better. If we refuse to accept a no, if we refuse to let other people win who seem to have more power, and stand up for what we think is right, we are eventually better off. If I had let myself be intimidated by the bouncers, I would have lost hundreds of Euros. But as I kept calm and assertive, I made a clear case and didn’t even have to file a lawsuit. What is your experience with being assertive? And have you ever had trouble with a bouncer? Curious to hear your story! All the best to you and yours, David --- # 3 new habits I test in 2023 - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/3-new-habits-i-test-in-2023 - Date: 2023-01-15 - Categories: Goal Achievement *We don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience –* John Dewey Dear friend, At the end of every year, I ask myself and write down a set of questions, including: * When have you felt proud of yourself this year? What were you doing? * If you had to teach one thing you learned this year (that would improve one’s quality of life) what would that be? * What kept you up at night with excitement this year? Was it worth it? Would you want to do more of it? * How did you have fun differently this year? * How did you suffer differently this year? 1 of these questions is *What new habits did you create in 2022? Which ones would you want to keep?* Habits are the fundament of my successes and the 10/10 happiness in my life. Frankly, without the design and implementation of various habits, my life would suck. Hence, I take a lot of time to think through this question. There were many micro-habits I tried out and kept in 2022, such as making notes during calls of any kind or preparing each meeting (agenda, key outputs, potential next steps). Part of this reflection routine is to think about the next 5 years and which habit I will need to implement to make the life of the next 5 years happen. The following 3, I’m currently implementing and testing during 2023: As my life becomes rather more than less stressful as a founder and CEO of a climate tech startup, I do now conscious breathing exercises – 2 mins every 3 hours. If you want to be relaxed even in the most stressful meetings, try it out, too! I use box breathing. I prioritize the most important tasks and what tangible outcomes I want to create every day incl. now at the weekend as well. As the boundaries between work and life become even more blurred, I also want to ensure that my weekends are as productive as possible. And I ask myself every night part of my sleeping routine whether I represented myself throughout the day as I wanted. This easy but powerful question reminds me: Perception is reality. Real is not how I think I behave, but how people perceive my behavior. It’s not unlikely that soon multiple people will work for the company I will be CEO. That’s about my reflections on last year. What about you? What questions do you ask yourself to reflect on the past? All the best to you and yours, David --- # How serial entrepreneurs make decisions - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-serial-entrepreneurs-make-decisions - Date: 2023-01-08 - Categories: Goal Achievement The expert entrepreneurs think in terms of control, not in terms of uncertainty Dear friend, If you have a problem: Do you [socialize it](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/socialize-your-problem) or try to find the “perfect” expertise to solve it? Doing the latter seems more efficient, but it is not. If we talk with whomever about our problem at hand, we achieve a solution more quickly. This is due to 2 reasons. First, our assumption of who is an expert and who knows something is often not right. Hence, we waste a lot of time identifying, reaching out, and talking to people that cannot provide us directly with the solution. Second, [socializing your problems](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/socialize-your-problem) harnesses network effects: Every person in your network has multiple people in their network. Asking another person whether they know someone who could help you makes you reach hundreds of people in a short amount of time. ## Summary: * Successful founders tend to apply effectual decision-making * 1 principle of effectual decision-making is seeking out mutually beneficial partnerships with anyone who is willing to commit to the project * These self-selected stakeholders have a high level of commitment to the project ## Practical advice: * If you have a problem, ask anyone you know for advice and help with the goal to obtain their commitment * Make it a habit to seek at least once per week a person for support, asking for a favor ## Self-selected stakeholders The principle of socializing a problem is related to a Coursera course on *how* *entrepreneurs make better decisions* I’m currently enrolled in. The theory underlying it is called *Effectuation* and was researched, developed, and taught by Saras Sarasvathy. It assumes that founders have to make decisions under uncertainty where even the outcomes are not known (uncontrollable unknowns). Sarasvathy developed the theory based on interviews with successful serial entrepreneurs in which she examined their decision-making behavior. Based on her observations, she derived patterns and similarities that she boiled down to the 5 principles of effectual decision-making. 1 of these principles is the *Crazy Quilt Principle.* It implies seeking out mutually beneficial partnerships with anyone who is willing to commit to the project. Instead of searching for and seeking out only the people you think are best suited, you talk with anyone about your project, talk about your current problems, and ask them to commit to helping you to overcome your challenges. Thereby, you let them self-select so they become *self-selected stakeholders*. Self-selected stakeholders are attracted to the project for a variety of reasons, such as the opportunity to make a positive impact, the potential for personal or professional growth, or the chance to be a part of something innovative and meaningful. They have a high level of commitment to the project, as they have chosen to become involved of their own accord, rather than being sold or assigned to the project by someone else. This can make them particularly valuable as they are likely to be invested in the success of the project. ## Risk and downsides As I’m currently trying out the Crazy Quilt Principle, I’m also aware of the risks and downsides: Lack of focus: New capabilities are added at the moment as needed (ad-hoc) without a clear long-term plan, causing long-term inefficiencies. Lack of cohesion: By adding new stakeholders ad-hoc, a project may end up with unrelated people that do not work well together, hindering its effectiveness. Limited scalability: The nature of the crazy quilt principle makes it difficult for a project to scale up. A more comprehensive, forward-looking plan is better able to support growth. In the next few weeks, I will have tried out the crazy quilt principle multiple times. I will share with you my learnings through these experiments. Until then – how do you make decisions? And do you usually broadly ask your friends and family for help? I’m curious to hear about your experience! All the best to you and yours, David --- # Talking shit about a bad situation is fun, but… - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/talking-shit-about-a-bad-situation-is-fun-but - Date: 2022-12-11 - Categories: Goal Achievement *If you have a positive frame of mind, you can manifest positive things in your life –* Alesha Dixon Dear friend, I used to work on a consulting project that was a hell of a job: Long hours late into the night, hours wasted due to misalignment between stakeholders, more work in scope than feasible in the project timeline, etc. There are 2 types of reactions to such a situation: (1) Talk shit about it. (2) Frame it positively. Most people choose the former: Blaming others or making excuses the whole day, focusing solely on the negative aspects of the situation, without considering the positive, reacting to new challenges with anger or frustration… This happens to me too – and frankly, too often. ## Talking shit about a bad situation is fun It alleviates the situation. But it comes at a price: increased stress and anxiety levels, limited ability to cope with challenges, and getting bogged down even more by negative thoughts. To maximize happiness, the better choice is to frame things positively. When we focus on the positive, we see challenges as opportunities for growth and learning. This helps us to better deal with the situation, reducing stress and building resilience. In the short term, we won’t experience this sweet feeling of temporary release of tension when venting frustration and anger. In the long term, though, we will experience life with more ease. Building resilience makes life different. Imagine someone who worked in a sweatshop in South East Asia for years. Working 12 hours per day, 6 days per week, and having 2 toilet breaks per day, high air temperatures, poor air quality, and safety precautions. To sustain working under these poor working conditions, this person built so much resilience that s/he would just laugh away the problems I use to complain about. ## How to frame things positively Yes – it’s challenging to frame things positively. It feels like lying: Our actual frame is: This situation sucks. I want it to stop. While the desired frame is: This situation is a great learning opportunity. I’m confident to handle it. It feels unnatural – but this is like every other thing in life that forces us to change. And it’s worth it. ## 3 habits greatly help me to frame things positively 1. Approach the situation with a willingness to learn and grow. I ask myself: What are the challenges? How will they make me grow? And how can I make the best out of the situation? 2. Stop negative talk and thought. If I catch myself that I indulge in negative thoughts or talk, I immediately stop it. I tell myself that this negative thing makes me grow. And if I or others are talking negatively, I change the topic or frame it positively. 3. Postpone reflection to a time of natural state. In the midst of battle, it doesn’t make sense to question why you are fighting in the first place but it’s time to execute and make the best out of the situation. In case the situation is temporary like a consulting project or exam period, I won’t question the situation but postpone my reflection to a fixed point in time afterward. In case the situation is a permanent state, I block sufficient time (e.g., a whole Sunday) to critically reflect on the situation and think about how I can change my situation. How do you deal with anger and stress? Do you usually vent or frame things positively? Would be curious to hear from you! All the best to you and yours, David --- # The most important question to ask - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/the-most-important-question-to-ask - Date: 2022-11-27 - Categories: Goal Achievement If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse. *— Ryan Blair* Dear friend, What are you willing to struggle for? What pain are you willing to suffer? People want to be happy — but nearly nobody wants to appreciate the beauty of our world, see the joy in the little things, forgive another person, and optimize for the long term. People want to have an awesome relationship — but nearly nobody is willing to approach another person, take the risk, and go through awkward silences and hurt feelings,… multiple times to get there. People want to have their own businesses — but nearly nobody appreciates the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and wants to work insane hours on something they have no idea whether or not it will be successful. People tend to view pain as a negative thing, something to be avoided at all costs. But what brings joy also brings pain. ## The quality of your negative experiences My favorite writer Mark Manson once wrote: *The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?” The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences, but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.* Everything in life comes at a cost. And if you want to have something (and its benefits), you also need to want the cost. A beach body comes with sweat, sacrifice, soreness, early mornings, and hunger. The same goes for virtually everything else. This understanding of our world makes you want less. If you appreciate the fact that a beach body is hard to achieve and decide for yourself that you don’t want to suffer this pain, you are free of the desire to want that. Every time you look into the mirror and feel that your body is not good enough, you can tell yourself that you are perfectly fine the way it is and that you don’t want to suffer the pain of changing it. ## You will find a way — if not, you’ll find an excuse The secret of happiness is found in developing the capacity to enjoy less. Better said than done. It’s not easy but super simple: If you desire something, there are 2 options: 1: You are not willing to pay the price and suffer the pain to achieve and maintain it. So, you stop caring and don’t think about it again. Full stop. 2: You are willing to pay the price and suffer the pain. You will find a way to make it happen. When you struggle and start searching for excuses, you remind yourself why you initially wanted it. The stronger your why, the easier it will be. So, be very clear on that. What are your desires? What are those you are willing to pay the price? And what are those you are not willing to suffer for? Would be curious to hear from you! All the best to you and yours, David --- # Talk less to convey more - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/talk-less-to-convey-more - Date: 2022-11-20 - Categories: Communication *First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak. –* Epictetus Dear friend, A development goal of mine is to communicate more concisely – particularly in work context. Communication lacking concision is difficult to understand, wastes time, and conveys a lack of competence. There are 3 habits that keep most people from being concise: * Overexplaining: You repeat yourself, use tautological descriptions, summarize too often * Underpreparing: Before talking to someone, you didn’t think about the main 1-3 messages to convey * Missing the point: Before talking to someone, you didn’t make sure to understand the context, such as the question asked There is a remedy for each of these 3 habits. You just need to focus on applying them consistently. ## How to not overexplain When we present something or answer a question, we tend to repeat ourselves, summarize our message multiple times, communicate bottom-up instead of top-down, and use tautological descriptions (using too many adjectives not adding *additional* information → the “additional” was a tautological description in this phrase). To not overexplain, I remind myself to (not) do 3 actions: 1. Instead of repeating or summarizing what I said, I ask the questions “does that make sense?”, “any questions?”, or “was that clear”? I ask these questions when I would otherwise repeat/summarize. 2. Instead of explanations or arguments, I start with the “so-what” [(top-down communication)](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/using-the-pyramid-principle-can-incredibly-improve-your-communication). 3. I leave out as many adjectives I can. Adjectives usually do not add information, e.g., “avoid a potential conflict”, and they are not concrete. Rather use concrete examples if you want to add more information, e.g. “I am motivated to learn about web3” → “I read 2 books, 7 articles, and talk with 3 new people every week to learn about web3”. ## How to not underprepare Before I communicate anything, I ask myself what message I want to deliver and why I actually want to say it. [To get people to listen](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-you-speak), we have to make our message clear and know its purpose. Before I am asked a question, I force myself to not immediately answer but think about what is the answer that (A) delivers the “so what” and (B) matters to me. I don’t answer just to give an answer. Communication is not like a hot potato I have to throw back ASAP. I take my time and thereby saving the time of the other person as I communicate clearly and purposely. Just tell the other person, “give me 1 second”, “I have to quickly think”, or “I will give you the answer in a second, let me quickly think”. Before I give a presentation or enter a meeting, I always take 3-5 minutes to write down (A) what’s the goal of the meeting and next steps, (B) what are the 3 messages I want to deliver, (C) what should be the rough agenda? ## How to not miss the point Before I participate in a conversation or meeting, I ensure that I understand its content and context. Too many people sit in meetings where they don’t understand what the others are talking about. And too often in conversations, we give an answer without understanding the question. Whenever a question or the context of a conversation is not clear to me, I either paraphrase the question or what has been recently said or summarize my understanding. I say phrases such as “I understood that…, is that right?”, “What you said is…, is that right?”, “Let me check my understanding: You said…, right?”. Thereby, you not only avoid missing the point but also help others to ensure their understanding. What are your current development goals? And what do you do to enhance your communication? Would be curious to hear about your experience. All the best to you and yours, David --- # How to achieve the most annoying tasks - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-achieve-the-most-annoying-tasks - Date: 2022-11-14 - Categories: Goal Achievement *One day, you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the thing you’ve always wanted. Do it now.* — Paulo Coelho Dear friend, Whenever I face a difficult or annoying task, I do it first thing in the morning. Here are some examples: * I wrote my bachelor’s thesis by blocking 3 hours in the morning with the goal to write 1 page per day. * I used to write my newsletters and blog post on Saturday and Sunday mornings. On Saturday, I aimed to find a topic, do little research, and structure the texts. On Sunday, I finished them. * I used to run in the morning so that I don’t find an excuse not to do it. Mark Twain once said that *if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that it is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long.* There is a whole book around this notion of “eating the frog”. In essence, though, it’s just a simple message: Whenever you face a difficult or annoying task, do it first thing in the morning. And you should aim to have a tangible outcome per working session if the task cannot be completed in a few hours. ## Overcome procrastination with the systems [Studies](https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.1.65) suggest that procrastination chronically affects approximately 15%–20% of adults. Approximately 25% of adults consider procrastination to be a defining personality trait for them. Chances are high that you procrastinate (i.e., keep delaying something that must be done, often because it is unpleasant or boring). There are 2 levers to overcome procrastination: (1) Higher discipline, (2) better systems (habits). Discipline is a skill. Procrastinators lack this skill. And it’s not easy to develop it. Contrarily, better systems can be established easily. E.g., doing something first thing in the morning is easy. You structure your work/study day so that you have the time in the morning. Either you wake up earlier or postpone other activities later in the day. ## Achieve high-level productivity The key to reaching high levels of productivity is to develop the habit of tackling your major task first thing each morning. And you do so before doing anything else and without taking too much time to think about it. 2 premises you need to consider: First, aim for an incremental, tangible outcome per session. If you work on a task that takes more than a few hours to finish, e.g., a work project or thesis, define for yourself an incremental outcome. This incremental outcome should be easy to achieve in 1-2 hours. Second, do 1 thing at a time, do not multitask. Several studies have shown that multitasking reduces individual productivity by up to 40%. Focus on “eating the frog” and force yourself to do nothing else until you achieved your incremental, tangible outcome. How do you deal with difficult/annoying tasks? Curious to hear about your experience! All the best to you and yours, David --- # Socialize your problem - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/socialize-your-problem - Date: 2022-11-06 - Categories: Goal Achievement P*roblems are nothing but wake-up calls for creativity* – Gerhard Gschwandtner Dear friend, In Mai this year, I interviewed an expert for building fast-growing ventures. His job is to advise (larger) corporations on how to conceptualize, get off the ground, and scale startups. He works in an environment loaded with uncertainty, chaos, and complexity. Linear planning, e.g., drafting static timelines, doesn’t work. The same goes for having all the right expertise on board early on. Anticipating all the different problems occurring is not possible. However, for every problem he faced he could find someone who has already dealt with it, crucial for the project’s success. To find the right people for your problems, he suggested, you need to *socialize your problem*. ## Socialize your problem It’s simple but effective: Whenever you talk to a person, you talk about your current problem. You don’t even have to ask for help. People will proactively offer their expertise and network if they know something about it. The more open you are and the more people you speak to, the faster you obtain the solution. The great advantage of this technique is it works for all kinds of problems: Business, science, social, health, cooking, baking, household, sports – whether professional or private. I’m currently trying to find out more about carbon capturing to evaluate the potential emergence of a new “carbon economy” in which carbon suppliers (carbon emitters such as cement producers) trade carbon with carbon users (such as refineries producing synthetic fuels). Through socializing this problem, I already received great input for my research. Another example: When I was planning a trip to Athens 2 years ago, I talked with many people about it. So, I received many great ideas for the trip. ## How to implement this technique Whenever I’m faced with a new problem, I list all the people that might have a perspective on it. I sent them a brief message asking them for their view and whether they could suggest me anything. Simultaneously, I openly talk about this new problem. For instance, when I wanted to plan a trip to New Zealand, I would ask not only friends and families but also colleagues and clients for their perspectives. You’ll be surprised how much great input you can receive by just talking about a problem. Have you already socialized one of your problems? What was your experience? Would be curious to hear from you. All the best to you and yours, David --- # The learnings from the past weeks are clear - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/the-learnings-from-the-past-weeks-are-clear - Date: 2022-10-30 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being *Make a mistake once and it’s learning; make it twice and it’s a mistake* Dear friend, The past 7 weeks were full of events, new experiences, and learnings. I kinda lost my sense of time, never felt bored, and experienced joy throughout. I made unique experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life; learned and improved skills that will accelerate my career; achieved a new level of psychological resilience to withstand challenging times easier. ## But this has come at an expense * I left my comfort zone to an extent that wasn’t sustainable – physiologically as well as psychically. * I neglected people and activities that are important to me. * I didn’t have the time to reflect on all the impressions. Time just passed. ## The learnings from the past weeks are clear Nevertheless, I am grateful for all the learnings of the past weeks: 1. **You cannot have it all.** Life is full of decisions and each decision for something is also a decision against something. You cannot work from morning to evening from Monday to Friday, make trips to Ibiza or Amsterdam at the weekend, and have sufficient time for family and friends. 2. **Life always balances out.** Intensive periods are followed by periods of rest. Stress in any sense requires rest. If you don’t rest, your body will make you rest – either through lowered energy levels or sickness. 3. **Thus, be clear about your priorities and seek experiences accordingly.** ## A mistake once and it’s learning… … make it twice and it’s a mistake. Each decision – for better or worse – entails valuable lessons. It’s our responsibility to extract those so we can live the best possible life, requiring critical reflection. Once my current project is accomplished (in 2-3 weeks), I will again reflect on my priorities. I will ask myself… * what in the past few weeks contributed to my purpose of life * what made me grow in areas that are important to me * what did I neglect and should receive more attention …to answer the question of what should I do more and what should I do less. What did you learn in the past weeks? --- # Cheering for people you don’t like - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/cheering-for-people-you-dont-like - Date: 2022-10-16 - Categories: Relationships *The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. –* Oprah Winfrey Dear friend, When I was in high school, there were 2 people I didn’t like. I hated it when they received a better grade than I did. I couldn’t be cheerful for them but rather felt resentment. This hate made me feel worse than I already felt. I didn’t like that. I didn’t want to feel this way. So, I more and more learned how to not compare to others and solely focus on my own. I decided that the only person I compare myself to is the best version I could be. I stopped caring about others, their successes, and their failures. It’s just about me and my previous performance. ## Cheering for people you don’t like Not caring for others is better than feeling resentment. But we’re social beings. We need each other to experience joy. In university, I read a lot about positive psychology (aka the science of happiness). Cheering for others and celebrating their successes are key drivers of happiness – even if we don’t like the other person. I asked myself why should I **not cheer for another person?** I couldn’t come up with a good reason. Rather, I elicited a long list of reasons why I should: * I don’t compete with them – I compete only vs. the best version I could be * I feel joy when celebrating the success of another person * I get along better with the other person * I better learn from her/ his success ## How to celebrate the success of another person If you’re having trouble celebrating others’ success start by celebrating those closest to you: * Cheer on your best friend landing his dream internship * Fist-pump your sister’s award * High five your brother’s very good grade Cheering for the people you love will help you get comfortable celebrating others. Once you’re comfortable celebrating the success of the people you like, you can follow these 3 steps to cheer for people you don’t like: 1. Ask yourself: How can someone else’s success benefit you? Write down at least 3 benefits. 2. Think about how you will participate in celebrating their success, whether it’s commenting on LinkedIn, writing an email, text, or card, or even sending a small gift. 3. Become active and do it. ## Fake it till you make it If you’re having difficulty genuinely cheering for another person, fake it. Make a conscious effort to celebrate the next time someone announces good news. If you don’t feel it sincerely, do it anyway. Congratulate and recognize their efforts. Someone trying to provoke you or rub their news in your face? Celebrate them anyway. All the best to you and yours, David --- # You have to receive feedback – here’s how you get it - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/you-have-to-receive-feedback-heres-how-you-get-it - Date: 2022-09-25 - Categories: Goal Achievement *We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.* – Bill Gates Dear friend, What’s the best way to grow as a person? Since I started working as a consultant, I’ve been learning at a pace I could’ve not imagined. There’s this saying: “1 year in consulting is like 2-3 years in industry”. From my own experience and the conversations with friends, I assume that’s due to the differences in feedback culture. For most companies, it’s just not a thing to regularly sit down together, look each other in the eyes, and tell each other what the other person does well and what could be improved. In the companies that do regular feedback, it’s a once-in-a-quarter thing or part of the semi-yearly performance appraisal. ## Value of feedback In most management consulting companies, every 2-3 weeks formal feedback sessions are standard. Immediate and informal feedback is done daily. This has **3 benefits**: 1. Feedback enables deliberate practice. Without knowing what you do well and what you can improve, you cannot focus your efforts. It’s like mindless repetitions of a full song even though it’s just 2 minor parts of the song that you don’t master yet. 2. How you perceive yourself and your work can be significantly different from how your peers, subordinates, or boss do. It comes down to nuances, but they can make a major difference in your professional career. For instance, listening well is a skill. Without the feedback that your listening skills suck, you will never become a better listener. 3. Guidance from more experienced co-workers is invaluable. They already went through similar challenges like you and made mistakes you will most likely do, too. Asking them for feedback will allow you to “leapfrog” steps in your professional development. ## How to feedback Receiving quality feedback takes work. It’s not that you become employed and receive the amount of coaching, mentoring, and guidance you could potentially obtain. Even if you work in consulting or other jobs where there’s a strong feedback culture, you cannot expect to obtain ideal feedback. You have to put in the effort. First, you have to ask for feedback. If you feel awkward about it, just ask your manager, peer, client, customer, intern, etc. for a 20 min coffee chat. During this coffee chat, you ask them how they think about your work, what they like, what they dislike. I do this with my interns, clients, project managers, and peers. Second, identify an area where you want to improve. For example, a skill I want to further improve is “storylining”, i.e., structuring meetings and content convincingly, concisely, and easy to grasp. So, I ask the people I’m working with and who can assess my storylining skills to focus on my work. At the end of the feedback conversation, I ask the other person whether we could do another feedback session in 2-4 weeks. Usually, the answer is yes. So, I request them to focus on this area of improvement. This makes it easier for them, too. Third, you should also have feedback for them; be prepared that they ask you for it. When I provide someone with feedback, I do it strength-based. Strength-based feedback implies focussing on the strength of the other person. I take time to elaborate on what the other person does well. I frame my feedback neutrally and state observations, e.g., *I saw that you prepared yesterday’s meeting well so that it was super smooth and we received what you needed for your analysis timely and completely.* I prepare at least 3 observations to exemplify their strengths and provide them with 1 observation of what could be improved. That leaves the other person feeling confident, competent, and motivated, while, simultaneously, having 1 thing to work on. --- # As much as I love it: this situation is challenging - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/as-much-as-i-love-it-this-situation-is-challenging - Date: 2022-09-18 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being *When things do not go your way, remember that every challenge – every adversity – contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth.* ― Roy T. Bennett Dear friend, I just got on a new consulting project: New information, new people, new places. The start of every project is exciting. You learn about an organization, its business, and its industry. You form new relationships. And you travel to places you’ve never been before. As much as I love it: this situation is challenging. At the beginning of my career, I felt as if I couldn’t learn all this new information and build working relationships fast enough. Today, though, I enjoy the process and love the challenge. What I learned in more than half a dozen consulting projects: [Never stress yourself about the things you cannot control.](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/how-to-stay-calm-in-stressful-situations) And fall in love with the process of becoming better every day. ## When things get really challenging Imagine you’re a team of 3: 1 project lead and 2 consultants. 1 consultant becomes sick and cannot work on the project anymore. It’s the first week. The situation is already challenging. Then, this happens. What do you do? Stress yourself out? No! A plane that isn’t on time, a client who is sick, a topic you have little experience in the beginning, … Each project has plenty of uncontrollable factors. The key is to keep calm and do the best you can do. Life offers challenges everywhere. And we all face challenges from time to time. Instead of avoiding challenges, wouldn’t it be *smart* to learn to best deal with them? ## Learn to deal with challenges The first step is to embrace challenges. Challenges at the brink of our capabilities make us [feel highly engaged](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/science-proven-what-makes-for-a-dream-job) – the key ingredient for a happy life. Challenges are good, not bad per se. Second, learn how to [stop overstressing and perform better](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/how-to-stop-overstressing-and-perform-better). Too much stress is bad not only for your long-term health but also for your mental well-being. Dealing with stress is a skill, something you can learn. Dealing successfully with challenges requires learning stress management. Third, adopt a “we can do it” mindset. In challenging situations, pessimism makes things rather worse than better. Once you’re “in the midst of a battle”, it’s time to aim for victory. Optimism will make the challenge enjoyable. Most challenges in life don’t have a binary outcome – win or lose, good or bad, perform or not perform. Even though the outcome might not be as good as you might have imagined in your optimism, you still didn’t worry about all the things that could wrong. In the end, nobody can predict what will happen – whether optimist, pessimist, or realist. The optimist, though, enjoys the ride. And that’s what life is all about. All the best to you and yours, David --- # From start to end I wished it to end - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/from-start-to-end-i-wished-it-to-end - Date: 2022-09-11 - Categories: Communication Dear friend, This week I had a meeting. From start to end I wished it to end. It was a mess. A few weeks ago, a manager reached out to me – let’s call her Carla. Carla seeks *high-potentials* to set up her core team as she is about to build a new, fast-growing, and impactful business unit. Even though I’ve different plans and love my job, I was curious. So, I jumped on a virtual meeting with her. After Carla came 5 minutes late, we had some smalltalk. Wasn’t too bad. She just confused where I’m currently living. Then, I asked her whether she could give me a sense of what to expect in this meeting. Her response was like … well … she read out loud the message she initially sent. So, I clarified why I was asking. I wanted to better understand the expectation of this meeting and what we want to accomplish today. Bingo! Or not? Carla pitched me the job role – someone for business development, a high-potential with an entrepreneurial mindset. Hands-on, you know? Great! Sounds kinda like a match. To better understand, what she expects and understands of a high potential, I asked her what skills she is seeking in this person. I was really looking forward to her answer, but no. Carla played the UNO reverse card and asked me what skills I could bring to the table. Well, I thought, didn’t you reach out to me because you knew my background? But yeah, I gave it a try: Experienced strategy consultant, analytics, communication, execution, resilience, ownership, … I followed up my pitch with the question of whether there was a match with what she was seeking and whether she could illustrate what career opportunities this role could offer. Once again, I received an answer I didn’t ask for – a high-level and inconcrete response. The conversation went on like this. The quality of the responses were as if I have given them by myself. This 20 minutes meeting casts a negative shadow over Carla and her employer. I wouldn’t want to work in a team with this little clarity. This meeting felt unprepared and thus disrespectful of my time. I’m grateful for the experience, though. I once again learned the importance of meeting preparation. If Carla had spent 5 minutes screening my profile again, writing down 3 questions about me, and thinking about a potential outcome, this story would’ve been the opposite. Next week, I will start working on a new consulting project. I aim to have even better meetings with my colleagues and clients. This will allow us to create better results faster and build deeper relationships. Preparation is key. But on a stressful working day, there’s not much time to prepare every meeting to detail. To balance this tradeoff, I developed a *meeting excellence routine*. In today’s article, I will write about what this routine looks like and how to apply it. **Practical advice:**Develop a routine to prepare for every meeting – aim for 100% not for 99% or lessTake 3-5 minutes before a meeting to think through the *intro*, *content*, and *action items*Just thinking through these 3 meeting parts is immensely valuable, however, I recommend writing down at least the keywords ## Prepare every meeting First of all, you should develop a routine to prepare for every meeting. Thereby, a meeting could be any encounter with another person (or group of people) at a pre-determined time and location. Too often, we try to develop a new routine and fail because we aim for 90%, 95%, or 99%. [Aiming for 100%](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/self-control-importance-3-tips-to-improve-it), though, is significantly easier. There’s no excuse. No matter how seemingly unimportant, well-established the relationship, or clear the goal of the meeting is. Once you allow yourself exceptions to the rule, it’s more difficult to be disciplined. You cannot draw a clear line. So, prepare for every meeting. ## Intro, content, action items Each meeting has 3 parts: 1. Intro: *Why do we meet? What’s the objective of this meeting?* 2. Content: *What are the 3 main things we will be talking about? What’s the ideal outcome?* 3. Action items: *What are potential follow-up to-dos?* Taking 3-5 minutes before a meeting to think through these 3 parts will massively enhance the effectiveness of every meeting. It’s rather the process not the outcome of this meeting preparation routine that matters, though. Let me give you an example by illustrating how I would’ve prepared if I was Carla: 1. Intro: I want to introduce this position to David, get to know him as a person (cultural fit), and align on the next steps to fill this position 2. Content: 3. I will talk about the job requirements and why I approached him as a potential candidate 4. I will ask him about his motivation to jump on a call and get to know him better as a person. I will ask him these 3 cultural fit questions I will also ask the other potential candidates to have comparable results. And I want to know about the questions he has, e.g., what we are trying to do, why we do it, and what our working culture is 5. I will paint how the process could look like if there’s a fit, e.g., when I will message him, when we will talk again, and what will be the content of the next conversation 6. Action items: 7. Obtain and provide feedback on the outcome of this meeting 8. Potentially, schedule the next conversation 9. Follow up on questions I couldn’t answer yet Just thinking through these questions is immensely valuable. You don’t even have to write them down. However, particularly in meetings with clients, senior managers, or difficult conversations (e.g., [when you have to say no](https://medium.com/@DavidAndrewMD/asd-67ea08a65fb7)), I recommend writing down the keywords of intro, content, and action items. ## Meeting excellence In my next consulting project, I will apply this routine for every meeting. In my previous projects, it worked insanely well, but I wasn’t determined to apply it for every meeting – particularly internal or informal meetings with teammates. Based on my learnings in the next few weeks, I will give you an update. Until then, try it out for yourself – whether with your colleagues, study mates, friends, or family. And let me know the results. If you already use such a preparation routine, please write me a message and tell me about it. Would be curious to exchange experiences! All the best to you and yours, David --- # How to better say no - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-better-say-no-8-tips - Date: 2022-09-04 - Categories: Communication, Relationships *Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it –* Anna Taylor Dear friend, Saying “no” is not easy. We all have said “yes” to things when we actually wanted to say no. The last time I said yes to an actual no ended with an unpleasant experience. It almost always does. When I was a youth, it was saying yes to another drink. When I was at the beginning of my career, it was saying yes to another duty. In our lifetime, we are faced with plenty of situations in which we are compelled to say yes to an actual no. So, being able to say no even in tough situations and without offending the other party is key. Here are 8 tips I learned and applied from my personal experience. ## Postpone your decision Never ever feel pressured in a given situation to give a definitive answer. If you don’t feel 100% sure to give an answer, postpone the decision. Let the other person know that you will need to sleep on the decision. If they need your decision urgently, tell them that you will take time to think through it on your own. It’s also in their best interest to get your full commitment and not a hasty decision. ## Value your own priorities Understand you can’t please everyone. It’s impossible. Saying yes implies saying no to many other things – things more important to you. Become clear about your values and the things that mean most to you. All your decisions should be based on them. Otherwise, you will make others’ dreams become reality at the expense of yours. ## Prepare to say no Once you are aligned on a meeting in which you will talk about your decision, it’s time to prepare it. First, think about the structure of the meeting. You will have a brief intro, the bulk part of the meeting will be about you saying no, and you will have to make sure there will be a sound ending. ## Have a brief appreciative intro In the intro, let the other person know that you appreciate the offered opportunity and the time to think through it and that you come to a conclusion. You can have some small talk first. But once you introduced that you came to a conclusion, you don’t waste any time and get to your decision. ## Sandwich the no Before and after clearly stating your no and a sound reason for it, you should give a yes. Here is an example: A very good friend invited you to her/his birthday and asked you to help organize the party, but you have to prepare for a test. Intro yes: *Your friendship is valuable to me. And I care about you.* Clear no: *However, given all the time I spend preparing for the test and the risk that everything was in vain if I slow down towards the finish line, I cannot help you organize and take part in your birthday.* Ending yes: *But if you are okay, I will organize the DJ and make sure you will have some great music.* ## Avoid details and long explanations Keep your reason short and simple. You run the risk of being talked out of your decision and raising the hope that the other person can persuade you to compromise. Both things more valuable to you and the relationship will suffer. ## Make sure you’re saying “no” Don’t fail to clearly state no. Avoid phrases like *I’m not sure whether…,* *I don’t know…, It might be…* Using ambiguous phrases will usually be assumed as a soft yes. When it’s time to say no, use the phrases *I will NOT, I canNOT* or *I’m NOT able because of reason X*. ## Be prepared to repeat yourself If you’re faced with pushback, the best thing you can do is repeat yourself. People might ask you why and explain your reasoning to weaken your decision. You already offered an explanation with your original response. Repeat this explanation, say no again, and focus on the “ending yes” to ensure a sound closing. Often, you need to be firm in order to have your intentions understood. And it will be worthwhile. --- # Learning How to Learn - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/learning-how-to-learn - Date: 2022-08-28 - Categories: Goal Achievement *The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go – Dr. Seuss* Dear friend, I just finished Barbara Oakley’s course on “Learning How to Learn”. This massive open online course [on Coursera](https://de.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn) has been on my to-do list for many months. It’s well known because it’s based on the most recent research and generally applicable – not only to studying in school and academia but also to professional learning. Learning and development are key to success in any area of life. Hence, the more efficient we are able to learn, the easier we will obtain success. 3 examples to illustrate this claim: 1. If you want to be promoted to a team leader in your organization, you have to learn what it takes to be one. For instance, asking mentors for their learnings, elaborating an action plan, and executing it will help you to more easily achieve this promotion. 2. If you want to raise a child, you will have to learn a lot about parenting. The more you learn, e.g., by reading books on child psychology and applying the concepts, the easier parenting will become, e.g., you will be able to better deal with your child wanting candy at the cashier’s queue. 3. If you want to achieve better grades or achieve your current grades more easily, you have to learn how to better study for exams. For example, taking Barbara Oakley’s course or reading a book on the best techniques for studying and practicing as suggested by the theory will make you achieve better grades. What I learned in the course on *Learning How to Learn* is that learning is basically the process of building new *neural chunks* and making use of them. *Chunks* are pieces of information, neuroscientifically speaking, bound together through meaning or use. The concept of neural chunks applies to anything that we can get good at – whether studying, working, art, sports, music, dance, etc. Chunks are best built with (A) focused attention, (B) understanding of the basic idea, and (C) practice to help you gain mastery and a sense of the big-picture context. (A) No matter what we want to improve (i.e. try to learn), focused attention makes the process significantly more successful. Removing distractions, such as social media notifications, and avoiding multi-tasking is key to learning. Don’t try to work through this Coursera course while browsing on your smartphone, or don’t practice a presentation while being distracted every 3 minutes by your e-mail inbox. (B) To form a chunk and learn something new, it’s best to first get a basic understanding of it. Students do that naturally well. It’s about connecting new information to existing knowledge. For instance, you should think about in which situations and context you would use a new vocabulary, a new martial arts technique, or a new variant of a leadership style. (C) Practice is paramount. Yes, practicing new information looks different depending on the area in which you’re trying to learn something new. No matter the area, though, you most efficiently practice when you simulate the situation you’re trying to improve. 3 examples to illustrate this concept: 1. Re-reading a text to study for an exam is inefficient. It’s far away from what you will do in the actual exam. Active recalling, e.g., by solving practice exams or learning with flash cards, is the most efficient study technique as it simulates the exam. 2. Highlighting and summarizing a personal development book is better than just reading it. Yet, compared to applying the concepts of the book in your life, it’s totally inefficient. That’s why I write down and capitalize on at least 3 to-dos after reading and summarizing a book. 3. Attending a professional training session is a good idea. However, if you don’t take part in individual and/ or group exercises and don’t take them seriously, you won’t improve efficiently. ## Practical advice: * Remove distractions and avoid multi-tasking as much as possible when you’re trying to improve something * Whatever you’re trying to learn, first get a basic understanding of it by connecting it to your existing knowledge * Practice is paramount. Try to simulate the situation you’re trying to improve as closest as possible --- # Asking for help - how to get what you want - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/asking-for-help-how-to-get-what-you-want - Date: 2022-08-13 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Relationships *Asking for help is never a sign of weakness. It’s one of the bravest things you can do* ― Lily Collins Dear Friend, Have you ever asked someone you don’t really know for help, e.g., someone on LinkedIn, a friend of a friend, or a student from the upper semester? Due to my YouTube community, I receive lots of messages on my social media channels. Most of them contain great feedback or quick questions. Yet, it’s concerning how many people send questions that could be answered via a 5-minute Google search or have a highly inconcrete request, e.g., whether I can jump on a call with them or meet them in a café to hang out. I always tell people to ask for help. Never hesitate a second. In doubt? Ask! Great things can be achieved only with the help of others. And generally, we’re much more successful in whatever endeavor if we ask people for help. However, just plainly asking for help and general advice hasn’t great chances of success. The more concrete and the more personalized the request, the better. A few examples: Instead of asking “how do I achieve very good grades?”, ask “how do I best prepare for an exam in which I have to learn all content by hard?”. Instead of asking “can I ask you some questions in a call?”, ask “I’m really curious about the following 3 questions. Could we jump on a brief call to discuss them?”. Instead of asking “what should I do to become successful?”, ask “what are 3 things you learned that greatly helped you to achieve your professional goals?”. It’s difficult to put oneself in the shoes of the people whom you’re asking for help. The more we try, though, the more likely we will succeed in obtaining the advice and help we need. Here’s a personal example: I wanted to ask a startup founder a few questions about his founder story. So, I just send him a LinkedIn request (no message attached). Then, I wrote him a concise message. I wrote… first, thank you for accepting my request; second, I want to ask you 3 questions and for reason y you’re the best person to answer them; third, I listed the 3 questions; fourth, I suggest jumping on a 5-minute call or sending me a WhatsApp voice message so you save time typing out the answers (and here’s my number). A few hours later, I got super helpful insights. --- # How you can solve every problem - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-you-can-solve-every-problem - Date: 2022-08-07 - Categories: Goal Achievement *Every problem has a solution, although it may not be the outcome that was originally hoped for or expected –* Alice Hoffman Dear friend, Problems are everywhere. We solve plenty of them every day. Easy ones: What do I eat for lunch today? Hard ones: Where should I invest my money? While easy ones don’t really bother us, hard ones can be a pain. A problem is a condition that needs to be changed because it is unpleasant, undesirable, or mandatory. At work, we have to summarize findings, make conclusions, and present them to colleagues. At home, we have to paint our walls because we spoiled some coffee. At school, we have to learn 400 PowerPoint slides word by word for an exam. In school or university, I never learned techniques or approaches to solving problems. Rather, I received different kinds of tasks and solved them by trial and error. That’s not bad per se. When I started my first full-time job, though, I learned that it’s inefficient compared to “real” problem-solving techniques. In today’s blog article, I will write about what “ideal” problem-solving looks like, the disadvantages of conventional problem-solving approaches, and explain to you a problem-solving approach to how to solve any problem. ## Summary: * Ideal problem-solving leads to efficient, sustainable, and “stakeholder-friendly” solutions * Trial and error and other conventional problem-solving approaches, such as bottom-up problem solving are time-consuming and ineffective * Because we first dig deep into data and information before thinking about what we actually need, we waste a lot of time with data and information that is irrelevant to our solution ## Practical advice: * First, define what the solution should look like * Second, gather data by trying out, talking to people, or doing research on your own * Third, based on the data and information, derive conclusions and iterate your hypotheses or decide for a solution ## Ideal problem solving Ideal problem-solving leads to efficient, sustainable, and “stakeholder-friendly” solutions. Efficient solutions require fewer resources (time, energy, and money) than alternative solutions. For instance, active recalling is the best learning technique for remembering facts and figures. Writing summaries and reading through them 100 times is significantly less efficient than harnessing active recalling. Sustainable solutions solve problems rather for the next few years than for the next few hours. Additionally, sustainable solutions minimize adverse effects. For instance, drinking alcohol and taking other drugs might be a great solution to overcome social anxiety. Yet, it comes at the expense of health. Compared to personal development, e.g., building self-confidence and becoming outcome-independent, alcohol and other drugs are just a short-term solution. “Stakeholder-friendly” solutions take into account the impact on friends, family, colleagues, business partners, and other affected people. Littering is a convenient solution to get rid of trash but isn’t the most social solution . ## Disadvantages of conventional problem-solving approaches Trial and error and other conventional problem-solving approaches, such as bottom-up problem solving are time-consuming and ineffective, i.e., they don’t yield the ideal solution or don’t yield a solution at all. Trial and error is what we usually make use of when we try to solve a problem in our private life. For instance, when we have to assemble furniture, we just try it. Because we just try it out (before we do any thinking), it takes rather more trials than would be necessary. Bottom-up problem solving is what we usually make use of when we try to solve a problem in our professional life. For instance, we want to find and implement a new tool for our team to optimize task management, such as Asana and Trello. Thereby, we first gather data by doing Google desk research and asking colleagues and business partners. Based on the learnings, we derive conclusions, leading to a solution. Because we first dig deep into data and information before thinking about what we actually need, we waste a lot of time with data and information that is irrelevant to our solution. ## Hypothesis and Outcome-Driven Problem Solving What I learned in my previous and current job through multiple trainings and on the job is a highly efficient problem-solving approach. It’s simple it takes practice to master and has a few caveats. When I want to solve a problem, I follow this 3-step approach: First, I define what the solution should look like. I hypothesize the end-state and formulate any underlying assumption in the solution process. Second, I gather data. Like with the trial and error approach or bottom-up problem solving, I try it out, talk to people, or do research on my own. However, this time I try to validate my assumptions and hypothesized solution. Third, based on the data and information, I derive conclusions. Which assumptions are wrong and which are right? What should the ideal solution look like now? This new information leads to new hypotheses and assumptions, starting the process again. Ultimately, all hypotheses and assumptions are verified and a solution is found. Here are 2 examples to illustrate this approach. 1. In my private life, I wanted to set up a securities account and decided in which securities, e.g. an ETF, I’ll invest a fixed amount of my salary. I thought about the potential solution: a super simple, low cost, and high self-service solution and an easy but effective investment strategy. I assumed that there’ll be a startup working on these kinds of problems and there’ll be plenty of information on investment strategies on the internet. Based on these hypotheses, I started my Google research and quickly found 2 providers: Trade Republic and Scalable Capital. Further, I found a lot of information on ETF (security funds that just replicate an index such as S&P 500, DAX40, etc.) and a so-called “70/30 portfolio”. Based on this information, I hypothesized that Trade Republic and a “70/30 portfolio” would be the best solution, though, I still wasn’t confident enough to make the decision. So, I called a few people including my father to further validate my hypotheses (is Trade Republic as easy as I imagined, is 70/30 the ideal strategy for me, etc.). Eventually, I could validate these hypotheses and make a decision. 2. In my professional life: In one of my internships, I had to do a market analysis and derive recommendations on which countries to enter next. With today’s knowledge, I’d have approached this task quite differently. First, I’d have formulated hypotheses on 2-3 potential countries and reasons why they might be the best candidates. Based on these assumptions, I had started gathering the necessary data to validate (confirm/ reject) these hypotheses. Once I had completed the first round of research, I’d have iterated my hypotheses. Following this approach, I had continued until the confidence level of the hypotheses reached a sufficient level. --- # An entrepreneur who makes money from students’ existential fears - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/an-entrepreneur-who-makes-money-from-students-existential-fears - Date: 2022-07-30 - Categories: Communication, Goal Achievement *It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently –* Warren Buffett Dear friend, There is an entrepreneur building an online career coaching company. His company is known for its controversial marketing practices, conveying a clear message: There is only a tiny number of “great” jobs and only a tiny number of people can land one of those. Winning this competition is hard, requiring key steps early in the career. Missing one of them is fatal. Hence, to land a great job and achieve a great career, their career coaching is nearly inevitable. This week, one of the most well-known German newspapers published a report on his person and company’s practices. The main message is: this entrepreneur makes money from students’ existential fears. The author expresses exactly what I and many others have been feeling for months. People actually working in these “great” jobs, who have already achieved the career advertised in the coaching’s marketing, raise their voice the first time. Words kept backed ever since are now spoken. In addition, a lot of unrelated people use this opportunity for their very own advantage, creating a shit storm. This situation is a great learning for everyone: The coaching offering isn’t flawed at all. The jobs are competitive. And working in these jobs for half a decade guarantees a great career. Yet, the way this entrepreneur appeals to the emotions of people, induces fear, and creates an unfounded scarcity corrupts all the good aspects of the coaching. Since I watched and commented on one of the coaching’s first fear-inducing advertisement, it’s been clear to me that this marketing will have severe repercussions. Big cooperations like Nestlé or Exxon Mobile showcased that unethical practices fueled by a greed for short-term profits will have a severe negative business impact in the long-term. While the responsible managers genuinely believed their acts won’t bring along these negative consequences, society – particularly investigative journalists – proofed them wrong. It’s hard to quantify the consequences of media disclosing these unethical practices, but they easily amount to billions – outweighing the short-term profits multifold. A good reputation takes decades to be build but minutes to be destroyed. Long-term thinking is what leads to true success. This shit storm will have a severe negative business impact. His cooperations with his partner companies are at danger. Who wants to work for a company that collaborates with someone who exploits the existential fears of young adults? And people who once considered the coaching turn away. Who wants to be part of a career coaching program dissuaded by the people who already achieved the desired career? I hope this entrepreneur learns his lessons, adopts adequate ethical standards, and surrounds himself with mentors with a long-term business view. There is a chance that he will make it through life despite his unethical practices, but chances are rather low in today’s never forgetting society. --- # How people achieve extraordinary success - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-people-achieve-extraordinary-success - Date: 2022-07-24 - Categories: Goal Achievement *It is those who are successful who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success –* Malcolm Gladwell Dear friend, Extraordinary achievement is less about talent than opportunity. Highly successful people like Bill Gates are beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities. These claims aren’t hypotheses but empirical evidence. Malcolm Gladwell – a Canadian journalist and author – put together the most recent research on the question of what made “outliers” (highly successful people) become outliers. In his well-known book “Outliers: The Story of Success”, he concludes “success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities”. I strongly believe in our ability and freedom to achieve anything as long as we’re willing to put in the necessary effort. While I liked to read that talent isn’t the most important ingredient of success, the claim that opportunity is the most important ingredient felt like an attack on my worldview. After reading through the whole book, though, that changed. With the knowledge of this book, every reader can set oneself up for opportunity. “Standing on the shoulders of giants” – that’s what’s key to extraordinary achievement. Hard work and talent alone won’t make it. In today’s blog article, I will summarize my main findings of this book, tell you why talent – particularly intelligence – isn’t sufficient, and conclude how I will set myself up for success based on these findings. ## Summary: * The secret to extraordinary success is cumulative advantage: One small advantage of a person leads to another small advantage that leads to another small advantage and so on * Talent helps but only up to a certain threshold * People achieving extraordinary achievements have practical intelligence, which can be learned ## Practical advice: * To set yourself up for success, you need to maximize your chances of opportunity * First, have a clear vision. Before anyone can help you to succeed, you need to know what success looks like for you – the clearer, the better. * Second, socialize my vision. Frequently talk and write about what you want to achieve * Third, never hesitate to ask for help ## Explanations of success The secret to extraordinary success is cumulative advantage: One small advantage of a person leads to another small advantage that leads to another small advantage and so on. For instance, Gladwell interviewed Bill Gates, who says that unique access to a computer as early as 1968 when they were not commonplace helped him succeed. Without this access, Gladwell states, Gates would still be “a highly intelligent, driven, charming person and a successful professional”, but not be the founder of Microsoft. Gladwell listed a few key advantages of Gates that enabled him to learn to code and build his first product early in his career: 1. Gates got sent to Lakeside. Lakeside was 1 of a handful of high schools in the world that had access to a time-sharing terminal (one of the first coding machines) in 1968. 2. Usage of this time-sharing terminal was expensive. Luckily, the parents of the children (incl. Gates’ parents) had enough money to pay for the school’s computer fees. 3. A friend’s parents happened to work at C-Cubed. They happened to need someone to check its code on the weekends, but also it allowed Gates to work on their coding machines at night. 4. Gates happened to find out about ISI, and ISI just happened to need someone to work on its payroll software. They let him work on their coding machines (to practice even more coding) in exchange for his work on the payroll software. In his early years, Gates became one of the most experienced programmers in the world. Starting his first software company was then guaranteed to succeed. While he would have never accomplished his achievements if he hadn’t worked really hard, these small advantages were the foundation of his success. ## The importance of talent Gladwell also examined the importance of talent, particularly intelligence. There was a long-term study in which the researchers randomly picked highly intelligent people when they were young (their intelligence quotient was far above the average) and observed how their lives went. Over decades, they observed their careers, social life, and health. Surprisingly, these people achieved what you would expect if you picked people from a random population (including people at the bottom of the IQ scale). So, being a genius doesn’t make you a success. But that doesn’t mean that intelligence doesn’t matter. Digging deeper into this topic: IQ among people is normally distributed. A score of 100 is average; you probably need to be just above that mark to be able to handle college well. People with an IQ below 70 are considered mentally disabled. To get into and succeed in a competitive graduate program (PhD program of an elite school), you probably need an IQ of 115+. In general research indicates, the higher your score, the more education you’ll get, the more money you’re likely to make, and the longer you’ll live. But there’s a catch. The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point. Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage. So, as already constituted being a genius doesn’t make you a success. If intelligence matters only up to a point, then past that point, other things – things that have nothing to do with intelligence – must start to matter more. Gladwell calls these things “practical intelligence” or “social savvy”. He lists a few aspects of practical intelligence: * Knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect. * Knowing how to do something without necessarily knowing why you know it or being able to explain it. * Knowing how to read situations correctly and get what you want. People achieving extraordinary achievements have this practical intelligence. It is not something you inherit like IQ or talent but something you pick-up and learn. Most of the time, acquiring great practical intelligence comes down to small advantages (opportunities), particularly growing up at the right time, in the right family, with the right friends, attending the right school… ## Set yourself up for success The findings of the book suggest that success doesn’t solely come from hard work or talent. It’s opportunity, particularly cumulative advantage, that makes people successful. To set yourself up for success, you need to maximize your chances of opportunity. As it’s other people or organizations that grant you opportunity and small advantages, you need to increase the chances that they (A) know you, (B) see the potential in you, (C) provide you with the right opportunities. I follow a 3-step approach to do so: First, I have a clear vision. Before anyone can help me to succeed, I need to know what success looks like for me – the clearer, the better. Second, I socialize my vision. I frequently talk and write about what I want to achieve. It’s much easier for people to help me to succeed if they know what I want to achieve. So, just by talking about my ideas and problems (socializing it), the chances that people (A) know me and (B) see my potential in me significantly increase. Third, I never hesitate to ask for help. Even if people or organizations (A) know me and (B) see the potential in me, they might not (C) provide me with the right opportunities because they might not see the need. The greatest opportunities are created by ourselves by standing on the “shoulders of giants”. A person a few years ahead of us can immensely boost our progress. --- # Boost your productivity by making use of agile methods - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/boost-your-productivity-by-making-use-of-agile-methods - Date: 2022-07-10 - Categories: Communication *Large portions of the productivity gains from agile methods come not from doing things better, but from not doing them at all* Dear friend, This week, my 2-month-long leave of absence started. During this period, I will spend time on various “projects”. For instance, I will go on vacation with my girlfriend, visit friends and family, learn about supply chain management to identify problems worth to be solving, expand my network, refurbish and renovate parts of my apartment, and create additional content for my social media channels. As always, I aim to make the most out of my time. I want to waste as little time as possible. So, I contemplated how I can plan the next 2 months. A typical planning method is to estimate what can be achieved in a certain period of time and to set milestones for each sub-period. Activities are broken down into linear sequential phases, where each phase depends on the “deliverables” of the previous one. A typical representation of this method is a “GANTT”-chart. I wanted to try something else though. In my previous 2 consulting projects, I made use of agile planning and working methods, particularly Scrum. These methods differ from conventional methods. Instead of creating highly detailed working plans, which typically are inaccurate and subject to a lack of knowledge, a (dynamic) backlog of activities is created and work is planned and performed in multiple short sprints. Each sprint starts with a sprint planning session (like conventional planning just for a short period of time) and ends with a retrospective session (reflecting on the experiences gained within the sprints to reprioritize efforts for the next sprint). As I’m strongly convinced of its superior effectiveness and have a great variety of tasks, I will use Scrum (an agile method) for this 2-month-long period. But why is agile working so effective, when should you (not) apply it, and how does it actually work? That’s what today’s blog article is about. ## Summary: * Scrum is applied when faced with complex multi-disciplinary not-well-known problems, to solve them efficiently and creatively * Projects with a clear goal, enough time, a high degree of external dependencies, and a low degree of complexity are better solved via conventional, linear planning and working methods * Agile working methods greatly focus on delivering solutions as fast as possible ## Practical advice: * First, decide on roles and responsibilities and further framework conditions, such as sprint duration and reflection format * Second, create your initial backlog. The backlog is a collection of all the tasks you assume to be accomplished to solve your problem/finish your project * Third, perform your first sprint ## When to (not) apply agile working methods Scrum is applied when faced with complex multi-disciplinary not-well-known problems, to solve them efficiently and creatively. Typically, Scrum is applied in software development. Each Scrum sprint (ranging from 1 to a few weeks) defines certain product features to be developed and ends with a testable product. At the end of each sprint, the Scrum team reflects on (user) feedback on the testable product and finetunes its efforts and priorities for the next sprint. Thereby, no substantial time is wasted on the development of product features users don’t want and, eventually, the product becomes more and more marketable. Scrum is applied also in organizations that want to innovate their products, incl. conceptualizing business models, go-to-market approaches, and enabling IT. Particularly in mature organizations, there are various highly valuable experts for almost any topic. Forming a well-functioning, multidisciplinary team from them to solve these kinds of complex not-well-known problems usually fails using conventional methods. Project managers just cannot accurately predict which expert has to be part of which discussion for the next 3 months. Using Scrum, though, these multi-disciplinary teams can plan their efforts in short sprints. Each team member can plan how much time s/he has to spend on which task. In case the sprint planning was inaccurate, not the whole project is in danger, but efforts are to be re-prioritized in the sprint retrospective. However, Scrum and agile working aren’t the solutions for all problems and projects. Projects with a clear goal, enough time, a high degree of external dependencies, and a low degree of complexity are better solved via conventional, linear planning and working methods. Here are some projects hardly suitable for agile working methods: * building houses * constructing roads * preparing for exams * creating TV campaigns * negotiating collaboration agreements ## Benefits of agile working methods Agile working methods greatly focus on delivering solutions as fast as possible. The amount of time wasted on planning and creating unwanted solutions is minimized while customer/stakeholder satisfaction is maximized. An example is building a website for a corporate customer. Instead of planning out each sub-page, its content, and its functionalities, agile methods aim to create a minimum viable product (MVP) as fast as possible, e.g., the landing (home) page. Based on the feedback, the MVP is fine-tuned and further sub-pages, content, and functionalities are created. In my case, I could spend hours and hours planning the next 2 months. Most likely, though, this plan will turn out inaccurate and make me do things that are rather inefficient. Thus, working in 1-week sprints allows me to work on all the different projects as fast as possible and use the learnings gained in this time frame to optimize my efforts in the next sprint. ## How to harness agile working methods (Scrum) First, decide on the planning and working method. Will you work on a project with a clear goal, enough time, a high degree of external dependencies, and a low degree of complexity? Then, you should go for linear planning and working methods, using e.g. a GANTT chart. Otherwise, you should give Scrum a try. Thereby, you need to decide on roles and responsibilities (depending on the personnel setting, in my case it’s just me) and further framework conditions, such as sprint duration (1 week) and reflection format (end of week 30-minute retro). Second, create your initial backlog. The backlog is a collection of all the tasks you assume to be accomplished to solve your problem/finish your project. I did so in Notion by creating a page containing all the different projects I want to accomplish in the next 2 months, and for each project, I contemplated tasks necessary for each project. Third, perform your first sprint. At the beginning of your (first) sprint, you note down all the backlog items you want to accomplish in your sprint period (sprint planning). Then, you start working, ideally creating a daily to-do list (daily check-in). At the end of your sprint, you take sufficient time, e.g., 30 minutes in my case, to think about all the things that worked well, that could be improved, and the priorities of the next sprint. Further, you add further tasks to your backlog, so that you can do your next sprint planning based on your new learnings. --- # How to better deal with fear of missing out - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-better-deal-with-fear-of-missing-out - Date: 2022-06-26 - Categories: Goal Achievement *Fear of missing out is the enemy of valuing your own time –* Andrew Yang Dear friend, Think of the following situation: You are at a party. There’s great food, drinks, and people. You’ve been having fun for hours. Slowly, though, you’re feeling tired. It’s about midnight by now. You start contemplating when to leave the party: Should I go now? 1 more hour? 2 more hours? The more time passes, the more tired you feel. When you ask your friends, how long they want to stay, they’re like *you already want to go?* At this point, there’re 2 common scenarios: (1) You won’t leave the party. You will stay for a few more hours until the majority of your friends wants to go. (2) You will tell your friends that you’ll leave the party now. You’re glad if someone wants to go with you, but if all of your friends will stay, you don’t mind and leave anyway. Yesterday, I had to decide between these 2 scenarios, and I chose the latter. When I was about to say goodbye, a friend of mine was like “David, you don’t have any FOMO, right?”. And he was right. I didn’t feel “fear of missing out (FOMO)”. In the last 4 years, I learned how to deal with FOMO. I reflected a lot on why I experience FOMO, whether it makes my life better, and how I can gain better control over feeling FOMO. In today’s blog article, I will write about these reflections and provide you with tools to better deal with FOMO, too. ## Summary: * FOMO is defined as “a fear that an exciting or interesting event may be happening without oneself being present * FOMO isn’t generally bad. Like “general fear”, FOMO is an important natural response * However, FOMO can lead to not only unpleasant experiences but also chronic anxiety and even depression ## Practical advice: * Reflect on the things that make you truly happy. Ask yourself every week: “what were the highlight moments of this week” and note the answer down * Before making a decision, remind yourself of similar experiences and how you felt after/because of them * When in doubt, don’t give in to FOMO ## Why do we experience FOMO Fear of missing out is defined as “a fear that an exciting or interesting event may be happening without oneself being present”. It is triggered when we see other people having a great time (e.g., on social media) or other people tell us about an event where they will have a great time (e.g., a friend talking about an upcoming party). FOMO is generated by the part of the brain that detects whether or not something is a threat to survival (the amygdala). It perceives the impression of being missing out as a threat (social isolation), creating stress and anxiety. It’s a natural response and not something people experienced the first time recently. Yet, through social media and ever newly created trends, the threat of missing out is triggered increasingly more frequently. ## Better deal with FOMO FOMO isn’t generally bad. Like general fear, FOMO is an important natural response. It’s beneficial to have a “natural reminder” that we should engage with other people and make great experiences. Social isolation can lead to depression. Having no friends or close relationships with family members can make life much more difficult. Just think about the COVID pandemic. People with COVID had to isolate themselves. If there’s no delivery service for groceries and/or medicine, you’re screwed because you cannot leave your home. However, FOMO can lead to not only unpleasant experiences but also chronic anxiety and even depression. Thus, learning to cope with FOMO is a great investment of time and effort. When I realized that FOMO has a substantial negative impact on my life, I read and heard a lot about other people’s experiences in dealing with it – with success. From going to every party and never saying no to any invitation, I now make conscious and rational decisions on how to best spend my time. Whether I’m already at an event or make the decision to attend it, I feel a strong sense of control over my FOMO. Today, to better deal with FOMO, I follow a “dual approach”: In the short-term (advent of FOMO), I follow clear rules to make the best decisions at the very moment. In the long term, I regularly reflect on past experiences based on the decisions I made to make even better decisions. To dive deeper into my short-term “measures”, 2 things greatly help me to make better decisions in the advent of FOMO: First, I remind myself of similar experiences and how I felt after them. For instance, yesterday, I thought about how I felt when I didn’t leave similar parties when I became tired and how I felt when I left. Most often, I felt much better when I left. So, the decision was clear to me to leave. Second, I follow a rule of thumb: *When in doubt, don’t give in to FOMO.* For instance, when I’m in doubt about whether to attend a party, I don’t go. This concept is based on the decision-making principle of “Hell yeah or no”, implying that when you make a decision you should only say yes if you feel like “Hell yeah”. ## Fear of wasting time In the long run, 2 more things greatly help me to better cope with FOMO: First, I weekly reflect on the things that make me truly happy. I ask myself “what were the highlight moments of this week”. Thereby, I create a better sense of what’s contributing to my happiness. Unfortunately, we humans have a bad intuitive understanding of what’s going to make us happy. The experiences we imagine in our head and the feelings we think we will feel greatly differ from reality. Most often, we feel significantly less happy about an experience than when we thought about it previously (to find more about this field of research – positive psychology – you can attend this course at the [University of Yale about the “Science of Well-being”](https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being?utm_source=gg&utm_medium=sem&utm_campaign=09-ScienceofWellBeing-US&utm_content=B2C&campaignid=9728548210&adgroupid=119657127259&device=c&keyword=&matchtype=&network=g&devicemodel=&adpostion=&creativeid=506816645212&hide_mobile_promo&gclid=CjwKCAjw5NqVBhAjEiwAeCa97SZC4iFoe-BR30JaLVrrbmD1oF5pWtfUZOICtdWIUhhf1T6pAYlxnRoCY5QQAvD_BwE)). Thus, reflecting on past experiences and objectively “rating” them, greatly help us to make better decisions in the future. Second, I underwent a mindset shift: from believing I’ve unlimited time and there’s a scarce number of great events to I’ve only a limited time left and there’s an abundance of great events. There’s nothing more scarce than time. No one can ever give you back the time you wasted. Contrarily, every great event will happen again. If it was a great event, people are willing to make it happen again. So, missing a great event isn’t bad at all, you just attend it the next time. --- # How to get people to listen when you speak - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-you-speak - Date: 2022-06-19 - Categories: Communication *We only speak when we are fully living what we are saying* Dear friend, During my 1-week-long training 3 weeks ago, an executive coach was giving a session about “presence”. First, she asked us as a group of 30 learners, how can someone have a great presence? After a quiet minute, I still struggled to find an answer. So, I asked the instructor to clarify what having a great presence actually means. She answered that a person with great presence is someone who says something in any given context, and people will remember that person very well. Still owning her an answer to her initial question, I contemplated what makes me think of someone being “remarkable” by having a great presence. As nobody had yet given it a try, I raised my arm and gave my explanation: *Someone with a great presence is a person who says something with great determination. This person doesn’t say anything without the intention to deliver the message. It’s about how something is said and not what.* Bingo. The instructor liked what I articulated and wrote some notes on a flipchart. Further learners then also gave their thoughts. Next, we discussed why we should aim to have a great presence. “Trust”, “credibility”, “persuasiveness”, and “impact” – those were the words we used to describe the benefits of having a great presence. And eventually, we elaborated how we can attain a great presence. In today’s blog article, I will dive deeper into the topic of presence. You will read about why having a great presence is crucial to becoming a great leader, what it looks like in action, and what you can do to attain a great presence. ## Summary: * “Presence” is basically when you speak, people listen * Great presence is a must-have quality for professionals who are eager to become a leader * Having a great presence significantly increases your persuasiveness, allowing you to make people do things they wouldn’t do otherwise ## Practical advice: * Know the purpose of your message * Speak clearly and make your message clear * Be authentic, be vulnerable ## Great leaders have a great presence Great presence is a must-have quality for professionals who are eager to become a leader. People with great presence are able to put other people at ease, take charge during chaos, and instill confidence when things are changing. Having a great presence significantly increases your persuasiveness, allowing you to make people do things they wouldn’t do otherwise. Steve Jobs was known for his great ability to make the best people work for Apple and push Apple’s employees to always try their best. His great presence was what allowed him to do so. In my job as a consultant, trust and credibility are key ingredients for fruitful collaboration. There are many ways to gain trust and credibility, but having a great presence is among the fastest to become a trusted advisor. When people listen to you, they will more likely want to collaborate with you. ## Great presence in action “Presence” is known as many things: commanding attention, holding court, or owning the room. Basically, when you speak people listen. If you were lucky, you had a teacher who had a great presence. This kind of teacher captures the student’s attention, delivers content understandably, and is well respected. This teacher makes students feel they don’t waste their time but learn crucial lessons. In your work life, it’s the manager with a great presence who makes you flourish. This kind of manager instills trust in you, creates interest and curiosity, and is a major reason why you work for your employer. In your social circle, it’s the friend or relative with a great presence whom you love hanging around. You’re attracted to the aura of this person and usually look at this person as some kind of role model. It’s this person who doesn’t speak all the time but if, you will listen. ## How to attain a great presence What I learned from the session with the executive coach on how to attain a great presence were the following 3 requirements: 1: Know the purpose of your message. Whether it’s presentations, meetings, emails, negotiations, or casual conversations – before you speak up or start writing, have a strong why. Don’t do anything unintentionally, but do it with strong sense of purpose. Don’t hold a presentation, don’t take part in a meeting, don’t write an email, and don’t talk to anybody if you cannot answer why you do it. If you have to do something, think of why you will have to do it anyway and why it’s great that you will do it. 2: Speak clearly and make your message clear. Whatever you communicate, make it clear and concise. Don’t use more words than needed. When in doubt, cut words out. Focus on 1 theme instead of 5. Rather do 3 things great and become well known for them instead of 10. Don’t use more than 25 words in a sentence. Take multiple 5-second pauses in your presentation. 3: Be authentic, be vulnerable. Nobody is perfect. People with a great presence know that being authentic and clearly showing people their weaknesses is what makes them even stronger. Be honest about why the things you say are meaningful to you. --- # Your definition of success can change your life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/your-definition-of-success-can-change-your-life - Date: 2022-06-11 - Categories: Goal Achievement *Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.* ― Anne Sweeney Dear friend, What the media tells us about success is a mess. The life of the rich and the beautiful is the benchmark. The extreme is what’s desirable: perfect outfits, expensive food, fancy drinks, unlimited travel, fast cars, etc. We are constantly confronted with pictures and stories that create a new desire. And these desires need to be satisfied, making us feel miserable if we fail to do so. Given this mess, we have to define success individually and don’t let media, society, or anyone else spoil our very own definition of success. While many people already have a (healthy) understanding of what success looks like, many others haven’t defined it yet. To live a happy and fulfilled life, we all have to make a meaningful effort to individually define success and constantly remind ourselves of our definition given the media will try its best to spoil it. But how to find your definition of success? And why is it so important? That’s what today’s blog article will be about. ## Summary: * By contemplating your own definition of success, you lay the foundation for a meaningful and happy life * Don’t let anybody tell you how you have to live your life * Materialistic things won’t make us happy but rather tend to make us feel more miserable ## Practical advice: * Imagine a person whom you believe has achieved NO success – write down the achievements that seem like success but are the opposite * Imagine a person whom you believe has achieved true success – write down the things that me her/him successful * Ask yourself: Why should you strive for something that you define as success? ## How to find your definition of success No one should tell you what success looks like. It’s to be defined individually by asking yourself the right questions: First, imagine a person whom you believe has achieved NO success. Use this person as a template to find out what success doesn’t look like. What are the achievements that seem like success but are the opposite? For instance, I have a strong bias against celebrities like the Kardashians. In order to explore this prejudice, I asked myself why I think these people aren’t good for our society and framed my own success definition around the answers. Second, imagine a person whom you believe has achieved true success. Use this person as a template: What does this person exactly do and whom does s/he directly and indirectly affect? For example, Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft. His company affects, directly and indirectly, billions of people. What are the positive and negative effects of his actions? How did he achieve that? Why did he want to achieve it? Do you think he is a happy person? Third, ask yourself: Why do you want to be successful? Why should you strive for something that you define as success? My definition of success requires contributing to a better world. And making this world at least a little better is what eventually makes me happy. Thus, being successful implies happiness. You should ask yourself the same questions. Do you want to maximize your happiness? Do you want to be famous? Do you want to be influential, powerful, inspirational, well-known, … Use the outcomes of these three steps to devise your success definition. Then, from now on, you should never judge yourself based on a conventional definition of it again. ## Your definition of success can change your life By contemplating your own definition of success, you lay the foundation for a meaningful and happy life. Social comparison is among the factors that make people the most unhappy. The conventional success definition is based on steady comparisons, whether it is money, aesthetics, achievements, or the number of likes and followers. Don’t let anybody tell you how you have to live your life. Life is too short to let others spoil your limited time on Earth. If you steer towards the aspirations of someone else, you live the life others set for you. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines success as “the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame.” This definition of success doesn’t provide an answer to *why.* Why should you strive for monetary wealth? Empirical studies have shown for years that these materialistic things won’t make us happy but rather tend to make us feel more miserable. If you’re making tons of money through a fast-paced career or your own business but are unhappy, then you haven’t embraced the fact that incredible financial success often carries a heavy personal price. Incorporate a strong *why* in your success definition, you will have a metric that will support you throughout your life to be the happy person you want to be. --- # Work hard, play hard – how to find the right balance - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/work-hard-play-hard-how-to-find-the-right-balance - Date: 2022-06-01 - Categories: Goal Achievement *Stress + rest = growth. This equation holds true regardless of what it is that you are trying to grow. ― Brad Stulberg, Peak Performance* Dear friend, The past 2 weekends were intense. Last weekend, I flew to Barcelona to spend some time with my friends; this weekend, I went to the World Club Dome festival together with my girlfriend. After the weekend in Barcelona, I lost my voice for a few days as I took [will.i.am](http://will.i.am/)’s “Scream and Shout” too serious. And during the 2 days of the festival, I collected a total of 100.000 steps (about 90 km walking equivalent) as I was dancing and jumping around like there was no tomorrow. Normally, though, my weekends look different. They are work and chill. I create videos for my YouTube channel, write a blog post, work on other side projects, cook dinner with my girlfriend and go to bed early. Life is all about balance. We cannot party 24/7, work 24/7, or chill 24/7. To make the most out of it, we have to experiment, finding the right mixture. I love working (learning and solving problems). Since high school, I’ve spent most of my waking time doing so. So, most of my life has been and might always be lots of work. But if you work a lot, you cannot always go hard. There were times when I didn’t rest. I slept 3 hours so that I could go out and party a lot and still put in the hours to work. Caffeine was my best friend. As you can imagine, that worked for a few months, but eventually, it drained all my energy. Then, COVID came up. Suddenly, I couldn’t go out anymore. I had to spend more time resting. Simultaneously, I started to learn about the importance of sleep and rest. Books like “Why we sleep” or “Peak Performance” have a clear message: You won’t make the most out of life if you don’t rest accordingly; performance as well as happiness will suffer. So, I started prioritizing rest over party and needed to learn to say “no” to a lot of things. In today’s world, where we managed to regain the possibility to meet in masses and have fun together, I make conscious decisions about how to best spend my time. A few years ago, I said yes to almost every invitation I got. Today, it’s rather the opposite. However, when I go out and party, I give my best to make it worthwhile. To find the right balance for yourself, you have to experiment. First, though, you should make sure that you have enough rest, particularly 8 hours of sleep on average per day. The following questions greatly help me to find my balance: * What activities do I enjoy most? * How much of those is enough? * How much of those is too little? * What can I do to have more of them? * What can I do to not overindulge? I love partying. But as I want to make sure that I live a healthy life and have enough rest, I drink alcohol a limited number of times per year. Thereby, I force myself to not overindulge. The same goes for other areas of life, too. I love working, but Thursday and Saturday evening is for my girlfriend. And there’s no week in which I had no conversation with someone of family. If you struggle to find your balance, first, prioritize sleep, and second, answer these questions. I promise you, that will help for sure. --- # A transformational leadership experience - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/a-transformational-leadership-experience - Date: 2022-05-22 - Categories: Relationships *If Diversity is a fact, inclusion is a choice* Dear friend, This week, I had a 5-day in-person training together with +50 other colleagues. In terms of experience, we were all at the same level (~1 year of experience as a consultant), however, in terms of our backgrounds, there was a huge variety: My colleagues came from all over the world (Africa, Asia, Middle East, Australia, North America and Europe) and had various study backgrounds (aerospace engineering, humanities, chemical engineering, business, …). Further, we had a 50/50 female/male ratio and had a few people who identify themselves as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Despite this variety, we felt more similar than different. We are all passionate about making a positive impact, challenging ourselves to have a steep learning curve, and facing very similar problems in our lives. The training promised to be a *transformational leadership experience –* it certainly was. The faculty (teachers in the training) created a safe environment in which we could open up and share what was on our minds. The different exercises, such as identifying our true values, helped us to talk about the things that were most meaningful to us. For instance, a colleague shared a personal story about how he had to flee outside of his home country and leave behind his wife as from one day to another he was politically persecuted – the reason why safety is his number 1 value. We could gain incredible insights due to the great learning environment. The emphasis on safe and inclusive sharing allowed us all to open up. In today’s blog article, I’ll write about why creating an inclusive environment is essential for the best learning experience and how we can actually create one. ## Summary: * Diversity is more than the demographic characteristics of a group of people. It goes along the lines of cognitive diversity and the variety of experiences and perspectives that each individual brings to the table * In a non-inclusive environment, people are afraid to speak up * Companies that fail to create an inclusive environment will experience a disadvantage as they aren’t able to tap the full potential of the workforce ## Practical advice: * First, stop assuming and start asking * Second, listen well. Good listeners provide their full attention, hold eye contact, don’t interrupt, and ask questions to understand what’s said * Third, communicate mindfully (be conscious of the words you choose) ## The great advantage of inclusivity Diversity is more than the demographic characteristics of a group of people. It goes along the lines of cognitive diversity and the variety of experiences and perspectives that each individual brings to the table. Inclusion is to enable the many different types of people to achieve the same and treat them fairly and equally. So, while diversity is a description of a group of people, inclusion is the enablement of each individual in this group. In a non-inclusive environment, minorities (a person doing a semester abroad, an engineer in a group full of business people, or a man in a group full of women) are afraid to speak up. It feels inconvenient to dissent or contribute new ideas. Thereby, the full potential of a group remains untapped. Companies that fail to create an inclusive environment will experience a disadvantage as they aren’t able to tap the full potential of the workforce. Only in an inclusive environment, do people feel comfortable being themselves, leveraging their unique strengths, and sharing their perspectives. ## What makes an inclusive environment From what I experienced at the training and how the inclusive environment was created there, it’s 2 factors that made it particularly inclusive: (A) Our leaders/ faculty were great role models and (B) embedded inclusivity throughout our experience. They made clear from early on that we’ll make the most of our time together only if we’re willing to show respect to each other, create a safe environment for everybody, and are willing to share. Simultaneously, they went ahead and made sure the overall training program enabled inclusivity. In every exercise, they stressed the importance of being open-minded and letting others share. For example, we had role plays to exercise our conversational skills. Thereby, each and everyone in our team should listen closely to his/her teammates and provide feedback. We all took these exercises seriously so that each and everyone received highly valuable feedback. ## 3 tips to be more inclusive I commit to 3 measures that create an inclusive environment, whether being in the majority or minority: First, stop assuming and start asking. It’s difficult to know how people think or feel, and even more difficult if they have a different background. We tend to assume a lot and thus take many things for granted. For instance, I prefer eating protein-rich and vegetarian. Since most vegetarians eat rather little protein, I really struggled to find proper food during the training week as most foods were either meat or vegetarian without a lot of protein. If I was asked whether I would like to have this dietary option, I’d have definitely said yes. The same goes for many other situations. A simple “what do you think?” can make a huge difference. Second, listen well. People daring to speak up even if they don’t feel comfortable will shut down completely when we don’t listen to them. Good listeners provide their full attention, hold eye contact, don’t interrupt, and ask questions to understand what’s said. Imagine you’re in a group full of people of the other gender and you tell them about a problem that’s typical for your own gender, e.g., pressure to make the first step as a male or pressure to give birth to a child as a female. Instead of listening to you, a person in the group interrupts you and tells you that it cannot be an issue for reasons x, y, and z. While the whole group might resonate with the arguments brought up, it will make you feel like sh\*t. Third, communicate mindfully. When we are talking mindfully, we are conscious of the words we choose. We make a conscious decision to use our best communication in a respectful manner. For instance, instead of talking in an absolute manner (all people, everyone, etc.), we use more mindful language (in my view, from my experience, etc.). --- # How to make work most enjoyable - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-make-work-most-enjoyable - Date: 2022-05-15 - Categories: Goal Achievement *Leave your ego at the door every morning, and just do some truly great work. Few things will make you feel better than a job brilliantly done –* Robin S. Sharma Dear friend, This week, I went through meeting marathons with clients and had just a little time for breaks. Overall, it was highly stressful and demanding. Simultaneously, though, I felt a great sense of joy. So, I asked myself, why is that? While I greatly enjoy working together with my current team and other auxiliary conditions are met (decent food, pay, enough sleep…), I presume these factors don’t make me feel that joyful but are [hygiene factors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory), i.e. they make me unhappy if not fulfilled but don’t give positive satisfaction or lead to higher motivation. Rather, it’s the feeling of doing something I’m proud of. I helped my clients and teammates to solve various tough problems and made a significant contribution, making me feel that I’m doing something I’m great at. It’s this feeling of making a difference that creates a great sense of joy. But how do we find work we’re great at? How can we do more of it? And why is that important? That’s what today’s blog article will be about. ## Summary: * Being great at something and accomplishing whatever you set yourself up for greatly boosts your happiness * Making ourselves proud of what we do is a key driver of motivation * Colleagues and managers who appreciate or even praise our work give us joy no salary increase could do so ## Practical advice: * First, we have to define for ourselves what “great” actually means * Second, we have to commit ourselves to becoming actually very good at these things * Third, we need to actually work ## Find work you’re great at According to a [study](https://www.roberthalf.ca/en/research-and-insights/media-room/who-are-the-happiest-workers-and-what-are-the-top-drivers-of-workplace-happiness), a sense of accomplishment is the strongest driver of happiness for employees under 35 years old. While older generations did work to earn money and being the “breadwinner” was enough accomplishment for them, generations y and z seek more than just a decent salary. Nevertheless, whether you’re a 50-year-old or 20-year-old, being great at something and accomplishing whatever you set yourself up for greatly boosts your happiness. Making ourselves proud of what we do is a key driver for motivation. Colleagues and managers who appreciate or even praise our work give us joy no salary increase could do so. So, how can we find work we’re great at? First, we have to define for ourselves what “great” actually means. I’ve got a pretty clear image of what “great” work at my current stage means: End-to-end ownership of problems, serving my clients as a trusted advisor, being a collaborative colleague who helps his teammates to solve their problems more efficiently, and creating impact outside of my current project by driving internal initiatives. Concretely, I accomplish great work in the absence of my project manager; my clients call or write me and not my project manager/leadership because they trust me most to handle their problems; I contribute to my teammates’ work streams by providing guidance; I document knowledge I gained through my work and share it with other teams currently working on similar problems. Second, we have to commit ourselves to becoming actually very good at these things, i.e., we have to be willing to challenge ourselves and learn. Ideally, we tell our managers and colleagues about the things we want to improve so they can help us. Third, we need to actually work. Thereby, we should be conscious of the tasks and activities that don’t provide us with a sense of pride and accomplishment and reduce them as well as those that do and focus more on them. --- # How to work at an elite level - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-work-at-an-elite-level - Date: 2022-05-08 - Categories: Goal Achievement *If you can’t learn, you can’t thrive –* Cal Newport Dear friend, 2 weeks ago, I finished reading the book “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World”. If you believe the book’s hypotheses that (A) *High-Quality Work Produced = Time Spent x Intensity of Concentration (= deep work)* and (B) the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy, then the few who cultivate this skill and make it the core of their working life will thrive. *What does this mean?* Our world has been becoming increasingly distracted. Companies earn billions by creating applications capturing our attention. The children and students of today grow up in a world where it seems impossible to cultivate the ability to perform deep work. And the workforce of today is incentivized to sit through several meetings throughout the day, eroding its skill to perform deep work. Those who find ways to perform deep work despite the circumstances will produce outstanding work. Hence, they will never risk losing their job, have great leverage in salary negotiation, and feel a great sense of fulfillment in their work. But how can we actually perform deep work and what are the tangible benefits of it? That’s what today’s blog article will be about. ## Summary: * Deep work is when we work on something for hours without the distraction of something * Contrarily, shallow work is non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted * Deep work enables (1) the ability to quickly master hard things and (2) the ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed ## Practical advice: * Wear noise-canceling headphones whenever you have to perform deep work or lock yourself up in a quiet room * Remove any technical distraction, particularly your smartphone and electronic message apps (email, slack, etc.) * Create a deep work routine for yourself ## Deep work vs. shallow work To better understand what deep work actually is, we first want to understand what is not: “shallow work”. The author of the book, Cal Newport, defines shallow work as non-cognitively demanding, logistical-style tasks, often performed while distracted. A typical example is sitting through a work meeting while writing emails. Further, that’s when we sit in a lecture or class while talking to our friends or being distracted by our smartphones, when we work on something while watching videos or writing every 5 minutes with a friend, or when we study while chatting every 10 minutes with our roommate. These efforts tend to not create much new value and are easy to replicate. Contrarily, deep work is performing activities in a state of distraction-free concentration, pushing our cognitive capabilities to their limit. By performing deep work regularly and towards a certain goal, we create output difficult to replicate fast. Deep work is when we work on something for hours without the distraction of something. It’s when we sit in a quiet room (or at least wear noise-canceling headphones), shut off every source of technical distraction, and made the people around us aware that we don’t want to be distracted. ## Benefits of deep work Deep work enables (1) the ability to quickly master hard things and (2) the ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed. (1) Should you ever want to learn something new in your job, deep work will greatly help you to succeed. For instance, if you want to learn how to code or write more clearly and concisely, you should apply the principles of deep work. (2) If you want to achieve great results, i.e. outperform your peers, or good results faster, i.e. achieve the same results with less work, deep work is what makes you succeed. ## Quick wins to deep work How do I deep work? Even though it’s really challenging to deep work in my job as a consultant (many meetings that have to fit the schedule of my clients, many ad-hoc requests via e-mail, spontaneous phone calls from clients, travel, etc.), I found ways to maximize the amount of deep work. First, I wear my noise-canceling headphones whenever I have to perform deep work, for instance when I work on an Excel model, conceptualize something, or work on the storyline of a document. That helps me to signal to my colleagues that I don’t want to be disturbed and shut off any other physical distraction, such as noises. Second, I stopped checking email and slack messages all the time. I blocked certain slots throughout the day to work through the pile of messages so I can work more concentrated during my deep work phases. Further, I created a deep work routine for myself at the weekend. Currently, I’m trying to learn more about the latest technologies, such as blockchain technology, to identify and evaluate potential business opportunities. As that requires learning something new, I decided for myself to do that in deep work. So, I blocked 3 hours on my Sunday mornings and designed a habit around it: First, I make a cup of coffee. Second, I screen the to-dos I want to accomplish for this 3-hour session. Third, I write down what I actually want to accomplish in the next 3 hours. Forth, I lock myself up with no smartphone and start to deep work. --- # How to properly design habits - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-properly-design-habits - Date: 2022-05-01 - Categories: Goal Achievement > *Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going –* Jim Ryun Dear friend, Have you ever tried to implement a new habit, e.g., doing sports, reading, or going for a walk, or to stop a habit, e.g., smoking or eating candy? It’s not that easy. In the beginning, implementing a new habit takes a lot of discipline. We need to consistently perform it and motivate ourselves until it is set. However, we can greatly increase our chances of successfully implementing a new habit if we “design” it properly. The more sophisticated the design, the less discipline will need to perform it consistently. For instance, people often ask me how I can work full-time (working long hours, traveling a lot, etc.) and still do sports 6x a week. The answer is that I designed this habit of doing sports in a way that the chances to actually do it are maximized. I had to find the right “trigger” so that it’s guaranteed that I will perform this habit. In today’s article, I will write about how habits work by deconstructing them into a simple model, why habits and thus this model are so powerful, and how you can successfully implement new habits, too. ## Summary: * Basically, every habit consists of 3 parts: (1) trigger (2) behavior (3) reward * Habits can emerge outside our consciousness or can be deliberately designed * No matter what, the stronger a habit is established, the less we think about it, e.g., brushing our teeth or taking a shower ## Practical advice: * Make sure to pick a trigger that you can strongly rely on and allow you to perform the habit consistently * The reward we provide ourselves once we performed a habit is a great lever as well to lower the amount of willpower required * To increase the chances that we form a new habit, we should write down the habit: “When … (trigger), I do … (actual habit) so that I … (reward) ## How habits work Author and writer of the well-known book “the power of habits”, Charles Duhigg, developed an easy but powerful model to illustrate how habits work: Basically, every habit consists of 3 parts: (1) trigger (2) behavior (3) reward. The (1) trigger can be everything as long as it is consistent: A certain time (6 pm), event (waking up), place (your bed), behavior (your dog barking), etc. The (2) behavior is the actual habit, such as brushing your teeth, reading a book, working out, watching the news, etc. The (3) reward can also be everything as long as it is consistent: You treat yourself with some candy (after a study session), you get a boost of dopamine (after overcoming your fear), you feel energized (after a nap), you feel clean (after showering), etc. ## Why habits are so powerful Habits can emerge outside our consciousness or can be deliberately designed. They often occur without our permission but can be reshaped. They shape our lives far more than we realize. For instance, the science of habits is used to sell products. Almost every major retailer, from grocery chains to investment banks to the postal service, has a marketing sub-department devoted to understanding not only our shopping habits but also our personal habits to more efficiently market to us. That’s why toothpaste gives us a clean and tingly feeling or why cleaners of every kind smell good even though from a dental health or sanitation perspective we wouldn’t need that (or it’s even sub-optimal). Habits are such a powerful tool because they *make us do things on autopilot*. No matter what, the stronger a habit is established, the less we think about it, e.g., brushing our teeth or taking a shower. Based on Charles Duhigg’s book and the habit model, I formed several new habits, most of which I perform consistently on autopilot, i.e., I don’t even think about doing them anymore. For example, I read at least 10 minutes every day, journal for 5 minutes every day, do sports 6x a week, take cold showers, or go for a walk every day. All these things required a great amount of discipline in the beginning, but as I performed them consistently, habits formed. ## How to form a new habit Coming back to the question of how I can work full-time and regularly do sports the answer is clear: I just had to design a proper habit. In this case, I had to make sure to pick a trigger that I can strongly rely on and that allows me to perform the habit consistently. In my case, before I go to bed, I prepare my sports outfit incl. shoes and already put on my sports t-shirt. Once I wake up, I brush my teeth, drink a good amount of water and a scoop of creatine, and go to the gym. Cues that didn’t (promise to) work are “before dinner”, “after dinner”, “after finishing work”, “before going to bed”, etc. While these “temporal cues” are very reliant, they didn’t allow me to perform the habit consistently. Once my workday started, it’s highly unpredictable when it ends, I have dinner, or go to bed. This uncertainty makes it very difficult to form a habit. The key to forming a habit is to do it as consistently as possible. In the beginning, we’ve to invest willpower first. The better we design the cue, though, the less willpower will be required. Moreover, the reward we provide ourselves once we performed a habit is a great lever as well to lower the amount of willpower required. For instance, if you love smoothies, you can reward yourself with a smoothie after a workout. To increase the chances that we form a new habit, we can write down the habit: “When … (trigger), I do … (actual habit) so that I … (reward). For instance, “when I wake up and brushed my teeth, I go to the gym for a 40-minute workout so that I feel energized and motivated for the day and stay healthy and fit for my whole life”. --- # A life without regrets – how to find out what you want from life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/a-life-without-regrets-how-to-find-out-what-you-want-from-life - Date: 2022-04-24 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being *Live life to the fullest because you only get to live it once* Dear friend, This week, I was on vacation. I traveled back to my hometown and spent some time with my family. During the 6-hour train ride, I reflected on questions nagging me for quite some time: “Why do I love working that much?”, “When did I become *ambitious*?”, “What were the triggers?”, and “Is there something *wrong* with me?”. Luckily, as at the end of most of my reflection sessions, I could find some reasonable answers. Since I was in high school, I’ve dedicated a lot of time to achieving certain goals. For instance, in high school, I wanted to achieve perfect grades and spent 1.5x-2x the amount of time on school as the average student did. All the people surrounding me told me that I was really ambitious. Yet, back then, I didn’t really think of myself as ambitious. I didn’t compare myself to anyone. I greatly disliked the idea of comparing myself to others. So, I didn’t perceive myself as more ambitious than others. When observing my younger siblings who are currently attending high school, I witness ambitious youths who are at least as smart as I’m. However, they don’t push themselves as much as I did back then. They neither have the desire to ace every exam nor are they willing to study as much as I used to have. So, what’s different? I exactly knew what I wanted. I wrote down clear goals and ever since, I’ve been working towards them. This clarity greatly fueled my actions and desire. Most people I asked and observed lack this clarity. While they have a rough image of what their future should look like, it’s rather vague. And because it’s rather vague, it doesn’t provide the fuel for their actions. That’s not bad per se. You don’t have to clearly know what you want from life to have a happy and fulfilled one. However, you won’t be able to tap what life has all to offer, and, ultimately, you might end up with some regrets. For instance, if you never ask yourself what your “ideal normal day” looks like, you won’t achieve it. In today’s blog article, I will write about how to determine what you want from life so that you’re more motivated and can live a life without regrets. ## Practical advice: * Imagine yourself 10 years in the future and ask yourself what does your “ideal normal” day look like * Next, ask yourself with whom and how much time you want to spend in 10 years * Lastly, ask yourself what things you (don’t) want to possess in 10 years ## Your ideal normal day Imagine yourself 10 years in the future and ask yourself *what does your “ideal normal” day look like?* Thereby, “normal” means your average day – let’s say 300 out of the 365 days of the year, and “ideal” implies attainable but ambitious. Here’s an example from someone I asked how his ideal normal day would look like: 8:30 – Waking up with a good amount of sleep 8:45 – Getting ready for the day by taking a shower 9:00 – Going to a local bakery nearby together with his girlfriend and having a good breakfast 9:30 – Commuting to work (ideally within walking distance) 10:00 – Working as a team leader in a project-oriented role 14:00 – Eating lunch together with his colleagues 14:30 – Continuing working 17:30 – Doing sports together with his friends/ colleagues (ideally outdoor team sports) 19:00 – Cooking and eating dinner with his girlfriend 21:00 – Meeting with friends (ideally in a producer studio) 22:00 – Ending day together with his girlfriend 23:30 – Going to sleep Answering this question has significant implications. In his case, he couldn’t work in highly demanding (e.g., medical doctor) or inflexible (e.g., shift work) jobs. Further, he has to acquire management capabilities to achieve a team manager position while simultaneously working in a position promising a 37.5-hour week. That’s attainable but definitely something he has to work for. ## Social circle Next, ask yourself with whom and how much time you want to spend in 10 years. How many hours per week do you spend with your partner, your colleagues, your parents, your siblings, each of your friends (many narrow vs. few deep friendships), and other (meaningful) relationships? This question will specify what you want from life in terms of how much time you will spend “working” vs. “socializing”, and where you will live (e.g., within close proximity to family and old friends). ## Things you (don’t) want to have Lastly, ask yourself what things you (don’t) want to possess in 10 years. For instance, I don’t want to live in my own house but rent a convenient and large-enough apartment, drive an electric car with an easily accessible charging station, earn enough money to travel wherever I want without thinking about whether I can afford it, or acquire tools and software to create whenever and whatever I want. Answering this and the other 2 questions will sharpen what you want from life. And once you have a concrete image, your desire to make it happen ignites. The more concrete the image and the stronger your belief that you will achieve it, the stronger your motivation and will. --- # How to stay calm in stressful situations - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-stay-calm-in-stressful-situations - Date: 2022-04-17 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being *Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows. It empties today of its strength* —Corrie Ten Boom Dear friend, This week, I almost missed my flight. 30 minutes before take-off and 15 minutes before the gate closed, I arrived at the airport. As I wasn’t checked in yet (I forgot to check in online and online check-in isn’t possible when takeoff is in less than 1 hour), I first had to get my boarding pass before I could go through the security check. Luckily, the employee at the counter was professional and didn’t blame me for anything. He just called his colleagues at the gate whether I could still be check-in even though I might be at the gate a few minutes after gate closing. Eventually, everything went well. There were even 2 groups of people boarding later than me. My younger self would have panicked from the moment he knew that he was late, however, I kept calm. I knew that stressing out myself wouldn’t help me in this situation. In fact, I felt no difference at all. On my 30-minute drive to the airport, I continued working as usual, writing some emails and working on a few slides. There are various situations in life in which we stress out even though we could stay calm, e.g., writing an exam or waiting for our own presentation to start. But why do we stress out in the first place, why is it actually counterproductive, and what we can do to stay calm more often? That’s what today’s blog article will be about. ## Summary: * Stress is usually triggered when we experience something new, unexpected, or threatening, or when we feel we have little control over a situation * Stress is our body’s and mind’s signal that the respective situation is important * Even though stress provides helpful energy and focus, too much stress in certain situations is a bad thing ## Practical advice: * First, ask yourself whether your stress response is helping you in any way in the current situation. Write the answer down * Second, ask yourself what you should do in this very situation to make the most out of it * Third, actually do what you identified as the best thing to do ## Why we stress out Many different situations or life events can cause stress. It’s usually triggered when we experience something new, unexpected, or threatening, or when we feel we have little control over a situation. And it manifests in various ways: The heart beats faster and stronger, sweat production increases, the mind becomes blurred, and focus is lost. Stressful situations trigger so-called *fight or flight* responses. As you might have experienced by yourself, most of this happens to us without our consent. That’s because the sympathetic nervous system as part of our autonomic nervous system (ANS) drives this fight or flight response, and the ANS is mainly working by regulating the body’s unconscious actions. ## Acute stress can be counterproductive Even though I’m a great fan of stress as it provides energy and focus, too much stress in certain situations like an exam is a bad thing. For instance, if I had stressed out when I was late for the flight, I would have wasted precious minutes at work. The same goes for other situations in which too much acute stress leads to an adverse outcome. Stress is our body’s and mind’s signal that the respective situation is important. While in many situations that’s quite helpful, e.g., we have to work on an important project, in many other situations stress makes us so aroused that we can no longer handle it. To perform optimally in every area of our life, hence, we have to learn to better make use of stress, i.e. let our body experience stress responses when we need them and calm ourselves down in case we experience too much of it. ## How to calm down When I experience too much acute stress, I follow a 3 step process to calm myself down: First, I ask myself whether my stress response is helping me in any way in the current situation. Most of the time the answer is no. Too much stress is almost never a good thing. Yet, we need to tell ourselves that being stressed isn’t bad at all but a sign that the situation is important to us. When I was late for my flight, I ask myself this very question and wrote my answer down. By writing down the answer, I reinforced the effect and was immediately calm again. Second, I ask what I should do in this very situation to make the most out of it. During the drive to the airport, I knew that I should make efficient use of the time and continue to work. Before an exam or presentation, I should practice the relevant contents to get my brain ready to perform. Third, I actually do what I identified as the best thing to do. In case my stress level rises again, I repeat step 1 and remind myself that stress is a sign that the situation is important to me. --- # Why I am happy working long hours - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-i-am-happy-working-long-hours - Date: 2022-04-10 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being *Life is more meaningful when you are always looking to grow and working toward a goal –* Les Brown Dear friend, People regularly ask me “how long do you actually work?” and “how long are you going to do that”? Since I entered high school, I’ve been working a lot. In high school, I spent at least 50 hours per week achieving A+ grades. In university, my combined workload (studying, volunteering, working as a working student) often surpassed the 70 hours threshold. And now, in consulting, I’m dedicating most of my time from Monday to Friday to my clients and from Saturday to Sunday to my other projects including content creation or studying blockchain technology. Today, it’s Saturday morning, I woke up at 6 am. I have a full to-do list for today, including writing this blog post, recording a YouTube video, meeting a friend, doing sports, and further expanding my knowledge about blockchain. I don’t have to wake up that early and do all these things and don’t have financial incentives to do them. I just love doing them. Coming back to the initial questions: While many people can understand why it’s not that easy to explain how much I actually “work”, most people cannot understand why I could do that forever. People often talk about work-life balance, having enough time to do the things we enjoy while earning enough money to sustain that lifestyle. When taking a look at my life, you could think there’s neither balance nor life. Rather, it could be seen more like a “work-work balance”. However, I’m happier than ever in my life. My work doesn’t feel like what most people think of work. I love doing all these things, and I often have to put my foot on the break to force myself to pause. In today’s blog article, I will write about why I’m “working” that much, what makes me really happy, and what you can do to make your work more enjoyable, too. ## Summary: * A strong purpose is what fuels desire * Everything bringing us closer to our purpose is meaningful to us, making us happier people * However, the things meaningful to you might be totally meaningless to others, and vice versa ## Practical advice: * Rigorously cut out what’s not meaningful whether it’s people or activities * Withstanding FOMO and, instead, doing something meaningful makes you a happier person * Constantly push yourself to “add variety” to your life, i.e. trying out new things, while, simultaneously, don’t do things twice that didn’t provide any meaning ## A highly personal way of living Reflecting on the reasons why I enjoy working that much, I conclude that the main reason is my personal circumstances. For years, I’ve been working a lot. It’s not that from one day to another I changed my lifestyle, but it’s been more of a gradual process. I got used to it. And it’s not something that randomly happened to me, but I’ve been consciously shaping my life ever since. I regularly ask myself how I can live without regret and with maximum joy. Based on the answers, I make all my decisions whether small or life-changing. As a result, there’s not much left besides the people and activities that mean the most to me. I rigorously cut out what’s not meaningful whether it’s people or activities. The thing is what’s meaningful to me might be totally meaningless to you, and vice versa. I couldn’t be happier typing these words after going to bed early yesterday evening, greeting my wonderful girlfriend with a morning kiss, and continuing working on my other projects until noon. Contrarily, you might enjoy watching Netflix or scrolling on Instagram until midnight, sleeping until 9 am, taking your time to have an ample breakfast, making yourself ready for the day, and watching a YouTube video until noon. I just cut out most of these things as they aren’t that meaningful to me and filled them with something I enjoy more. ## Desire and purpose What greatly fuels my desire to “work” that much is a strong purpose. I want to make the most out of my limited lifetime by accelerating technological progress and creating a world of equality, peace, and happiness for everyone. Every day, I want to serve as a role model, be part of the whole, love and laugh infinitely, and discover every day as a new opportunity. Everything bringing me closer to my purpose is meaningful to me and hence makes me a happier person. I truly believe my job and all the site projects greatly contribute to my purpose. In my job, I seek to help my clients to make positive, enduring change in the world by solving tough problems. For instance, I helped a company to build and grow a subsidiary that will greatly contribute to our world’s transition to a carbon-free world. With my site projects, I want to spread my learnings, help others to grow personally, and be the person I needed when I was young. ## Fear of missing out What makes us waste a lot of time on things that aren’t meaningful to us is FOMO – fear of missing out. For instance, I often went to parties even though they were pretty crap only because I didn’t want to miss out on anything. Due to my strong purpose, I can handle FOMO pretty well today. I learned that withstanding my FOMO and, instead, doing something meaningful makes me a happier person. For instance, going early to bed instead of watching Netflix late at night or reading a book instead of scrolling on Instagram. As a result, though, I’ve developed a “fear of wasting time”. While on the one hand, that helps me to do more of the things that are meaningful to me, on the other hand, that bears the risk to lead to a monotone life. Sometimes, we have to try things out even though they might not mean anything to us. Hence, I constantly push myself to “add variety” to my life, i.e. trying out new things, while, simultaneously, I don’t do things twice that didn’t provide my life with any meaning. --- # Reliability matters — how to become more reliable - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/reliability-matters-how-to-become-more-reliable - Date: 2022-04-03 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Relationships *A man who lacks reliability is utterly useless. –* Confucius Dear friend, This week I failed. I had scheduled a short meeting with a founder of a web3 startup and forgot to dial in. The meeting was late at 9 pm, and yes, I was still busy. But I could have set an alarm on my smartphone, written a stickie note on my laptop, or used any other method to remind myself that I had this meeting. This incident is still bothering me for 2 reasons: (1) I had high expectations for the meeting. This conversation would have brought me greatly ahead on my journey to explore the space of web3 and its opportunities from a business perspective. Failing to do this meeting feels like a step backward. (2) I greatly dislike my own unreliability. Time is the most precious thing we have. I’m very thoughtful regarding whom or what I spend time on and appreciative when someone spends his/her time with me. As I really don’t want my time to be wasted and would never expect others to do something I wouldn’t do, I feel kinda ashamed when I’m unreliable by myself. In today’s blog article, I will write about why reliability matters a lot and what we can do to be more reliable. ## Summary: * Whether at work or in our private life, reliability is important. We inherently value reliability * Reliability comes down to respecting the most precious resource of people: time. And it’s not only the time of others but also our own time we respect when we hold ourselves accountable to be reliable * When it comes to reliability we can do 100 things right and still be seen as unreliable if we fail to do another thing as expected ## Practical advice: * First, we have to understand how reliable we actually are * Second, we should always manage expectations properly. It’s much better to underpromise and deliver a proper result than overpromise and deliver a good to a very good result * Third, we should manage our commitments. Being reliable does not mean saying yes to everyone ## Reliability matters. A lot. Whether at work or in our private life, reliability is important. We inherently value reliability. We all value… * reliable parcel and mail carriers who deliver on time * reliable airlines that take off on time * reliable restaurants that have quality food and service At work, efficiency increases if all employees of an organization can rely on each other. Less time is wasted when multiple people don’t have to wait for that 1 co-worker to come 5 minutes late. And receiving requests on time makes our own work easier. Research shows that reliable people find and keep friends more easily, forge deeper relationships, obtain better work opportunities, are granted more autonomy at work, and have more self-confidence. I greatly value reliability. I deliberately choose whom I spend time with, and the more unreliable someone is, the less time I want to spend with this person. Vice versa, I fully understand if someone doesn’t want to spend time with me if I didn’t respect their time. Ultimately, reliability comes down to respect – respecting the most precious resource of people: time. And it’s not only the time of others but also our own time we respect when we hold ourselves accountable to be reliable. ## A minimum reliability standard We all have a more or less different understanding of what reliability actually means. Often, people we perceive as unreliable don’t even think of them as unreliable. But it’s not just people who have a different understanding of reliability. While, in Germany, the main railway company “Deutsch Bahn” considers trains as late only if they arrive more than 5 minutes late, in Japan, a train is considered late from the first minute. I set for myself high “reliability standards” and hold myself accountable for them. That’s for 2 reasons: (1) I would never expect someone to do something I’m not willing to do. So, if I want others to be reliable, I’ve to be reliable by myself (even though I would never expect someone to match these standards). (2) As written previously, it’s not only the time of others but also our own time we respect when we hold ourselves accountable to be reliable. By adhering to these high standards, I make the most out of my time. My reliability standards encompass for instance… * always calling back/ answering friends if they need something * always being punctual * always keeping my promise * always sticking to my words * always delivering what was expected ## Become more reliable Reliability is measured not by how often we do something but by how often we don’t do something. When it comes to reliability we can do 100 things right and still be seen as unreliable if we fail to do another thing as expected. Whether that’s right or wrong is questionable, however, that’s what it is. If friends and family tell you that you’re too unreliable, that’s an issue. On the one hand, you most likely don’t understand the consequence of being perceived as unreliable, on the other hand, you don’t even know what it takes to be perceived as reliable. If people start telling you that you’re too unreliable, you’re not just unreliable but you’re most likely on the brink of being unreliable to a socially unacceptable degree. People will start, for instance, spending less time with you, not wanting to work with you, or not recommending you to anyone. Probably even worse, you won’t really notice. For example, I love doing referrals, connecting people with each other, and helping them. But I would never recommend someone to someone in my network or to my employer if this person is unreliable. And while I directly tell a person that I won’t do it, for this reason, 90% of people wouldn’t be that honest. To be more reliable, thus, we have to first understand how reliable we actually are: How often do we fail to stick to our words? How often do we fail to be punctual? How often do we fail to answer a message of a friend? How often do we fail to call back someone? Second, we should always manage expectations properly. It’s much better to underpromise and deliver a proper result than overpromise and deliver a good to a very good result. I’d suggest underpromising and over-delivering. If you think a task will take 1 hour, say it will take 1.5 hours and deliver in 1.25 hours a high-quality result. Third, we should manage our commitments. Being reliable does not mean saying yes to everyone. To say “no” more often, we should never commit to something directly but tell people we need time to think about it. If we don’t feel like “Hell yeah”, we should rather say no than yes. --- # Learning something new – what an incredible journey so far - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/learning-something-new-what-an-incredible-journey-so-far - Date: 2022-03-27 - Categories: Goal Achievement *The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing –* Albert Einstein Dear friend, Last night at 10.30 pm, I had a meeting with an American I got to know on LinkedIn. He gave me great advice on how to learn more about Web3 (blockchain, decentralized finance, NFTs, etc.) from a business perspective. As a successful founder and Harvard business graduate, he provided me exactly with the knowledge I needed. So, having this meeting even that late at night was definitely worthwhile. Overall, the conversation was incredibly valuable to me for 2 reasons: (1) It brought me very far ahead on my journey to learn about opportunities in the space of Web3. (2) It made me very excited about it. Since I was a kid I loved learning. I’ve always been a very curious person. I remember the days when my dad picked me up for the weekend. During the 30-minute drive, I couldn’t stop asking him about things I didn’t know or understand while he fueled my curiosity by providing me with great explanations about all the different things. Today, though, I have to realize that I don’t really spend much time learning something new. Once we enter our first job, we make a 180-degree turn: from learning insights as a student to producing insights as a knowledge worker. It’s not that we stop learning and stagnate once we enter the job world. Actually, we do a ton of stuff making us even more valuable to the job market. Yet, it’s rather improving our current skill set, e.g., communication skills, and already existing expertise, e.g., in marketing. To learn something new, thus, we have to force ourselves and spend time asking questions, reading, listening, and watching. In my case, I spent my last weekends, or at least a few hours of them, learning about Web3 and possible business opportunities. But why do I want to learn about things like Web3, why should we never stop learning new things, and how can we best acquire new knowledge? This is what today’s blog article will be about. ## Summary: * When we’re in college, we learn so many new things that we would rather learn less than more * Once we enter the professional world, though, the situation turns around. After the first few months with a steep learning curve, we don’t really learn anything new * By learning new things, we enable ourselves to better envision a future and build it ## Practical advice: * First and foremost, the most valuable source to learn is people * Second, I recommend listening to podcasts, particularly at the beginning of the journey to get a better sense of the broad picture * Third, newsletters, blog articles, and books are the best source to deepen knowledge ## Learning about Web3 Web3 will become a major part of our future. And that makes me very curious to learn more about the technology behind it and the opportunities it brings along. Today, we spend major parts of our time online. Most knowledge workers, people who earn money by thinking and solving problems, work on a personal computer, interacting with information and other people via tools and applications such as Google Mail, Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Office. What we can tell from the last decade: We will spend rather more than less time online in the upcoming years. Almost every part of our life can be digitized and interlinked via the world wide web. And while we as a society and the tools we make use of will evolve, the infrastructure that all is built upon will do, too. Web3 can be seen as a new iteration of the internet harnessing blockchain technology. In contrast to the “current internet” (”Web2”) characterized by large enterprises, such as Microsoft or Amazon, managing major parts of it centrally e.g. via Amazon Web Services, Web3 is characterized by a decentralized network of players not only using but managing it. As consumers/users of the next-generation internet Web3, we will have more transparency, more power, and more utility. Even though the concept of Web3 has been around for over half a decade, it first gained traction in 2021 with the surge of interest in blockchain technologies, expanding NFT markets, venture capital investments, and ongoing calls to reduce or at least limit the power of big tech players. I truly believe that Web3 will be the future of our world. It’s like back in the late 90s when the first internet companies like Amazon started. Nobody really knew what would happen and what the internet of today would actually look like. Yet, as with every other technology, change is for sure. ## Never stop learning When we’re in college, we learn so many new things that we would rather learn less than more. Once we enter the professional world, though, the situation turns around. After the first few months with a steep learning curve, we don’t really learn anything new. We become experts for whatever we’re doing. And only a minority spends a conscious effort to continuously learn something new. For me, it’s clear that I’ve to never stop learning. I decided for myself that I will never be satisfied with anything. Life is a like train ride on which we travel to beautiful destinations. It’s important to pause and rest at some destinations to enjoy what we’ve achieved. Yet, we have to get back on the train as, otherwise, we will get stuck, get used to it, and miss other great places. When I will be 80, I don’t want to regret not living my life to the fullest. People who seek new knowledge and skills have the best chances to change our world for the better. By learning new things, we enable ourselves to better envision a future and build it. Someone who has no clue how to use a computer, use software, or browse on the internet, won’t have a chance to harness this powerful technology. The same goes for almost anything else. Once we enter the professional world and become masters of our role, we stop learning to adopt new technologies. That’s why many elder people don’t even know how to download an app on a smartphone. ## How to learn new things First and foremost, the most valuable source to learn is people. When we talk to people advanced in a topic, we can accelerate our learning rate. I got some friends in the crypto and web3 space, whom I contacted immediately so I can talk to them. Additionally, we can ask co-workers, fellow students, and family whether they know someone in the space. Second, I recommend listening to podcasts, particularly at the beginning of the journey to get a better sense of the broad picture. Third, newsletters, blog articles, and books are the best source to deepen your knowledge. Experts of any topic publish their knowledge on the internet or at least as a book. By reading their work, we can directly tap their expertise and make it our own. Ultimately, though, we have to put our new knowledge into practice. So, we should at least talk about our findings with friends, family, or colleagues. Ideally, we put our knowledge into practice, for instance, I’m going to program a smart contract today. --- # What makes for a dream job? - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/science-proven-what-makes-for-a-dream-job - Date: 2022-03-20 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being *Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.* — Confucius Dear friend, Among the top 3 most important questions we need to answer in our 20s is *what do I want to do for a living?* This question has a massive impact on our lives. Once we enter our first job, we will spend about 80,000 hours working. And even before that, this question affects whether we want to go to university, how much time we spend on studying, with whom we want to spend time, etc. To me, it’s always been clear what I want to do for a living. Even before high school, I had a pretty clear picture of what I will do after graduating from university. That sounds extreme, I know. And honestly, that’s quite dangerous, too. When I set goals with 16, I knew only a fraction of what I knew 5 years later; hence, my decision-making and goal-setting skills were poor. Even though I aimed for a job that retrospectively was a great decision, I wish I had done many things differently. For instance, I should have studied computer science or physics because I studied business out of fear whereas computer science and physics were my real passions in high school. But how do we find out what we want to do for a living? The typical advice is to do what you’re passionate about. But that’s bullshit. First of all, most of us don’t really have a passion. Most of us don’t even have a hobby. 70% of my fellow students in high school – including me – had no good answer when we should write or talk about our passions/ hobbies. Second, even if we have a hobby/ passion, it’s a huge difference to do something because it’s fun and to do something for a living. Athletes, musicians, artists, etc. earning enough to make a living – they all have to work their asses off, push themselves every day, work when work isn’t easy, and there’s no such thing as I don’t want to exercise or perform today. Now, what should we do instead? How can we find an answer to the question of what we should do for a living? Benjamin Todd – a former student of the University of Oxford – raised millions in funding and hired a team to find a science-proven answer to this question. Since then they have spoken to hundreds of experts and screened all the relevant literature, and based on that, provided advice to over a million people. In today’s article, I will summarize Benjamin Todd’s and his team’s framework to *what you should aim for in a dream job* so that you can either find your answer to the question of what you want to do for a living or re-evaluate what you’ve already aimed for so that you don’t make the same mistake as I did. ## Summary: * According to science, we’re incredibly bad at predicting what will make us most happy, and we don’t even realize how bad we are * While the evidence shows that money makes us happier, it’s only to a certain extent * Stress isn’t always bad. It’s bad when we are demanded too much and don’t feel in control ## Practical advice: * Seek work that’s engaging and helps others * Aspire to work in a job you want to become really good at * Screen your future employer with respect to a supportive work environment ## All we want is to be happy The basic premise for the following framework is that we want to live a happy and fulfilled life. If you want to get rich and/ or famous – no matter the risks such as depression, anxiety, or chronic stress – this framework isn’t for you. That also includes people who aim for a life of “financial independence”, i.e. working their asses off no matter how miserable the work is just to be able to live a life in their 30s/40s that won’t make them significantly happier. According to science, we’re incredibly bad at predicting what will make us most happy, and we don’t even realize how bad we are (you can find an excellent overview of this research in “Stumbling Upon Happiness” by Havard Professor Dan Gilbert). So, first of all, we should clarify (A) what won’t make us most happy even though we think it will do, and (B) what will actually make us most happy. (A) 2 things are commonly believed: (1) Rich people have a happier life (2) Stress is bad for us and should be avoided to be happy. (1) While the evidence shows that money makes us happier, it’s only to a certain extent. Once we reach a certain threshold – about 80,000 EUR household income – the marginal gain of additional money is very low. And once we reach 150,000 – 200,000 EUR, there’s no measurable gain anymore. Contrarily, though, the risks and burdens of wealth increase. For instance, if you become a millionaire you cannot be sure that people hang around you because of your money. Further, you have to ensure your wealth is protected against financial risks. So, we should aim for a job that pays well but not for a job that makes us rich. (2) Stress isn’t always bad. It’s bad when we are demanded too much and don’t feel in control. Contrarily, a job that is highly demanding, but you feel capable to meet these demands, will make you feel greatly engaged and hence happy. So, we shouldn’t seek a job that isn’t stressful but a job where we’re well supported to meet the demands of it. ## Key ingredients for a dream job (B) To find out what will actually make us most happy in a job, Benjamin Todd and his team harnessed the evidence gained in the field of Positive Psychology. According to Martin Seligman, the most renowned researcher in this field, there are 5 key ingredients of wellbeing (happiness): 1. Positive emotion, i.e. feeling happy day-to-day 2. Engagement – having challenging tasks 3. Relationships – having supportive friends and family 4. Meaning – having a purpose higher than oneself 5. Achievement – being good at something Benjamin Todd took those and combined them with research on job satisfaction and motivation. As a result, he found 6 factors a dream job comprises: ### Work that’s engaging What really matters in your job is what you do every day and every hour. Thus, it’s key to do work that’s engaging. Typical characteristics of engaging work are: (a) freedom to decide how to perform your task (b) clear tasks, with clearly defined start and end (c) variety in the types of task (d) feedback. These 4 factors are the most empirically verified predictors of job satisfaction. So, when screening job descriptions and asking friends and fellow students about their experience with a job, keep these 4 factors in mind. They will greatly determine how satisfied you’ll be in your job. ### Work you’re good at Being good at your job gives you the required sense of achievement. It’s a great motivator in your daily work life. Many students don’t know what they are good at and whether their skillset matches their desired job. In this case, we should at least have the aspiration to become good at the job we chose. For instance, if you want to become an accountant and haven’t worked as an accountant before, you should at least be willing to become a very good accountant. ### Work that helps others To increase your job satisfaction, you should not only do something that’s engaging and you’re good at but also work to help others. While fashion design and TV newscasting offer very engaging work, these jobs are not merely as meaningful as e.g. fire service officer, nurse, or neurosurgeon. ### Work with supportive colleagues Good relationships is a top 3 factor for a happy, fulfilled life. As we work major parts of our lifetime, we should become friends with at least a couple of colleagues. While your dream position can be ruined by a few awful colleagues, boring work can be fun if done with a friend. Moreover, a supportive environment is crucial. You should work rather in a position where you’ll receive help, feedback, and collaborate well with your colleagues. ### Lack of major negatives Finally, factors 5 and 6 are a lack of major negatives and a fit with the rest of your life. Even if all other factors are check-marked, there’re certain factors (negatives) that will ruin the job. Typical negatives include: * A long commute, such as 1 hour by bus * Very long working hours * Unfair pay * Job insecurity Finally, the job itself has to fit with the rest of your personal life. --- # Without this mindset you won’t climb the career ladder - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/without-this-mindset-you-wont-climb-the-career-ladder - Date: 2022-03-13 - Categories: Goal Achievement *Taking complete ownership of your outcomes by holding no one but yourself responsible for them is the most powerful thing you can do to drive your success –* Garry W. Keller Dear friend, This week, I once again reflected on my professional development. I asked myself “Did I progress?”, “What helped me to progress?”, and “What prevented me to progress?”. Thereby, I came to the conclusion that my progress was mainly due to my *end-to-end (E2E) ownership mindset*. *Ownership* is when we assume that taking action isn’t someone else’s responsibility but ours and that we’re accountable for the quality and timing of an outcome, even when we’re working with others. In this context, *E2E* implies assuming ownership from identifying a situation requiring action and drawing conclusions on its significance to tackling it and making sure the situation is handled. In today’s article, I will write about what assuming E2E ownership looks like, why it’s a prerequisite for fast career development, and what you can do to adopt this mindset, too. ## Summary: * Assuming E2E ownership makes you care. You continuously look for situations requiring attention and make sure they are handled * What executives look for in their managers and successors are people who (A) solve problems and (B) are great leaders * Showcasing E2E ownership is one of few factors that make you fulfill these criteria and hence accelerate your career ## Practical advice: * *What would I do if I were the owner of the company? –* By answering this question and thinking through a situation, you better sense whether it requires attention and what you could do * If that doesn’t help as you cannot imagine what the CEO/ owner would do, you could try to view the situation from the perspective of your manager’s managers as their work is closer to you * A great exercise to put that into practice is to think about the potential next 3 steps before and after every meeting you have ## What does E2E ownership look like Essentially, E2E ownership comes down to 3 aspects: (1) You proactively assume responsibility for issues or opportunities. (2) You think through those and potential outcomes. Thereby, you contemplate at least 3 next steps. (3) You ensure the issue/ opportunity is taken care of and necessary actions are taken. Here is an example: Imagine you work in the logistics department of a fashion retail company, e.g. H&M. Let’s say you’re in inbound logistics and responsible for the coordination of good intake. Your company lacks transparency over its overall logistics flows, particularly due to the increase in the e-commerce business, which requires smaller and faster shipments. Usually, you wouldn’t care. It’s an issue that neither directly affects you and your work nor is acute. Assuming E2E ownership, though, makes you care. You continuously look for situations requiring attention and make sure they are handled. In this example, you could proactively estimate the business impact of the increase in the e-commerce business. Once you have a rough estimate and can conclude that’s an issue worth handling, you could devise an approach on how to handle it and what it will take. Then, you could talk to your manager and, even in case of resistance, ensure the issue is handled. ## Fast career development What executives look for in their managers and successors are people who (A) solve problems and (B) are great leaders. Showcasing E2E ownership is one of the few factors that make you fulfill these criteria and hence accelerate your career. The following 3 reasons explain why. First, E2E ownership is the prerequisite for being a leader. Even though it’s only the CxOs that *must* assume E2E ownership, taking a “low-level” managing position requires assuming ownership, too. And the higher you climb the career ladder, the greater is the amount of required ownership. The thing is that you often won’t be promoted unless you’ve already showcased the necessary skills of the designated position. Therefore, to become a candidate considered for managing/ higher positions, you have to showcase ownership to the desired degree. Second, the earlier you practice taking (E2E) ownership, the faster you’ll learn and the lower the stakes. As in lower positions you’re not required to assume (E2E) ownership, mistakes and failing, in general, have less severe consequences. Hence, the earlier in your career you start to practice this skill, the better. Third, those who take ownership and are granted the responsibility to tackle an issue, have (more) control over their work and hence a higher degree of freedom. This will allow you to do more of the work you like and are good at, making you solve problems better. ## Adopt an E2E ownership mindset *What would I do if I were the owner of the company? –* By answering this question and thinking through a situation, you better sense whether it requires attention and what you could do. If that doesn’t help as you cannot imagine what the CEO/ owner would do, you could try to view the situation from the perspective of your manager’s managers as their work is closer to you. Yet, it’s key to not view the situation from your manager’s or your own perspective since that won’t yield the desired results. Adopting an (E2E) ownership mindset though takes a lot of practice. It’s not that you just remind yourself to view a situation from a certain perspective and you’re suddenly able to be E2E responsible, but rather it takes practice, a conscious effort, and stamina. Your managers might put down your effort to take more responsibility. You might not know what to do next. Or you might don’t have the energy to take more responsibility. Yet, that’s what (E2E) ownership takes. There are no excuses. Leaders have to get things done. And if you want to climb the leadership ladder, you have to learn how you can showcase (E2E) in every situation. A great exercise to put that into practicece is to think about the potential next 3 steps before and after every meeting you have. Here is an example: A 2-hour workshop on a market analysis is coming up. In the workshop, you will discuss insights gained through customer interviews and potential implications for your product portfolio. Potential next steps could be to (A) prepare and conduct a follow-up workshop to refine the analyses and make decisions based on them (B) distribute the insights gained in the organization by synthesizing them and sharing them with the relevant teams (C) conduct further interviews to validate new hypotheses coming up in the workshop. You propose these next steps at the end of the meeting. Once agreed upon them, you ensure every next step is performed and follow-up actions are defined. --- # Using the pyramid principle can incredibly improve your communication - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/using-the-pyramid-principle-can-incredibly-improve-your-communication - Date: 2022-03-06 - Categories: Communication *The way we communicate with others and ourselves ultimately determines our quality of life.* – Tony Robbins Dear friend, After my first consulting project last year, I had a feedback session with my project manager. Typical for newly hired consultants, I was encouraged to work on my communication skills so that my messages are conveyed more clearly. 1 year and a good amount of effort to improve my communication skills later, I better understand why communication skills are so important. No matter how profound or interesting our messages are, without proper communication skills we won’t be heard. People just won’t understand what we want to convey. Clear communication takes practice and a conscious effort. Yet, by harnessing the knowledge of experts and their communication techniques, we can quickly progress. In today’s blog article, I will explain to you an easy but effective communication technique I use – the Pyramid Principle – how and when to apply it, and give you practical examples so that you can make use of it, too. ## Summary: * Clear communication is a crucial skill to succeed at work * While communication techniques are abundant, most of them are either unintuitive or ineffective * The Pyramid Principle is an easy to implement communication technique that helps to communicate more clearl ## Practical advice: * Use the pyramid principle in your next written message, e.g., email, and follow the 3-step formula * (1) Always start with the core message. (2) Then, follow with 2-3 supporting arguments. (3) Use examples/ data to support them * Don’t apply the Pyramid Principle when relationship building, emotions, or the generation of information is the focus of a conversation ## Clear communication There are 3 reasons why we should all improve our communication skills: 1: Productivity. Clear communication enables the recipient of the message to grasp the content faster and better. We can save our friends and colleagues tons of time by communicating clearly. Were you taught by a teacher in high school who failed to explain even the most basic materials? Do you have a friend who takes ages to tell something that could be said in 2 sentences? Or do work with a colleague who writes essay-long emails nobody understands? Those are all examples of when people fail to communicate clearly. While in private life that might not make a huge difference, in a business context, improper communication skills might derail a project or cost a promotion. 2: Persuasiveness. Clear and precise communication makes it easier to convince people of an idea. For instance, if we want our manager to give us more time to work on a certain project, we need to give reasons for our request. If we fail to communicate those clearly, we’ll most likely fail to convince her/him. And that’s with everything: Me who failed to convince my girlfriend to move to Berlin. Businesses that failed to convince customers to buy their product. My profs during my bachelor studies who failed to make me attend their lectures. 3: Prevention of conflicts. Clear communication plays a key role in avoiding conflicts. I hate miscommunication. I really hate it. I’ve already had so many arguments just because I communicated something that I didn’t intend to. And why? Because I failed to communicate clearly. Since I’ve been working on my communication skills, I’ve experienced fewer and fewer conflicts due to miscommunication. And honestly, this reason alone was worth spending the effort to work on my communication skills. ## The Pyramid Principle While communication techniques are abundant, most of them are either unintuitive, i.e. difficult to implement, or ineffective, i.e. don’t yield the desired result. So, improving our communication skills can be a real hassle. One of the few techniques that are not only easy to implement but also very effective, I found, is the Pyramid Principle. The Pyramid Principle suggests starting with the core message and only then listing further supporting arguments, which can be backed up with examples if necessary. It requires working out the core of and structuring every message. The formula to apply it: (1) Core message, (2) 2-3 arguments to support it, (3) data/ examples to support the arguments. Here is an example: You’re asked why someone should use the Pyramid Principle and you provide him an answer using the formula. (1) Core message: The Pyramid Principle is an easy-to-implement communication technique that helps to communicate more clearly, leading to the following 3 advantages: … (2) Arguments: First, clear and concise communication using the Pyramid Principle makes it easier to convince people of an idea. Second, the ability to communicate effectively plays a large role in avoiding potential conflict. Third, clear communication saves time to comprehend a message, increasing the productivity of colleagues. (3) Data/ examples: For example, in a survey of 547 business people, 81% of respondents agreed that unclear communication – written and verbal – wastes much of their time… Using the Pyramid Principle, there are 2 types to structure messages: (1) After the core message, the supporting arguments are listed one after the other (as I illustrated in the example priorly). (2) Alternatively, an argument is immediately followed by an example or data to support it. Then the next argument is explicated. If you want to apply the Pyramid Principle in your oral communication – and that’s really not that simple – a trick is to always announce 2-3 points in advance. For example, you’re asked what you think about the current situation revolving around Ukraine and Russia. You could say something like “I think the situation is immensely tragic, mainly because of 3 reasons: …”. Your brain is forced to find 3 reasons, and most often, your brain will find the 3 reasons that are most relevant for you. ## When to (not) apply the Pyramid Principle While the Pyramid Principle can be applied to various types of communication, it’s no universal remedy and can even lead to adverse effects. Hence, knowing when to (not) apply it is crucial. Whenever the flow of information is the focus of a message or conversation, the Pyramid Principle can be a great means to communicate more effectively. Here are some examples: * Presentations in a business context * Emails and other written messages * Answers to questions * Voice messages Contrarily, whenever relationship building, emotions, or the generation of information is the focus of a conversation, the Pyramid Principle shouldn’t be applied. Here are some examples: * Get-to-know conversations * Casual conversations * Creative work meetings * Advertising and storytelling --- # This simple trick significantly increased my productivity - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/this-simple-trick-significantly-increased-my-productivity - Date: 2022-02-27 - Categories: Goal Achievement *You can always find a distraction if you’re looking for one –* Tom Kite Dear friend, Today, it’s common to work in offices where we sit together with other people. While this makes working more fun, it poses a massive distraction potential. Whether it’s someone having a call, chatting with another colleague, asking you a question, or telling a joke, in a shared office – no matter if cubicle or open office – you’ll be distracted multiple times a day. Distractions aren’t bad per se, but when it comes to doing “knowledge work”, they significantly worsen our productivity. Knowledge work, such as reading a scientific paper or setting up an Excel sheet, requires brainpower and a state of deep focus. When we are distracted, though, we lose our focus and it takes minutes to regain the level of it prior to the distraction. I continuously search for ways to optimize my productivity, and so, I try to minimize distractions. There are various techniques and gadgets to remove them from our work. In today’s blog article, I will show you a simple trick that helped me to reduce external distractions and boosts my productivity. ## Summary: * Returning to our original focus following a distraction takes multiple minutes, worsening the quality of our work * Managing distractions at work may be the best solution rather than avoiding them altogether * As a rule-of-thumb, we can assume that our brain can work in deep focus for about 4 hours a day ## Practical advice: * Buy yourself a pair of noise-canceling headphones * They are a game-changer in terms of effectiveness and easiness to implement * Every pair of on-ear noise-canceling headphones does the job. If you want to spend some money, though, the Sony WH-1000xm4 is currently the way to go ## Why distractions are bad for us Our brains have a limited ability to focus. We can’t pay attention to everything around us all at once, so we must choose what to focus on. When we work on something requiring our full focus, a distraction makes us lose our focus as it switches to the distraction at hand. Research shows that returning to our original focus following a distraction takes multiple minutes. What’s even worse, though, is the quality of our work worsens significantly. While it doesn’t take much longer to perform a task, such as writing a mail, we compensate for the time and focus we lost through the distraction by lowering our quality standards. For instance, once we’re interrupted while doing a task, the odds increase that we’ll forget an important step in the process. Chances are we may even forget to return to the original task. Nearly half the time, distractions cause us to forget where we left off. Other times, the task has gotten completely out of control and we have to start over. ## When distractions are welcome As written, distractions aren’t bad per se. Our brains have a limited “amount of deep focus”. Once we reached this limit, we need a break. Otherwise, our brain cannot really produce any good results. Then, distractions are a great way to give our brains time to rest. By allowing occasional distractions to interrupt our work, we take the pressure off our thinking processes and allow the subconscious to breathe. Refreshed, we can return to our task with a new approach developed by our subconscious and do the tasks faster and better. Therefore, managing distractions at work may be the best solution rather than avoiding them altogether. This means that we need to (A) learn when and how long we should seal ourselves off from distractions and (B) find reliable means to do so. (A) As a rule-of-thumb, we can assume that our brain can work in deep focus for about 4 hours a day. This means that on a typical workday, we should ideally protect ourselves from distractions 50% of the time. (B) Potent means to seal ourselves off from distractions that greatly help me are (1) putting my smartphones in “non-disturb” mode (2) closing my mailbox and slack (3) putting on noise-canceling headphones. ## Noise-canceling headphones While there’re many means to limit (external) distractions, only a few are as easy to implement and as effective as noise-canceling headphones. It’s really surprising how simple and yet effective this “trick” is when I first tried it out. When I wear my on-ear headphones to limit distractions, my focus is on another level. Simultaneously, chances that I’ll be distracted by something external, such as a colleague or a silly noise, decreases substantially. For me, it’s a “game-changer”. But why does that work so effectively and what do you need actually need? Noise-canceling headphones are so effective because of 4 reasons: (1) They are a super simple solution. You just put them on and that’s it. (2) Colleagues and other people clearly see that you have them on. Chances that they will distract you drop. (3) Chances that you’re distracted by external factors, such as colleagues having a call, telling a joke or silly random noises, are significantly reduced. (4) You’ll develop a habit when you start wearing them whenever you need to focus on something (Trigger: You start wearing your headphones. Habit: You focus on a task. Reward: You get your task done more effectively). Thereby, you reinforce the effect as your brain learns to frame the situation as “it’s time to focus now”. I tried different things that could do the same as in-ear headphones or different types of earplugs, but they aren’t either as easy to implement or as effective as on-ear headphones. From my experience, every pair of on-ear noise-canceling headphones does the job. If you want to spend some money, though, the Sony WH-1000xm4 is currently the way to go. Every tech influencer talks about them. --- # I learned the hard way what it means to not have the trust of others - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/i-learned-the-hard-way-what-it-means-to-not-have-the-trust-of-others - Date: 2022-02-20 - Categories: Communication, Relationships *A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other. –* Simon Sinek Dear friend, Have you ever failed to build trust with another person? I certainly did. While in some situations that makes literally zero difference, in other situations that becomes a massive problem. Here are 3 examples: (1) Your spouse’s parents – they won’t support your relationship (2) Potential customers – they won’t buy from you (3) Your boss – s/he won’t work well with you. We’ve already built a good amount of trust with the people surrounding us, but whenever we meet new people whether in a new city, a new job, a new relationship, or a new hobby, the game starts again. Particularly in the context of our professional life, we regularly meet new people with whom we have to work together. Failing to build trust then makes easy things hard and hard things literally impossible. I learned the hard way what it means to not have the trust of others. It’s a terrible feeling. Even though people might have listened to what I said, they couldn’t care less. No matter how good my intentions or how much effort I spent to make things work, people didn’t care. But what does it actually mean to have the trust of others? And what can we do to better instill it? That’s what today’s blog article will be about. ## Summary: * A model to make the concept of trust more accessible is to differentiate between (A) practical and (B) emotional trust * People have practical trust in us when our words translate into action * Emotional trust is subtle and comes down to 3 factors: Empathy, sound logic, and authenticity ## Practical advice: * Rather do 3 things *good* than do 3 things of which you do 2 things *very good* and 1 thing you *fail* to do * Make people feel understood by listening to people so that they feel heard * Make use of the pyramid principle and always state the main takeaway first and then explain all the surrounding information * Appreciate all the things that make you different and focus on expressing them ## What trust really means What does it mean to have trust from other people? They have a sense of security and confidence when dealing with you. They feel that they can depend on you. And they portray you as credible. And what does it look like to not have trust from other people? They won’t listen to you. Neither at work nor privately, they want to spend time with you. They feel a sense of apathy or even anxiety when dealing with you. In your private life that could mean not being invited to certain events of friends or family. In your professional life that could mean being passed over for promotions in favor of someone more trustworthy. ## Practical vs. emptional trust A model to make the concept of trust more accessible is to differentiate between (A) practical and (B) emotional trust. (A) Practical trust usually first comes to our minds when we think about how to trust someone. People have practical trust in us when our words translate into action. It’s when we show up on time, get our work done, meet deadlines, or really help someone when we offered to do so. Essentially, practical trust emerges when expectations are met. (B) Emotional trust is subtle and comes down to 3 factors: (1) Empathy: We make people feel understood and heard when we interact with them. (2) Logic: What we communicate is sound in basic logic and how we communicate is logical. (3) Authenticity: We don’t fake who we are and what we stand for (people smell inauthenticity from miles away). ## How trust is built Trust is built slowly, through repeated interactions that take place over a long period of time. Yet, it can be destroyed in a matter of seconds. First and foremost, consistency is key. We may never disappoint others. (A) Practical trust is the very basis for building trust. One of my project managers once said to me that it’s much better to do 3 things *good* than to do 3 things of which you do 2 things *very good* and 1 thing you *fail* to do. Setting realistic expectations and meeting them is crucial, no matter the context or relationship. Achieving emotional trust comes down to developing “emotional intelligence” and a few other skills, such as communication skills. For instance, (1) to make people feel understood, we have to learn to listen to people so that they feel heard. We can do this by asking the right questions, listening without distractions by putting away our smartphones, and addressing concerns. (2) To make our communication logical, we can make use of the pyramid principle and always state the main takeaway first and then explain all the surrounding information. (3) To be authentic, we need to appreciate all the things that make us different and focus on expressing ourselves. I currently focus on 3 topics to better build trust with others: First, I want to make others feel I really care. Whether I talk to clients, colleagues, friends, family, or my girlfriend, I’ll provide them with my full attention, don’t assume but ask if something is not clear to me, and address their concerns. Second, I want to further improve the way I communicate. While my communication is already structured and sound in logic, it still lacks clarity and concision. I still catch from time to time how I first talk about all the supporting arguments before the main conclusion instead of making use of the pyramid principle. Third, I want to increase the degree of authenticity in my professional life. Concretely, I want to express my positivity and thirst for curiosity stronger. As I become more experienced in managing client relationships, I better learn what’s really important. While maintaining a certain professional standard is key, particularly at the beginning of a new relationship, I’m confident that a higher degree of authenticity regarding these two characteristics will benefit my relationship with clients. --- # A quality all millionaires have in common - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/a-quality-all-millionaires-have-in-common - Date: 2022-02-13 - Categories: Goal Achievement *All good decisions, bad decisions, and non-decisions are a step into the unknown –* Rob Moore Dear friend, As I read daily, I finish a book from time to time. And every time I finish a book, I summarize the key lessons I highlighted in my (e)book. Quite recently, I did so for Rob Moore’s “Start Now. Get Perfect Later”, which is about how to begin the next phase of your career, launch your business or idea, and overcome self-doubt. 1 lesson I learned from this book is that *making decisions quickly and confidently* is (A) a skill, i.e. something we have to learn and train, and (B) crucial to achieving goals. Rob Moore studied over 500 millionaires and found that they shared a single quality: decisiveness. He claims “decisiveness seems to be both inherent in all success and a prerequisite for it”. From what I’ve read in other books and all the hours worked in my job as a strategy consultant, I can only confirm this notion. Almost every book on personal development at least scratches this topic. And what I do as a consultant is basically to help our clients make highly complex, difficult decisions, e.g. how they should change their business model to increase their sales. But why is making decisions so hard, why is it so important to make them quickly, and what can we do to make hard decisions more easily? That’s what today’s blog article will be about. ## Summary: * We can learn to make hard decisions more easily, and we can learn to make better decisions * Our current lives are the representation of all decisions we made in the past * The issues with big decisions are that we (A) don’t make them at all (B) make them too slowly (C) decide for the bad options ## Practical advice: * Write down the pros of each option and rate each pro argument with a score from 1 to 10 * Before making the decision, though, I suggest talking to people who already made this decision and asking them to refine the rating and pros of the different options * Another great technique is to think about what you would advise a friend in this situation ## Decision-making vs walking I used to think about making decisions that it’s nothing I can be good or bad at. It’s something like walking. Nobody would say “I’m good at walking”. Like walking, making decisions seemed like something we just do or don’t do, something that’s easy like walking to school or that isn’t easy like going on a hike (I used to hate hiking). I used to think easy decisions are just easy decisions like deciding what to eat for breakfast and hard decisions are just hard decisions like deciding what and where I want to study. But I was wrong. Making decisions is like every other skill, something we can learn and improve. We can learn to make hard decisions more easily, and we can learn to make better decisions. ## The importance of decisiveness Another thing I didn’t get and was even more important: Improving this skill can make our lives so much better. Almost every misery can be traced back to a series of bad decisions, and vice versa, a series of great decisions compound to a great life. Ultimately, our current lives are the representation of all decisions we made in the past. While there’s an enormous number of small decisions we make every day, there’s a small number of big decisions we make once in a while. Small decisions are at least as important as the big ones as we do them every day and they compound, e.g. what we eat or whether we do sports. Yet, it’s rather the big decisions that pose a major challenge to us. Not only do they seem frightening due to the magnitude of their consequences but also we’re not experienced in making them as they occur so rarely. Here are some examples of big decisions: * Choosing a college major * Figuring out where to live * Renting or buying a house * Deciding who to date * Deciding on a career * Making a career change or quit to become an entrepreneur * Going back to school and obtaining an advanced degree The issues with big decisions are that we (1) don’t make them at all (2) make them too slowly (3) decide for the bad options. (1) If we don’t make them at all, that’s the worst. Not making a decision is a decision itself. For example, you stay in a relationship with a person even though you wanted to make a decision on whether you further commit yourself to the relationship. Maybe you are lucky and things just get better, but most often things get worse and worse. (2) If we make them too slowly, we sometimes miss the opportunity. For example, you think about starting a side business selling a product you fell in love with during your semester abroad by importing it to your home country, e.g. Swedish “Snus” – tobacco bags you can put in your mouth. After contemplating the pros and cons for a while, the product already arrived in your home country. And even though you decided to start the side business, it’s already too late as the established sellers already occupy major parts of the new market. (3) If we opt for a bad option in a big decision, that’s obviously also an issue. But not making a decision or delaying the decision is usually worse. For example, it’s better to fail early with a business (decide to immediately start a business than to wait to start it). The major reason why we (1) don’t make big decisions, (2) make them too slowly, or (3) decide for the bad options is our lack of decision-making skills. As already stated, decision-making is a skill, something we can learn and improve. Hence, if we want to make decisions (A) more easily and (B) better, we need to improve our decision-making skills. ## How to make hard decisions more easily Next to solely making more decisions and reflecting on them, i.e. gaining more experience, we can apply decision-making techniques to make hard decisions more easily. There are plenty of techniques that can be applied to various decisions, each with its up-and downsides. A technique I always suggest when someone asks me what to study, what to do for a job after graduating, or where to live, is to write down the pros of each option and rate each pro argument with a score from 1 to 10. The option with the most points is the option to opt for. Before making the decision, though, I suggest talking to people who already made this decision and asking them to refine the rating and pros of the different options. So, the decisions are less biased and the experience of others decreases the likelihood of a bad decision. Another great technique I read in Rob Moore’s book and want to apply more often now is to think about *what I would advise a friend in this situation.* Taking this perspective allows us to make our decisions less biased and thus better. For instance, if I need to make a crucial career, I will imagine what I would suggest a friend do. --- # A skill everyone has to learn - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/a-skill-everyone-has-to-learn - Date: 2022-02-06 - Categories: Communication, Goal Achievement *Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate. –* John F. Kennedy Dear friend, As I moved to a new apartment in Düsseldorf, I had to buy a washing machine. I knew that I can save tons of money if I buy a used one. So, weeks before moving, I arranged a meeting with someone from “eBay Kleinanzeigen” (similar to Craigslist) who was selling a washing machine that seemed to fit all my needs. The machine was listed at a price of 350 EUR and was already 1 year in use. The original price was about 430 EUR. Before we arranged the meeting, I asked the seller whether the price is negotiable and told her that similar models are sold for 250 – 300 EUR on eBay. As a response, she offered to lower the price to 250 EUR. I was quite happy, and so, we agreed to meet. When we met, I found a washing machine that seemed as it was new – very clean, no dirt or mold, every cable flawless, and functional parts like the washing drum working well. It seemed like I made a very good deal. 250 EUR was definitely less than the seller could ask for. But that’s not the end of the story. For a few months now, I’ve been trying to improve my “sales skills”. I read Daniel Pink’s book “To Sell Is Human”, and since then, I’ve been strongly convinced that every person has to (A) understand the importance of “non-sales selling” and (B) ideally improve their sales skills. To put it in a nutshell, nowadays, most people work in jobs and have hobbies in which we have to convince other people of something – whether it’s the quality of our work, our ideas to solve a problem, or our suggestion to do vacation in Mexico instead of Spain. The skills required to convince others are what Daniel Pink calls “non-sales selling skills”. It’s the skills to move people, to create change in this world, and ultimately to make an impact. An important part of these skills is negotiation skills. Every “transaction” is a negotiation. Whether we buy something on eBay, agree on where to do vacation, how much of our work we have to spend on a certain project, or where we go for lunch with our colleagues. When we want to convince others, we most often also have to negotiate with them. And as I want to improve my “sales skills”, I also set myself goals to improve my negotiation skills. One goal is to negotiate whenever I’ve got the chance to do it. Now, back to our story. Even though I was happy with the price of the washing machine, I forced myself to negotiate. For me, there’s no excuse once I set myself a particular goal – in this case, to improve my negotiation skills. So, I simply asked the seller whether she was open to negotiating – in German we say “So, kann man an dem Preis denn noch was machen?”. Honestly, that’s a really bad start to negotiate. I applied not any good negotiation technique here. But my goal wasn’t to “win the negotiation”, i.e. lower the price, but force myself to negotiate in the first place. To my surprise, the seller was quite open and said yes. I didn’t really make any reaction to the seller’s “yes”. So, there was this awkward silence for a few seconds. Next, the seller proposed a decrease to 230 EUR. Still no reaction from me, I just looked into the seller’s eyes and was slightly smiling. So, a few seconds later, the seller proposed 200 EUR. At this moment, I couldn’t longer hold myself back, had a huge smile on my face, and just said yes, let’s do it. Negotiating skills are highly underrated. It’s not just about achieving a higher salary or saving money when buying a washing machine, rather almost every time we try to move someone, we enter a negotiation. And negotiations aren’t just about winning but achieving the best outcome for both sites. In today’s blog article, I will write about why everyone has to learn negotiation skills and what we can do to improve them. ## Summary: * The more sophisticated our negotiation skills, the better we can influence the outcome of every conversation aimed at reaching an agreement * It’s clear that if you’re a great negotiator, you can be better off financially. What’s not so clear for many people is that you can also be better off emotionally * A great negotiators knows that the pie of resources isn’t fixed and thus how to increase the value for every party ## Practical advice: * At its core, negotiation is all about persuasion, i.e. representing your ideas in a way that moves the other parties to agree with you * Start viewing every conversation aimed at reaching an agreement as a negotiation * Exercise negotiating whenever you can ## Life is a series of negotiations Negotiations are everywhere. We negotiate every day. If you’re like most people, you think about negotiation and picture yourself talking to the other “side” to gain a financial advantage, e.g. when you buy a used car and negotiate the price. But most negotiations are subtle and not about money. Remember the days when your parents told you when you had to be at home, how much you had to clean your room, or what you would eat for dinner. Negotiation is essential in everyone’s family to maintain peace at home. We all need to compromise with each other to some extent to avoid disagreements at home. The same goes for (A) work, (B) studying, or (C) hobbies: (A) How much time do you have to allocate to the project/task you don’t really like? (B) Who is doing what in this group exercise? (C) Which route do your biking friends and you take? Some negotiations aren’t even notable: You and your partner agree to go to your favorite restaurant. Some negotiations are easy: You negotiate where you sit in the van during a road trip. Some negotiations are difficult: You negotiate the salary of your new job. Yet, they all have in common to be conversations aimed at reaching an agreement. Each of these conversations has multiple potential outcomes, some more favorable than others. Depending on the circumstances incl. the “skills” of the relevant parties, the outcome will be reached. ## Benefits of negotiating skills If we picture life as a series of negotiations, it’s evident why good negotiation skills are beneficial. The more sophisticated our negotiation skills, the better we can influence the outcome of every conversation aimed at reaching an agreement. And it’s not just about winning personally but making the pie larger for everyone. It’s clear that if you’re a great negotiator, you can be better off financially, e.g. you negotiate a higher job salary, a higher discount on your next car, or a better deal for your vacation trip. What’s not so clear for many people is that you can also be better off emotionally. The better your negotiation skills, the easier you can achieve what’s best for everyone or for you. For instance, if you often argue with your partner about what to watch on Netflix, better negotiation skills will make you argue less often while achieving what’s better for both of you. Being better at negotiating allows you to achieve not only better personal outcomes but also outcomes better for everyone. A great negotiator knows that the pie of resources isn’t fixed and thus how to increase the value for every party. ## How to improve your negotiation skills At its core, negotiation is all about persuasion, i.e. representing your ideas in a way that moves the other parties to agree with you. There’re countless techniques to improve negotiation skills. Essentially, though, there’re 2 fundamental principles that will improve your negotiation skills most: 1: Change in perception. Start viewing every conversation aimed at reaching an agreement as a negotiation. Become more aware in your daily life and create a sense of the importance of negotiation skills. 2: Exercise negotiating whenever you can. Once you become more aware of all these negotiations in your daily life, you should make it a habit to negotiate. It’s not about winning or making someone else lose but about proactively steering the conversations towards an outcome that is most beneficial for everyone. That particularly means to stop assuming the pie is fixed and start increasing the value for everyone. --- # Today a new chapter has begun - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/today-a-new-chapter-has-begun - Date: 2022-01-30 - Categories: Communication, Relationships > > No river can return to its source, yet all rivers must have a beginning > > Dear friend, > > This week, I moved to Düsseldorf together with my girlfriend. I don’t know what you think about moving together with another person, for me, though, that’s profound. > > Don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t be more grateful. I’ve been waiting for this day for months. Yet, it seems like a new chapter in my life has begun. > > Now, with my dearest girlfriend, I not only share time but also space. And with time and space shared, we have to find new ways to harmonize the way we live. > > I would say I’m not the “easiest flatmate”. I try to systemize my whole life so that I can do more of the things I love, and I love many things others don’t. > > For instance, I usually spend a maximum of 15 minutes eating lunch/dinner. I use to eat while standing – often even out of the pan – so that I have more time for work, YouTube, or this newsletter. > > The same goes for sleep: I know that sleep is crucial, but I wouldn’t sleep any minute longer than I had to. Hence, I love being awake early even at the weekend. > > Even though my girlfriend and I have many similarities, there are still differences in the way we live our daily life. For instance, she clearly prioritizes a healthy amount of sleep. So, she will usually sleep longer than I do. As I don’t want to wake her up early in the morning, we have to find ways to reconcile our sleeping habits. > > What I learned from my past relationship with my ex-girlfriend is that communication is crucial. And it’s not just about talking but listening. I made it a habit that I ask whenever something isn’t clear to me. For example, I don’t just wake up early at the weekend as I use to but I have a conversation with my girlfriend about how we’re going to reconcile our different waking times. Or, I don’t just prepare my 10-minute lunch but I have a conversation with her about how we’re going to reconcile our eating habits. > > Another “success factor” is that I’m pragmatic. I don’t want to be right but find a solution. I would never insist on something that doesn’t perfectly work if I could try another approach. For instance, we had to pick up a washing machine. I was greatly convinced of my approach on how to tie it down in the transporter but it doesn’t seem to work. My girlfriend proposed another approach on how to do it, but I wasn’t really convinced. Yet, as my approach didn’t perfectly work, I tried her approach, which worked pretty well. As you can imagine that hurt my ego, but that saved us an argument for sure. > > As you can imagine, moving to another apartment takes some time. We’ve got like 30-40 boxes of stuff – hard to imagine how much we accumulated over the past few years. Hence, there won’t be a longer blog article today. I wish you a great Sunday and start into the new week. --- # This technique increases my learnings by 10x - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/this-technique-increases-my-learnings-by-10x - Date: 2022-01-23 - Categories: Goal Achievement > *Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. –* Aristotle > > Dear friend, > > This week, another project comes to an end. As a management consultant, I work on client engagements that usually last 8 – 12 weeks, have a particular goal, and consist of a unique team made from both consultants and clients. > > During these weeks, consulting showed me once again that I chose the right job after graduating. I learned a massive amount about an industry that is key for the future of our world. I significantly enhanced crucial professional skills. I worked with great clients and could help them to make a real positive impact. And my colleagues were just awesome. > > When I chose this profession, I kinda expected this combination of a great learning curve and working with inspiring people. Yet, I’m still surprised how much and how fast I learn. > > To have an optimal learning curve, though, just working a lot isn’t enough. We have to work on real challenges and receive proper feedback. Thereby, self-reflection is a highly underrated tool to greatly boost our learning curve as in the process of reflection we provide ourselves with highly valuable feedback. > > I have a multifaceted reflection routine for all parts of my life, comprising a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly reflection routine. The benefits are incredible and span all areas of my life. Nevertheless, during my yearly reflection, I concluded that the area I’m currently spending the most time on – work – needs more “reflection attention”. Hence, I did a “career reflection”, in which I reflected on the past 3 months. > > In today’s blog article, I will write about my career reflection, the learnings I made in the past 3 months in my job, why I highly recommend reflecting, and which questions I answer during my reflection routine. > > Summary: > > During my reflection, I thought about what I concretely learned in the past 3 months so that I can build upon it > I deliberately focused on what I learned in the past 3 months and not on the things I should have done better > Reflecting regularly gives me the opportunity to rethink ideas, thoughts, and actions so that I’m able to make the most of them > Practical advice: > > An ownership mindset is crucial if we want to make a positive impact in our world > People want to feel understood. And if we make them feel understood, they start to listen to our suggestions > A personal productivity system is key to suffice all responsibilities > > Learnings from the past 3 months in consulting > > There is this saying that 1 year in consulting is like 3 years in industry. I cannot tell how much there is to learn in industry jobs, but I can tell for sure the amount I learned in consulting over the past 12 months is massive. It feels like I have progressed in every area of professional skills, and there are various skill areas. Here are some examples: > > Problem-solving skills, e.g. optimize a logistics network and make it future-proof > Analytical skills, e.g. estimate the CO2 reduction potential of a machinery company > Communication skills, e.g. present to a CFO > Organization skills, e.g. never miss any deadline > Creativity, e.g. find uncommon ways to solve a problem > Ownership, e.g. make your manager and client feel like you have full control > Teamwork, e.g. discuss constructively how to approach a problem and provide each other with honest feedback > Persuasion, e.g. convince your manager of an idea s/he is not convinced of > During my reflection, I thought about what I concretely learned in the past 3 months so that I can build upon it. I’m strongly convinced that we should not eliminate all our flaws and become mediocre at everything but rather focus on our strengths and become very good at something. > > The professional career reflection greatly helped me to identify my strong areas. I deliberately focused on what I learned in the past 3 months and not on the things I should have done better. > > Here are 3 findings: > > An ownership mindset is crucial if we want to make a positive impact in our world. I successfully adopted this mindset and showcased it. I clearly communicated the things I felt responsible for and took “end-to-end” ownership. If something doesn’t get done, no matter who’s actually the source of the problem, it’s not “their fault”, it’s mine. When there was an issue, such as a client not responding to my emails, I felt 100% responsible. When I needed help, I asked for it but always made a suggestion on how to solve the problem. A way I want to further improve this: I will never ask “what should we do?” or “what should I do?” anymore. I will always make a suggestion and have the next steps ready. I will be the person who will get the things done. Unless there is a person who commits full ownership to a problem, I will own it. > It’s all about people. We can prepare the most sophisticated analyses, create the most beautiful slide presentations and be the best presenter – that doesn’t matter if the people – whether colleague, manager, or client – we’re trying to convince don’t trust us. We first need to build trust, particularly by listening well and addressing the issues at hand first. People want to feel understood. And if we make them feel understood, they start to listen to our suggestions. I want to further improve my listening skills and become able to understand the tiniest nuances in what people trying to say. Asking more experienced colleagues who will also have taken part in a conversation how they understood the person will greatly help me to fine-tune my understanding. > A personal productivity system is key to suffice all the responsibilities we have. I’ve been using *David Allen’s Getting Things Done* for more than a year now and consistently applied it to my day-to-day job in consulting. The more consistently and broader I applied this method, the greater the benefits became. Currently, there are so many things in my personal life that are keeping me busy. Simultaneously, I managed 2 workstreams and a few side topics on my last project and worked on an internal topic, too. A personal productivity system like Getting Things Done enables me to capture all relevant tasks and get them done systematically. Prospectively, I want to continue using this system and align this with the tools we use as a team. > Why you should have a reflection routine > > When I started to reflect regularly, I didn’t really have any expectations. I just wanted to try it out and see what will happen because so many people praised it. > > I started by writing down the biggest successes of the past day, e.g. going for a run in the morning, and the things I can look forward to the next day, e.g. a nice cup of coffee. I cannot really remember where I caught these 2 questions, but they were very easy to answer and thus a good starting point. > > I did this every day, but nothing really happened. Then, I began to write down the 3 most important goals of the next day and, additionally, reflect more extensively on a weekly and monthly basis. > > That changed everything. > > The combination of a very brief daily reflection routine in which I journaled the best moments of the day and prioritized the goals of the next day and a more extensive one at the weekend in which I rethought these ideas has had a huge positive impact on my life. > > I’ve never experienced so much happiness, control over my life, focus on the right things, and creativity. > > Reflecting regularly gives me the opportunity to rethink ideas, thoughts, and actions so that I’m able to make the most of them. For instance, I think about the 3 most important goals of the next month and how I can accomplish them. In July 2021, 1 of these goals was to have a great vacation with my girlfriend. So, I thought about things I/we need to do in order to make the most out of it, such as asking friends for recommendations. Eventually, we ended up having an awesome vacation. > > My professional career reflection > > During professional career reflection routine, I asked myself 3 questions: > > What are 5 things I learned during the past 3 months? > What can I do to better live my purpose of life in the next 3 months? > What are 3 things I want to learn in the next 3 months? > Each question intends to (A) boost my learning curve and (B) ensure that I will continue loving my job. > > For instance, my job as a consultant is intense. Despite long working hours, I want to have time for my girlfriend, eat healthily, and do sports. If these things weren’t possible anymore, I would either make a drastic change or even quit. > > Or, if I want to continue making great progress, I need to revise the learnings from the past, build upon them, and contemplate things I want to learn in the future. Reflection is thereby a way to hold myself accountable. > --- # This realization can change your life – finite vs infinite games - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/this-realization-can-change-your-life-finite-vs-infinite-games - Date: 2022-01-16 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries. –* James P. Carse > > Dear friend, > > I recently read the book “Happy Sexy Millionaire”, in which multi-millionaire Steven Bartlett explains why money and fame won’t make us happy and what we should seek instead. > > Part of his most crucial learnings was understanding the difference between finite and infinite games and recognizing which games he’s actually playing. > > A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. A finite game has rules that are set, a defined end, a winner/loser, and the goal to win the game, such as tennis or golf. An infinite game has rules that can change, no defined end, no winners/losers, and the goal to keep the game going, such as a language or life. > > Playing a finite game with a finite mindset against finite players makes the game “stable”. The same goes for playing an infinite game with an infinite mindset against infinite players. Issues arise when people play infinite games with a finite mindset and vice versa. > > For instance, a tennis player who wants to change the rules during the game to keep the game going is someone you don’t want to play against. Or, a person who speaks a language as if there was a winner and corrects others’ grammar mistakes all the time is someone you don’t want to talk to. > > This finding is pretty much worthless if you already play all your games with the right mindset, but chances are high you don’t. > > Like Steven, I used to don’t know this difference and what games I was playing. How should I? But now knowing this difference, I can recognize which games I’m playing and better choose whether and how I will play them. > > In today’s blog article, we’ll dive deeper into this topic and learn how we can become happier people by better recognizing and adapting to the various infinite games we have to play in life. > > ## Summary: > > * Many people play infinite games as if they were finite > * Playing infinite games with a finite mindset has severe consequences, such as frustration, disappointment, waste of time and money, and ultimately unhappiness > * The problem is not that we want to become rich or in shape but rather the how and why we want to achieve it > > ## Practical advice: > > * To play infinite games right, your goal should be to enjoy the journey as much as you can do > * Always question whether you do the things that you could do infinitely and minimize the things you do just for the sake of a seemingly better thing > * A rule to choose the right things to do is to always think long-term > > ## Never play infinite games with a finite mindset > > Many people play infinite games as if they were finite. Here are 2 common examples: > > 1: They portray their career as something that has a set end, either their retirement or their financial freedom. However, our careers are an infinite game. We cannot win at work. And there’s no amount of money that makes us win. With a finite mindset, we do stupid things like working in a job we hate or making money illegally/immorally. And once we made a certain amount of money, we find out that they are still unhappy and unfulfilled – as multi-millionaire Steven Bartlett did. > > 2: They portray their physique and getting and staying in shape as a finite game. They think they just have to do some dieting and some workouts until they reach their body goal and that’s it. Wrong. This finite mindset doesn’t work and is the major cause why people have more weight after dieting than before. Getting and being in shape is an infinite game. Once we reach our body goals, we have to continue doing sports and eating healthy. It’s a lifestyle. > > Playing infinite games with a finite mindset has severe consequences, such as frustration, disappointment, waste of time and money, and ultimately unhappiness. > > Just imagine your goal is to have 3 million bucks by the age of 30. So, you go into investment banking right after graduating, earning 100k as a starting salary. You work 100 hours per week, invest all your money into stocks. You get all the promotions, the highest bonuses and your stocks skyrocket. And by 30 you made it. > > However, you hated every single day of this journey. Your health levels dropped because of the long working hours, little sleep, and shitty diet. You have no friends because you had no time for other people outside of your career and the people you worked with already left the company. The only person wishing you a happy birthday is your boss and your mom. > > Yet, you now got the 3 million bucks. You won. > > But, what are you gonna do now? > > Do a job, meet people, or start a hobby you actually like? Start to eat healthily and sleep enough? Start getting a happy person? But why didn’t you do that in the first place? > > These 3 million bucks won’t make a difference. Sleeping in 5-star hotels won’t make you happy. Eating superior steaks, traveling first-class, buying a luxury apartment, … neither. > > Or do you continue, earning even more money? Getting the 10 million bucks? Or maybe just doing another job with not that bad working hours? With some more time to find some friends? > > ## How to play infinite games right > > The problem is not that we want to become rich or in shape but rather the how and why we want to achieve it. > > For instance, if you love working hard to earn lots of money and that’s what you want to do for the rest of your life, like Warren Buffet, that’s an infinite mindset. Contrarily, if you hate working hard to earn lots of money and just want to do it to become happy someday, that’s a finite mindset. > > Or, if you love eating healthily and doing sports and that’s what you want to do for the rest of your life, as I do, that’s an infinite mindset. Contrarily, if you hate eating healthily and doing sport and just want to do it to get into shape and not for the rest of your life, that’s a finite mindset. > > To play infinite games right, your goal should be to enjoy the journey as much as you can do. Always question whether you do the things that you could do infinitely, i.e. for the rest of your life, and minimize the things you do just for the sake of a seemingly better thing. > > A rule that greatly helps me to choose the right things to do is to always think long-term. I always imagine how I would feel if I did something for 10 years straight. And if it didn’t feel like a “hell yeah”, I won’t do it. > > ## How to identify infinite games > > A key difference between finite and infinite games is that you can play finite games within an infinite game, but you cannot play an infinite game within a finite game. Consequently, many infinite games have a sub-set of finite games. > > For instance, tennis as a sport is an infinite game. New players will start playing, others will stop playing. The rules are subject to change from season to season. And the goal of the tennis leagues is to keep the sports going. However, each tennis game is a finite game with fixed rules, a winner and a loser, and a clearly defined end. > > The same goes for every other infinite game such as being in shape: Each workout and each meal is a finite game: There are good workouts (win) and bad/no workouts (lose) as well as good meals (win) and bad meals (lose). > > So, whenever we’re faced with a series of finite games, we’re probably also playing in an infinite game. Some more examples: > > * School is a finite game, education is an infinite game > * A job promotion is a finite game, working is an infinite game > * A date is a finite game, romantic life is an infinite game > * An election is a finite game, politics is an infinite game > * War is a finite game, diplomacy is an infinite game > * A social media post is a finite game, social media is an infinite game > * Parenting is a finite game, role-modeling is an infinite game > * A pandemic is a finite game, prevention of biohazards is an infinite game --- # Why brilliant teachers teach the worst - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-brilliant-teachers-teach-the-worst - Date: 2022-01-09 - Categories: Communication > > *People who keep journals have life twice. –* Jessamyn West > > > > Summary: > > > > * The caveat of becoming an expert is becoming sick of the curse of knowledge > > * The curse of knowledge describes the situation when someone incorrectly assumes that others have similar knowledge to oneself > > * And it makes us forget the excitement, joy, and other emotions we felt when we experienced something the first time > > > > Practical advice: > > > > * Start questioning assumptions and reflecting on what you experienced when you first encountered an idea, concept, or other experience > > * Ask for genuine feedback and adapt accordingly > > * Make use of the Novelty Index to capture how things were *at the time* > > > > Dear friend, > > > > Let me tell you a story: > > > > *A friend of a friend is a frequent business traveler. Let’s call him Dave. Dave was recently in New York for an important meeting with clients. Afterward, he had some time to kill before his flight, so he went to a local bar for a drink. He’d just finished one drink when an attractive woman approached and asked if she could buy him another. He was surprised but flattered. Sure, he said. The woman walked to the bar and brought back two more drinks — one for her and one for him. He thanked her and took a sip. And that was the last thing he remembered.* > > > > *Rather, that was the last thing he remembered until he woke up, disoriented, lying in a hotel bathtub, his body submerged in ice. He looked around frantically, trying to figure out where he was and how he got there. Then he spotted the note: don’t move. call 911.* > > > > *A cell phone rested on a small table beside the bathtub. He picked it up and called 911, his fingers numb and clumsy from the ice. The operator seemed oddly familiar with his situation. She said, “Sir, I want you to reach behind you, slowly and carefully. Is there a tube protruding from your lower back?”* > > > > *Anxious, he felt around behind him. Sure enough, there was a tube. The operator said, “Sir, don’t panic, but one of your kidneys has been harvested. There’s a ring of organ thieves operating in this city, and they got to you. Paramedics are on their way. Don’t move until they arrive.”* > > > > The first time I read this story – thanks Chip Heath & Dan Heath – I was totally stunned. The story captivated me so much. But today, it’s not even close. It’s like telling me that there was a man on the moon. Yeah, wow, and? > > > > We get used to things. Fast. Very fast. Whether it’s experiences, ideas, concepts, or knowledge, we forget how they were when we first experienced them. And the key problem with this is that we cannot stop this process. Once we heard, saw, learned something, we cannot get “unfamiliar” with it again. > > > > That’s a major reason why the most brilliant teachers struggle most to teach others. They have become too familiar with the concepts and ideas they teach and cannot remember how they once struggled when they first learned these concepts and ideas. They fail to put themselves in the position of the students. > > > > A term to describe this concept is “curse of knowledge”. In today’s blog article, I will talk about why this cognitive bias is so bad and show you 2 ways to circumvent it. > > > > ## Why the curse of knowledge is so bad > > > > Acquiring more experience in whatever field has many advantages. Who doesn’t want to be an expert in a field of interest? > > > > But… > > > > Have you ever had a teacher who was a brilliant mind but terrible at actual teaching? An expert who used so much jargon you could not follow his explanations? A once great song you heard so many times that you started to hate it? > > > > The caveat of becoming an expert is becoming sick of the curse of knowledge. The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that affects every person who acquires above-average experience in a particular field and describes the situation when someone incorrectly assumes that others have similar knowledge to oneself. > > > > The curse of knowledge has 3 major risks: > > > > First, it makes us forget the struggle we faced when we learned something new – whether it’s a skill or knowledge. For instance, I used to struggle using if-clauses properly. Today, I can use them on auto-pilot, but I couldn’t teach others how I overcame these struggles as I forgot them. Another example, a few years ago, I wanted to create a to-do list every day, but I couldn’t do it consistently. Sometimes I just forgot to do it, sometimes I created one but didn’t use it. Today, my whole life revolves around to-do lists. I couldn’t live without them anymore. Yet, I forgot how I made this transition. > > > > Second, it leads to implicit assumptions. Once we understood or experienced something, we start to assume others understood or experienced it, too. For me, it’s obvious to put away my smartphone when I have to focus on a particular task. Or to go to sleep early instead of lying in my bed scrolling through social media when there’s nothing else to do. Or to make a decision and stick to it. And my brain tries to convince me others are doing it, too. These implicit assumptions can cause misunderstandings or even conflicts. > > > > Third, it makes us forget the excitement, joy, and other emotions we felt when we experienced something the first time. Whether it’s brilliant ideas, thrilling stories, stunning concepts, or joyful experiences, most positive emotions associated with them fade with time. > > > > And because the emotions fade, we cannot objectively judge and provide recommendations for people who will experience these things the first time. That’s particularly bad for writers as they cannot remember what emotions their ideas, stories, and concepts will evoke in their readers who will read about those the first time. > > > > ## Stop assuming, empathize instead > > > > As we become aware of the curse of knowledge, we can do something about it. A key measure is to start questioning our assumptions and reflecting on what we experienced when we first encountered an idea, concept, or other experience. > > > > For instance, if I create a video about productivity tips and want to talk about to-do lists, I empathize with my audience and try to remember what struggles I faced when I started implementing these tips in my own life. > > > > When teaching or doing similar activities, asking for genuine feedback is key. Imagine your teachers had asked you for feedback and adjusted their teaching style accordingly. That would have enormously improved their teaching. > > > > ## Novelty indexing > > > > Recently, I read a newsletter of Ali Abdaal and the advice he had received from Julian Shapiro – a great non-fiction writer. It blew my mind because it was so simple but effective: > > > > “As we come across new ideas and take notes (in Notion, Roam, Apple Notes, a notebook, etc), we can use the Novelty Index to rank those ideas by how novel or exciting they seem *at the time*. That way, when we look back at our notes, we can always tell which ideas are most exciting to a total beginner. This is often the stuff that’s most worth writing about.” > > > > And it’s working not only with ideas but also with concepts, stories, and experiences. I journal every day and keep notes of every great experience. Combining this with the Novelty Index, I can write down how frightening, painful, joyful, stunning, etc. something was *at the time*, helping me to completely circumvent the curse of knowledge. > > > > I use Notion to keep track of all these different things whether it’s my journal, video scripts, blog articles, knowledge pieces, writing concepts, or gifting ideas. So, implementing it is no big deal for me. If you don’t keep track of anything yet, you might first want to start keeping track of the most valuable things in your life. > > > > Then, you can use the Novelty Index as follows: > > > > 1. Take a note when something is of particular interest to. I use Google Keep and Notion, but you could also use any other program or pen and paper > > 2. Write down a score (1-5) of how much of a particular emotion it created in you *at the time*. Let’s say “joy” and “4”. Or “interest” and “3”. --- # New Year’s resolutions – how you can achieve all of them - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/new-years-resolutions-how-you-can-achieve-all-of-them - Date: 2022-01-02 - Categories: Goal Achievement > *Don’t make resolutions without an action plan. The secret to success is right in your hands. –* J. Allen Shaw > > Summary: > > * Most resolutions aren’t concrete enough and not backed up with next actions > * To stop a habit we have to change it > * Process goals are all about the process, what we will actually have to do, step-by-step to achieve a goal > > Practical advice: > > * Contemplate resolutions by first brainstorming areas of life that are most important to you > * Write down your resolutions and make them as concrete as possible > * Backup your resolutions with next actions and process goals > > Dear friend, > > What do you think about New Year’s resolutions? > > On average, more than 50% of all resolutions fail. About 1/3 of resolutions don’t even make it past January. So, why do we even bother? > > Goals such as New Year’s resolutions are neither necessary nor sufficient for an awesome life. Yet, they’re a highly effective tool if used properly. > > I’ve been making New Year’s resolutions for 4 years now. Setting goals is the way I navigate through life, make my dreams come true, and live a happy and fulfilled life. > > In today’s blog article, I want to give you some inspiration, show you how I came up with my New Year’s goals, write about crucial mistakes in goal setting, and illustrate a technique that will make you achieve your goals. > > ## How I set my New Year’s resolutions > > The way I craft my New Year’s goals changes from year to year. Some things I stop doing as they don’t work so well, some things I picked up somewhere and want to implement. > > This year, before I made any resolution, I had first contemplated the categories for which I want to make the New Year’s resolutions. It facilitates the process to come up with goals that are important to me. I brainstormed different areas of my life that mean the most to me, such as family, career, sports, or knowledge. > > Second, I grouped them together (see picture below) to create 3-5 main categories. In my case, there are (A) Financial and societal impact, (B) Inner social circle, (C) Physiological fitness, (D) Mental fitness. > > Third, I thought about my passion, my aspirations, and possible goals in these 4 categories: > > ![](/images/essays/new-years-resolutions-how-you-can-achieve-all-of-them-1.jpg) > > Finally, I wrote down the very next action for each of these resolutions. For instance, for the EDM festival, I’ll look up different dates and elaborate a long list of festivals. To ensure my 7.5 hours of effective sleep, I’ll reflect on my sleep quality and analyze the data gathered via my Oura ring to identify factors worsening or improving my sleep. > > ## The most crucial mistake in goal setting > > Most resolutions fail due to 3 reasons: > > 1. They aren’t concrete enough > 2. They aren’t backed up with the next actions > 3. The resolution is to stop a habit even though habits cannot be stopped but only be changed > > First, our goals and thus New Year’s resolutions have to be as concrete as possible: How does it look like if we made it? A few examples: > > * “Exercise more” vs. “Do sports for 60 minutes 4x a week” > * “Lose weight” vs. “Lose 10kg until June and maintain the weight until next year” > * “Stop smoking” vs. “Gradually stop smoking so that from March I don’t smoke tobacco anymore” > > Second, we need to back up every goal with its next action. A few examples: > > * *Do sports for 60 minutes 4x a week:* Go for a run on January 1st, list possible obstacles preventing me from doing sports and find ways to circumvent them, read articles on how to make running a habit > * *Lose 10kg until June and maintain the weight until next year:* Identity common mistakes in dieting, ask friends for advice who were successful in losing weight to identify challenges that aren’t oblivious to you, get support from family and friends before starting, set a date to get started with the new diet > > Third, if you want to stop a habit, such as smoking or eating sweets, you have to change it otherwise you’ll most likely fail. > > Habits consist of 3 parts: A cue (trigger), the behavior itself, and a reward. If you want to stop smoking (the behavior itself), you cannot simply “not smoke” anymore because all the cues are still there. For instance, if your “smoking cues” are social events (e.g. drinking alcohol with friends) or stressful situations (e.g. taking a break at work), you will always want to have a cigarette once you encounter these situations. Your smoking habit is already formed and your body will desperately want a cigarette in these situations to receive the “reward” associated with the habit. So, you have to change your habit and replace the behavior of “smoking” with something else. For instance, you could still take a break if you encounter a stressful situation and drink a cup of coffee instead of smoking a cigarette. > > ## Harness process goals > > A technique that greatly helps me to achieve my goals is to derive process goals from my outcome goals. > > Outcome goals are the goals we usually set for ourselves: Get an A in maths, lose 10kg weight, bench 130kg, achieve 10,000 subscribers on YouTube, etc. > > Process goals are all about the process – the how: What you will actually have to do, step-by-step to achieve a goal? > > Setting a process goal means you have to identify what you actually have to do and how you do it. Your focus is on the actions, not the outcome, but as a side effect, you will also achieve the desired outcome. > > The key advantage of process goals is that they are – by definition – controllable, *outcome-independent* tasks. We have full control over whether we will achieve them or not. > > Continuing with the example ambition of weight loss, you might set a process goal of *walking 15.000 steps every day*. That’s easily measurable and doable, and you are totally in charge of whether or not you reach this process goal. > > Contrarily, losing 10kg also depends on various factors over which you don’t have full control, such as metabolism, working hours, social events, quality of food, etc. --- # Make better decisions by thinking in probabilities - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/make-better-decisions-by-thinking-in-probabilities - Date: 2021-12-19 - Categories: Goal Achievement > *Overthinking and the procrastination it creates stem from trying to make perfect decisions in a world where perfect decisions only exist in hindsight –* Steven Barlett > > Summary: > > * In our world, there’s no such thing as a perfect decision > * Making good decisions is crucial if you want to live a happy and fulfilled life > * Virtually nothing in life is 100% certain, rather, every outcome underlies a probability > > Practical advice: > > * First, identify all relevant options. Often, we miss crucial alternatives because we just consider the status-quo and another new option even though often there’re many more options > * Second, shortlist the options and evaluate the most promising ones. Doing so, (A) write down all the pros and cons, and (B) estimate the expected outcome for the different options > * Third, make a resolute decision and stick to it unless there’s a new better option > > Dear friend, > > Making decisions resolutely is a crucial skill. If you want to live a happy life and achieve your goals, you need to learn this skill. It’s key to succeed in your endeavors since a resolute decision will allow you to get things done, fail fast, and learn from your failures. Further, good decision-makers have happier lives since they perceive themselves as the master of their own destiny and work on the things causing discomfort and misery. > > However, making decisions isn’t easy for several reasons. Sometimes, we experience a kind of “perfect decision paralysis”. We cannot decide because we haven’t identified the “perfect option” yet and want to wait until it somehow manifests itself. Another reason is uncertainty. If the outcomes of the different options aren’t certain but underlie risk, it’s difficult the assess them. Generally, making decisions consumes time and effort. Even though it seems easy, making a resolute decision requires a conscious effort. > > I’ve already worked through numerous books, articles, and videos to improve my decision-making skills. I’m convinced that it’s a skill, something we can improve if we work on it. In today’s article, I want to share with you how I make better decisions, particularly, how I deal with uncertainty, and how using probabilities can greatly help us to make better decisions. > > ## There’s no perfect decision > > Imagine you have to decide whether you study psychology or medicine. You talked to various people, read several guides, and made a long pros and cons list. Yet, you feel like you cannot decide. Both options seem equivalent and involve so much uncertainty that you don’t want to regret deciding against one of them. > > In our world, there’s no such thing as a perfect decision. We can always ask more people, read more articles and books, and collect more pros and cons. At some point, we have to stop analyzing and make a resolute decision as we will only know the true outcome if we actually pursue an option. > > Gary Vee illustrated a great example in one of his blog articles showing that there’s no perfect decision: > > Imagine you had to decide whether you quit your job or start your own business. And let’s say you decided to start your business, and it becomes huge and you turn out to be right in your hypothesis. Imagine that led to a big meeting in a different country and you had to fly there. In the process, your plane crashed and you died. > > Now, what would have been the better decision? Staying at the job or becoming that successful entrepreneur dying in a plane crash? > > You will never know how things will turn out. And hence, there’s no perfect decision. > > ## Make decisions better not perfect > > Nevertheless, making good decisions is crucial if you want to live a happy and fulfilled life. Both procrastinating and making continuously bad decisions lead to discomfort and misery. > > For instance, in my exchange semester in the US, I f\*cked up my diet and ate too often baked potatoes and fries. I continuously made the “bad decision” to eat those and hence I gained weight. Another example, I procrastinated the decision to invest in crypto, making me lose a great amount of the market upturn. As I’m now invested, I’ve got a similar risk with less potential as I invested at a higher market price. > > We all will make a bad decision from time to time, that’s not the problem. In fact, it’s better to make a decision leading to a bad outcome than make no decision at all, since we then can learn from our failure and improve our decision-making skills. The best decision-makers are those that have already made plenty of decisions and learned from those that led to a negative outcome. > > Assuming that a decision has to be perfect, though, will make us suffer decision making paralysis. We need to make good decisions not seemingly perfect ones. Indeed, the harder the decision, the more we desire certainty. > > The first step to making these hard decisions is becoming comfortable with the fact that we won’t make a perfect decision. Virtually nothing in life is 100% certain, rather, every outcome underlies a probability. > > To make our decisions better, we have to understand that we deal with probabilities. Every outcome of an option has a certain probability that it will come true. Taking that into account, allows us to assess the expected value of an option and hence make better decisions. > > ## Think in probabilities, make better decisions > > Uncertainty s\*cks. Yet, all our lives are full of it. A great way to better deal with it and make better decisions is to think in probabilities. > > Let’s say you want to decide what you are going to study – psychology or medicine – and even though you prefer studying medicine, you’re undecided as you’re afraid of the hard exams in medicine. Here, you could use probabilities to rationalize your anxiety by finding out what the drop-out rates due to failed exams in medicine are. And before doing so, you set yourself a limit. Let’s say, if 10% of students drop out of medicine because of failed exams, you’ll study psychology. The percentage of students failing in medicine you could find out via the examination office or randomly asking medicine students what they estimate to be this percentage and taking the average. > > Even though I’m making that up, plenty of people face this exact problem every year and have a hard time deciding. In life, we face many hard decisions. And while it might be an easy choice what to study or to work, other decisions, like investing, asking a friend out, or choosing where to live, might be a difficult choice for you. > > To make better decisions, I follow a 3 step approach: > > First, I try to identify all relevant options. Often, we miss crucial alternatives because we just consider the status-quo and another new option even though often there’re many more options. [We neglect alternatives](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/make-better-decisions-the-negligence-of-alternatives), worsening our decision-making process. > > Second, I shortlist the options and evaluate the most promising ones. Doing so, (A) I write down all the pros and cons, and (B) I estimate the expected outcome for the different options. For instance, before I invested in crypto, I listed all the arguments for investing in crypto, using that money to invest into sector-specific ETFs, or using this money for something else. After I had evaluated the pros and cons and estimated the probabilities of the different outcomes, I could make a very clear decision. > > Third, I make a resolute decision. Once I can make a decision, I do it and stick to it. For me, there’s no way back. Only when there’s a significantly better option, I change my mind and decide on it. Consistency is key. --- # Vaccination – why making this decision is so clear to me - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/vaccination-why-making-this-decision-is-so-clear-to-me - Date: 2021-12-12 - Categories: Goal Achievement > *Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision. –* Anthony Robbins > > Summary: > > * The decision to be vaccinated comes down to 3 factors: (1) I’m rather a risk-seeking than a risk-avoiding person (2) I love technology (3) I always think long-term > * I try my best to profound my decisions in logic > * Every day, we have to make hundreds of minor decisions. And every once in a while, we have to make a major decision. While good decisions lead to wealth, bad decisions lead to misery > > Practical advice: > > * To find your values, you need to ask yourself what’s important to you and how you can express that in actionable principles > * What greatly helps to identify your values is to think about major decisions you made in the past and why you made them > * Once you determined your values, apply them to your decision-making process as often as you can > > Dear friend, > > A few days ago, someone from my YouTube community asked me what I thought about vaccinations. First, I was hesitant to answer – the topic is emotional and highly polarized. And, I haven’t really spent much time on this topic. > > Yet, it made me think. I’ve got a clear opinion on whether I should be vaccinated. To put it like this, I couldn’t really wait until I received my shot. Once I was allowed to be vaccinated, I did my best to organize an appointment to get it. I even drove 150 km. > > My very clear view on this topic is due to 3 reasons: (1) I’m rather a risk-seeking than a risk-avoiding person. (2) I love technology. Technology allows me to live the life I dream of. (3) I always think long-term. > > In today’s blog article, I explicate these 3 decision-making factors and how they made my decision regarding vaccination so easy and write about decision-making principles and how they can help us to make decisions more easily. > > ## 3 reasons why I got vaccinated > > There are various reasons why we should and why we shouldn’t be vaccinated against COVID. I write this article not to argue for any of the sites but to explicate my decision-making process. On an individual level, every person has to decide what’s best for him/her. The following explanations are my personal views and don’t intend to convince anybody to be vaccinated. Rather, I intend to explicate my decision-making process applied to this topic. > > So, I’ve got a very clear view of the topic and I would say it’s quite logical. I try my best to profound my decisions in logic. Thus, in case I’m writing some illogical bullshit, your feedback is highly appreciated. > > For me, the decision to be vaccinated comes down to 3 factors: (1) I’m rather a risk-seeking than a risk-avoiding person. (2) I love technology. Technology allows me to live the life I dream of. (3) I always think long-term. > > (1) Receiving a COVID shot is associated with a certain risk. Nothing to argue about. Simultaneously, getting COVID is also associated with a certain risk. Nothing to argue about. What’s more worth a discussion is whether the risks of a COVID shot are higher than those of getting the disease itself. With regard to the most recent data, though, it’s evident that COVID itself is significantly more likely to pose a larger risk for my health than a COVID shot. > > Now, assuming getting COVID is riskier than getting vaccinated and taking into account that the likelihood of getting COVID during a lifetime is nearly 100% as COVID won’t likely disappear, it is a no-brainer to me that getting the shot is the better alternative. > > Even if the likelihood to get sick of COVID during my lifetime was just about 5% or so, I’d get the shot. As a rather risk-seeking person, I rather take more risk (even an over proportional amount) if the outcome is better. And as the risk of severe health consequences of COVID, such as long-term damaged lungs, is higher than that of a shot, I’d go for the shot. > > (2) I’m a strong proponent of technological progress. Technology is what will enable us to live in a world without hunger and thirst, to live in peace and harmony. Humanity has always been in wars due to the scarcity of resources. Technology allows us to make the most out of these resources so that for everyone there’s enough. In most Western societies that almost works (taking into account we solve the climate and nitrogen crisis – through technology). And I’m very optimistic that we will make that work globally one day, too. > > Now, regarding the COVID vaccine, I don’t fear the new m-RNA technology on which Pfizzer/BioNTech and Moderna are based but rather strongly believe in it. I think that’s just the beginning of new biotechnology we can finally make use of to solve among the most difficult problems in our world, e.g. many cutting-edge cancer therapies based on this technology are promising. > > (3) My most important value is to think long-term. I want to always think long-term when making a decision whether it’s where I will work, whom I spent my time with, or the decision to get a COVID shot. > > As this notion of *long-term thinking* is rather unspecific, I derived concrete questions I always ask myself when I’m faced with a decision: *What happens if everybody acted as I do? Do I want my siblings, future children, or friends to act in the same way?* > > And honestly, while it’s a rather difficult question to be vaccinated on an individual level, it’s a very simple question on a collective level. If all people were vaccinated, COVID had no chance anymore and the most vulnerable people of our society would be significantly safer again. Vaccinations are good on a society level. In my opinion, someone who gets vaccinated despite being afraid of it is doing a great service to our society. > > ## Decision-making principles > > Life is all about decisions. Every day, we have to make hundreds of minor decisions. And every once in a while, we have to make a major decision. While good decisions lead to wealth, bad decisions lead to misery. Probably a reason, why we often procrastinate in making major decisions. > > Having decision-making principles can help us to make decisions more easily and better. Whenever we struggle in making a decision, we can apply them. > > One of my decision-making principles is to minimize the amount of regret in my life. Whenever there’s a major decision to be made, I imagine myself in my 80s and contemplate the different outcomes of the options. For instance, before I started my YouTube channel, I had thought through the consequences of starting it or using the time for something else. Two years later, I’m still very confident that starting it was the right decision. > > The good thing about applying decision-making principles is that we make decisions more consciously and can refine our decision-making principles based on our experience to make even better decisions. For example, I aim to make more decisions based on probabilities. The more often I will do that, the better I will become in applying this principle, making my decisions better. > > Imagine you have to decide between two job/internship offers that seem equivalent. How would you make this decision? > > ## Become a better decision-maker > > The 1 thing that greatly has helped me to make better decisions was to be clear on my values. Our values are the things in life that matter most to us. For me, there are 5 values: (1) Long-term thinking (2) Never satisfied always grateful (3) Always doing my best (4) Appreciation of life (5) Fun, pleasure, and joy. > > To find your values, you need to ask yourself what’s important to you and how you can express that in actionable principles. I want to live a happy and fulfilled life, and to do so, I’ve got these 5 values. > > What greatly helped to identify my values was to think about major decisions I made in the past and why I made them, e.g. breaking up with a girlfriend, going to high school, studying business, being the leader of a student organization, going on multiple diets, setting the goal to be an A student, … > > Finding our values takes time. I reflected a lot on my values before I wrote them down and called them as such. Today, I still regularly reflect on them and check whether they are still the right ones. Yet, the investment of finding them and writing them down was one of the best investments in my life. > > Once you determined your values, apply them to your decision-making process as often as you can. You need to decide whether you go to a party or study for an exam? Go through your values. You need to decide whether you invest in a certain asset? Go through your values. You need to decide whether you should accept a certain job offer? Go through your values. --- # Be persistent and convince anybody - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/be-persistent-and-convince-anybody - Date: 2021-12-05 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Whoever knocks persistently, ends by entering –* Muhammad Ali > > > > Summary: > > > > People reject you not because they don’t like you, but because of so many other reasons you can’t think of > > To convince someone, it’s key to stop assuming and contemplating probable reasons, find out the actual, underlying reasons, and address them > > Asking for the actual reasons will require empathy. We need to be genuinely interested in the other person’s opinion and rationale > > > > Practical advice: > > > > First, always try at least a second time – whatever you’re trying to do > > Second, when rejected, ask why. And thereby, try to be as emphatically as you can > > Third, address the actual reason why you got rejected > > > > > > Dear friend, > > > > > > I’ve to tell you a story of an amazing person from my community. This person, let’s call him David, approached me some months ago and asked whether I could proofread an application he wrote to apply for an internship abroad. > > > > David did a really good job, his letter of application was well structured, answered all the relevant questions, and fitted the vacancy well. So, I told David what a great application he wrote and that he will definitely get this internship. > > > > A few weeks later, David told me that his contact, whom he sent the application, hasn’t answered him yet. Not even a confirmation. I told him not to worry and to send his contact a reminder mail. Luckily David did so, and he received a very kind reply. His application is great, there might be a great fit, and they are going to set up an introductory meeting. > > > > David was really glad that he sent reminder emails and greatly looked forward to the meeting. Yet, again, a few weeks passed and no meeting was set up. In one of our latest community events, he told me happened. David felt like he was “ghosted” (the person decided not to answer him anymore), and that the contact person actually isn’t interested. > > > > I told David that this behavior is common. Managers are very busy people, and keep forgetting things to do if they are not on top of their minds. It’s not that he was ghosted on purpose, but it’s just because this manager was too busy. Hence, I told him he has to be persistent and keep approaching him. It might seem annoying, but it actually isn’t. This manager liked his profile and was interested in him. So, I told David, he is doing both a favor if he stayed persistent. > > > > Another few weeks later, David told me that he got the official invitation for the interview. Instead of writing emails, he decided to call the manager and ask him about the status quo of the application. Indeed, the manager was really busy and forgot about the meeting. Immediately, though, the manager reached out to his HR department and got the interview scheduled. > > > > What I really love about this story is not that David got the invitation to the interview (and will hopefully land that internship) but rather that he made the realization that persistence pays off. > > > > It’s often the case that people don’t reject us because of the reasons we think of (they don’t like us, we are not good enough, …) but because of reasons we often *cannot* think of. And usually, these actual reasons lead to a rather “negative” and not a definite “no” response, such as no replies to our emails. Hence, if we stay persistent and address the actual reasons why we were seemingly rejected, we will much more often obtain what we asked for. > > > > In today’s blog article, I will dig deeper into this topic and write about persistence and how it can help us to convince anybody. > > > > *No* often does not mean *no* > > > > Recently, I watched a [TED talk on a guy who tried to get rejected at least once every day](https://www.ted.com/talks/jia_jiang_what_i_learned_from_100_days_of_rejection). He wanted to learn to better deal with it and tried hilarious things. For instance, he went to a donut shop and asked whether he could have 5 donuts in the shape of the Olympics logo (the 5 rings). Or he asked random homeowners whether he could cut their lawn. Or he asked in a burger shop whether he could have a “burger refill”. Usually, he persisted and really tried his best to obtain what he asked for. And guess what, he often succeeded. > > > > Often the people were hesitant or gave him a quick no. But as he got into conversations with people, he could often overcome the initial rejection. > > > > I’ve made similar experiences. When I wanted to win new sponsors for my student organization, the representative of the sponsoring organization were even reluctant to speak with me. Once I got a personal or virtual meeting set up with them, though, my chances were significantly higher. So, I always tried my best to have a meeting with them, often trying different things multiple times until I got the scheduled meeting. > > > > Persistence + Empathy = Superweapon > > > > The guy made another great realization during this experiment. Once he started asking the people *why* when they rejected him, not only his chances to convince them increased but also the actual reasons were an epiphany. > > Almost always, the reasons why he was rejected were totally different from what he expected the reasons to be. For instance, he asked in a Starstucks whether he could serve as a “greeter” as they have in Walmarts stores (people standing at the entrance and saying a nice “welcome to Walmart”). The responsible person of the Starbucks store initially rejected him. Not because he didn’t like the TED speaker who asked, not because he thought the TED speaker was ugly, and not because he didn’t like the idea. After asking why, the TED speaker found out that the responsible manager just doesn’t want to waste time with a weird guy who is joking around. By addressing this actual reason, telling the responsible guy that it was meant seriously, the TED speaker was allowed to be a greeter. > > > > As David and the TED speaker did, I’ve experienced rejection several times. I learned that people reject me not because they don’t like me, my email, idea, or application, but because of so many other reasons I couldn’t think of. > > > > To convince someone, it’s key to stop assuming and contemplating probable reasons, find out the actual, underlying reasons, and address them. > > > > Asking for the actual reasons will require empathy. We need to be genuinely interested in the other person’s opinion and rationale. Yes, that’s not easy. This person we are trying to empathize with just rejected us. But it’s going to be worth it. Either we will better understand why we’re rejected so we can do better the next time, or we can address the underlying reasons and obtain what we wanted in the first place. > > > > Harness persistence to convince anybody > > > > From all the books, articles, and research I consumed and the experiences I personally made, I want to give you 3 practical tips on how to be more persistent and more successful in convincing others: > > > > First, always try at least a second time. Whatever is you are trying to do – applying for a job, asking someone for a favor, giving someone a pitch, asking a guy or girl for his or her number, … – try at least one more time. There are so many situations in which this second try is needed. Some jobs are only for those who tried a second time. Some guys or girls reject us just by default the first time we approach them. Some investors want to see persistence and challenge us by default. Trying one more time can immensely increase our chances of success. > > > > Second, when rejected, ask why. And thereby, try to be as emphatically as you can. As already described in the previous chapter, often the actual reason why we get rejected is totally different from what we expect. Hence, to not only increase our chances to convince others but also learn crucial lessons by identifying the real reasons, we need to ask why. > > > > Third, address the actual reason why you got rejected. Once you found out the underlying rationale why a person rejected you, think about ways how you can address it. If you lack experience for a certain job, obtain more experience. If a person doesn’t trust you and thus rejected you, find ways to instill trust in him/her. … There’s no ideal way how you can address the reasons why you’re rejected, and you cannot always address those. Yet, if you really want something, you’ll definitely find a way to make it possible. --- # Self-belief — and how to strengthen it - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/self-belief-how-to-strengthen-it-3-tips - Date: 2021-11-28 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty* *– Winston Churchill* > > Summary: > > * A strong self-belief is when we’re truly convinced that we will achieve a certain goal > * Almost every person who achieved something exceptional had a strong self-belief > * Without a strong self-belief, we often don’t even start the journey – abandoning our dreams and aspirations > > Practical advice: > > * First, every day you have to make a conscious decision to believe in your goals > * Second, set little goals first. To build strong self-belief, you need to have these little successes > * Third, get inspired by people with strong self-belief > > Dear friend, > > I’ve just finished my recent reading “Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It”. It’s a book about positioning yourself for “success” and the key ingredients that all “unreasonably” successful people – think of Albert Einstein, Jeff Bezos, Marie Curie, Winston Churchill, Steve Jobs – have in common. > > I really liked the content because it wasn’t about the classical “work hard”, “stay consistent”, “be patient” mentality but rather about how to set oneself up for success. For instance, according to the author, it’s vital to “find and drive our personal vehicle”, i.e. that we find a kind of platform we can use to multiply our impact. For Churchill that was his party, for Jeff his former employer and later his venture Amazon, for Marie Curie it was her Radium Institute and her husband that helped her to gain status when she moved to early 20th century France. > > Another key ingredient we have to attain is a “strong self-belief”, which implies starting the journey, building up the confidence that we will find our way to success even if we don’t yet know the route or the destination. > > Strong self-belief is the ingredient that is the most crucial one. Only a few people really have a strong self-belief. But it’s not that is “hard” to attain it. It’s rather a conscious decision and a series of key experiences we can set ourselves up for that will make us attain it. I used to have no self-belief, I was a very doubtful person. Today, though, pretty much the opposite is true: I strongly believe nothing can stop me from making my dreams become reality. > > In today’s blog article, I will zoom in on this “success ingredient”: What is self-belief? Why is it so important? How can we attain a strong self-belief? And tell you how my self-belief became so strong. > > ## Self-belief – what does it mean? > > A strong self-belief is when we’re truly convinced that we will achieve a certain goal. It implies working towards the goal even if the route or final destination is unclear. For instance, Jeff Bezos wanted to build an “everything” store in the late 90s. He started with selling books, and today, we’ve got Amazon – the store with by far the largest assortment. > > I’ve already observed many times what it looks like if someone lacks a strong self-belief. It’s the moments when someone says “Yeah, achieving x might be cool, but I don’t really want it”, “…, but I think there are already too many people doing x”, “…, but I think I’m not y enough”, “…, but person z is much better than me”, “…, but I don’t have enough time”… > > When we lack self-belief, we try to find excuses and arguments why our goal isn’t a good idea or not attainable. Having great self-belief is rather the opposite: Even if someone discourages our goal, we find reasons why it’ll work out anyway. As Winston Churchill once said: “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”. It’s not that we have to be an optimist to have strong self-belief, but we’ve to find opportunities in every difficulty that might prevent us from achieving our goals. > > Further, people with a strong self-belief tend to have a strong “internal locus of control”. Locus of control refers to our perception of the underlying main causes of events in our lives. Someone with a strong internal locus of control believes that his/her destiny is controlled by him/herself. Contrarily, someone with a strong external locus of control believes that his/her destiny is controlled by external forces, such as fate, god, or powerful others. > > ## Self-belief – why so important? > > The author of the book wrote: “If we don’t have strong self-belief, it’s almost impossible to become unreasonably successful”. Almost every person who achieved something exceptional had a strong self-belief. And that makes perfect sense. We need to have this strong inner conviction that we can achieve a goal. The more ambitious the goal, the less other people will believe this goal is attainable. And if we don’t believe it will work out, probably no one will do so. > > Going for something many people believe won’t work out is rough. People will laugh at us, people will discourage us, people will be skeptical, or people will even put obstacles in our way. > > I really don’t like Trump because of his moral and political views, but this guy has an absolutely astonishing self-belief. He received so much hate, resistance, laughter, and still kept going. His life is a series of goals accompanied by failure, discouragement, and resistance. And still, he eventually achieved many of them. I think this guy isn’t good for our world, and it sucks to see that he is a role model for so many people. However, we cannot deny that his strong self-belief literally distorted reality and made things that seemed totally unrealistic true. > > Even if we don’t aim for world domination or building an everything store, self-belief is a prerequisite to achieving our goals. For instance, it’s hard to put in the consistent work needed to reach any worthwhile goal, such as losing weight, achieving certain grades, or getting a promotion, if we don’t have self-belief. Having strong self-belief helps us to see setbacks as a part of the process and keep on going, reinforcing our self-belief, whereas a lack of self-belief will make failure reinforce our insecurities. > > Even worse, without a strong self-belief, we often don’t start the journey. So many people have great aspirations, desires, or dreams, but due to their lack of self-belief, they don’t take their shot. People who don’t try a new hobby, who don’t change their job, who don’t start their business, who don’t leave a toxic partner, … clearly lack self-belief. > > ## How to attain a strong self-belief > > What allowed me to attain a strong self-belief were 2 major factors: (1) Goals (2) little experience of success. > > (1) Setting goals was key since it allowed me to test my abilities. I set myself minor goals, such as getting an A in my German class in the 10th grade, asking that girl for her number at a party, reading a book in 15 days, or not skipping leg day for 1 month. > > (2) In following my minor goals, I experienced from time to time little successes. I got that A in my German class and I asked that girl for her number. These little successes allowed me to build confidence in my abilities and the confidence that I can achieve the goals I set for myself. > > If I had to teach my younger self how to strengthen his self-belief, I would tell him 3 things: > > First, every day you have to make a conscious decision to believe in your goals. You are the only person who is in charge and if you don’t believe in your goals, nobody will do. > > Second, set little goals first. To build strong self-belief, you need to have these little successes. They build the momentum that will carry you through the failures, setbacks, and rejection that more ambitious goals will force you to overcome. Setting unrealistically high goals and not meeting them is detrimental to self-belief. If you demand too much, too fast, it will backfire. So set realistic smaller goals, with easy steps to achieve them. When you reach a goal, set a higher one. Gradually aim higher as you achieve them. And with each step forward, you’ll build more and more self-belief. > > Third, get inspired by people with strong self-belief. When I was a teenager I read a lot about Bill Gates and Elon Musk. Particularly the latter one was talked down for years. Millions of people believed that he and his companies will fail. And indeed, so many times, Elon Musk was at the brink of failure, but he kept going and kept believing. Today, his technology companies bring Elon Musk’s dreams and vision alive, and the number of disbelievers has shrunk. By reading the biographies of these people, you will get inspired and receive the necessary amount of energy you need to make your dreams and goals become true. --- # How to stop overstressing and perform better - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-stop-overstressing-and-perform-better - Date: 2021-11-21 - Categories: Communication > *Stress should be a powerful driving force, not an obstacle –* Bill Phillips > > Summary: > > * There are 3 main triggers of “overstress”: Responsibility, uncertainty, and time pressure > * Whether it’s responsibility, uncertainty, or deadlines, if we react properly to these stress triggers, they won’t make us overstress but make us perform better > * Working too hard leads to more stress and worse results > > Practical advice: > > * First, rest is key. No matter how stressful the situation, working/studying/etc. without taking a break will make us perform worse and feel even more stressed > * Second, we need to take care of our health in order to cope with stressful situations > * Third, the right mindset is crucial. Instead of just suffering stress responses, we need to embrace them > > Dear friend, > > Have you ever felt *overstressed*? > > I’ve already felt overstressed multiple times, sometimes even to the point of a mental breakdown. For example, for an exam in university, I learned and memorized 450 PowerPoint slides word-by-word. It felt awful to waste so much time memorizing each word. Simultaneously, I was behind my learning schedule, making me think that it was all in vain. At some point, the combination of these 2 factors brought me to tears. > > Today, I can much better deal with stress. In my job as a strategy consultant, there are often highly stressful situations. For example, there might be an executive board presentation for which you prepared an analysis. Last-minute, a client might send you new data that has implications on it. Incorporating these inputs and drawing the right conclusions right before the meeting might pump stress levels to a high. > > Stress itself, though, isn’t the problem. In fact, experiencing stress can greatly boost our performance and make us live longer. It’s the situations in which we experience an unsustainable amount of stress and our failure to properly deal with it that make things worse. > > I learned “the hard way” how too much stress can be prevented and how it can be made use of. In today’s article, I will share with you these learnings – write about why we experience overstress, why it’s counterintuitive to overstress, and how you can better deal with stress, too. > > ## Why we overstress > > From my experience, the main triggers of “overstress” are those 3: (1) Responsibility – having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone. (2) Uncertainty – not being sure what will happen in the future. (3) Time pressure (deadlines) – having to get things done in less time than desired. > > (1) Being responsible for something/someone can be an overwhelming experience. When I became the leader of a student club, suddenly, I was responsible for dozens of student club members. At first, that felt quite frightening. > > But it’s not the amount of responsibility that triggers overstress but the lack of experience with it. For instance, many parents report that the first child was the most challenging one because they had no experience, whereas, the second and third child didn’t raise the stress levels too much. In my case, the first sessions within my teams were quite stressful while the later sessions weren’t stressful at all. > > (2) Uncertainty can be a huge stress trigger. For instance, when I waited for the responses to my job applications or conformations of key sponsors of the student club, I felt awfully stressed. > > Even though we cannot really do something about uncertainty, we think through various scenarios, causing stress and wasting time, energy, and happiness. And that’s the actual issue. Not uncertainty but our response to it is what’s triggering stress. > > (3) Deadlines are a major cause of stress. Back when I was a student, many of my fellow students were stressed because they had started learning for the exams too late. > > In my job, we’re always confronted with tight deadlines. In the first few months, I struggled to cope with the associated time pressure, sometimes causing overstress. But here again, it’s not the limited time but our response to it causing stress – it’s not the deadline but us being afraid of failing. > > ## Overstressing – counter-intuitive implications > > Stress is an integral part of life. We’ll always experience various events – internal as well as external – that put stress on our bodies, requiring us to react and adjust mentally and physically. Overstress, though, can be prevented. Whether it’s responsibility, uncertainty, or deadlines, if we react properly to these stress triggers, they won’t make us overstress but make us perform better. > > Being stressed makes us act. We take things more seriously and stop procrastinating. We want to work more and harder to prevent ourselves from failing. Simultaneously, though, we stop taking care of our physiological and psychological needs: We stop drinking enough, eating properly, taking breaks, and socializing. As a consequence, our perceived stress level and its negative effects are increased (great read on this topic: *Peak Performance* by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness). Doing more and working even harder leads to more stress and worse results – quite counterintuitive, isn’t it? > > So, if the stress triggers aren’t the actual cause and working more isn’t the answer, what can we do to prevent overstress? > > ## How to prevent overstress > > I’m a great fan of stress. It’s what makes me feel alive. I would rather be stressed than be bored the whole day. Hence, to prevent overstress, I would recommend not avoiding stress triggers such as responsibility, uncertainty, or time pressure but learning to work with not against stress. Thereby, 3 aspects are key: > > First, rest is key. No matter how stressful the situation, working/studying/etc. without taking a break will make us perform worse and feel even more stressed. Ideally, we work a max of 50 minutes without resting in between. > > Second, we need to take care of our health in order to cope with stressful situations. I need to sleep and drink enough, eat healthily, and do sports to sustain high levels of stress. Only if these checkboxes are marked, we can perform best and feel well. > > Third, the right mindset is crucial. Instead of just suffering stress responses, we need to embrace them. Our heart is beating stronger? Our breath is faster? Our palms are sweaty? That’s our body telling us that the situation is very serious so that we can do our best to beat the challenge. We need to be grateful for these stress responses since they will make us perform better. Just reframing them can greatly boost both our well-being and performance. --- # Master the skill of prioritization - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/master-the-skill-of-prioritization-3-tips-to-better-prioritize - Date: 2021-11-14 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Relationships > > *Know what matters most to you and be unwilling to compromise those priorities –* Frank Sonnenberg > > Summary: > > * You, your friends, family, colleagues, boss, etc. – everyone has certain needs; everyone has a certain agenda; and everyone has certain priorities > * Prioritizing properly is essential to ensure one’s own needs are met > * At work and in school, to perform best, it’s essential to differentiate between the tasks creating value and those creating limited or no value > > Practical advice: > > * First, we need to create an overview of all the things/actions we need and want to accomplish > * Second, we need to evaluate which actions are most valuable > * Third, we need to communicate our priorities transparently, empathically, and clearly > > Dear friend, > > In life, I’ve learned in the past few years, it’s all about prioritization. 99% of the things are scarce, whether it’s time, food, energy, money, our attention … Hence, we cannot “have it all”. It’s always a balancing act of scarce resources. > > At work/school, this fact is even more significant. Without prioritization, we spend most of our valuable resources – time and energy – on the things that don’t lead to desired results. If we don’t think about what topics are relevant for an exam or what tasks of a project create the largest impact, we waste our precious resources. > > In my role as a consultant, I have to continuously assess whether the tasks I’m doing are the ones creating the most impact for my clients. For instance, I cannot simply do an analysis without considering how valuable it is. Doing a market segmentation might be interesting to me, but if the client doesn’t even understand their products, this analysis isn’t very valuable. In addition, like in any job, there are so many things to do, I could literally work my way to death. Hence, I need to not only prioritize tasks but evaluate whether my work meets the expectations I created or I’ve to spend more time to do so. > > Mastering the skill of prioritizing properly is an ongoing process for me. I spend a lot of time reflecting on the things I do and whether I prioritized them properly. In today’s blog article, I will discuss why prioritizing is a key skill to master and give you 3 practical tips to better prioritize. > > ## Everyone has a certain agenda > > You, your friends, family, colleagues, boss, etc. – everyone has certain needs; everyone has a certain agenda; and everyone has certain priorities. Every day, these priorities clash with each other and need to be harmonized. Some needs are met, some aren’t, depending on whose priorities came first. > > Prioritizing properly is essential to ensure one’s own needs are met. If we don’t know what’s most important to us, how should others know and consider it? No matter in which area of life – in relationships, at work, in friendships, etc. – having clear priorities is the basic requirement so that our needs are given consideration. > > For example, if I don’t tell my project manager and teammates that doing sports every morning is very important to me, they cannot take it into account and might schedule internal meetings early, making me unable to do my workout. > > ## Be a better friend, family member, and partner > > If you’re like me and want to make sure not only you but also everyone else is doing well, prioritizing properly allows you to have better relationships. > > We need to know our own priorities so that we can take care of those of others. Only if our own key priorities are met, we can “enjoy pleasing” others; otherwise, we’ll feel dissatisfied and neglected. > > For instance, I love working and doing things that make this world a little better. Hence, I don’t have much time for friends and family from Monday to Friday. My work is a clear priority. However, if I spend time with them, I’ll give my best to make this time as meaningful as possible. > > ## Make better work > > At work and in school, to perform best, it’s essential to differentiate between the tasks creating value and those creating limited or no value. > > Just learning stuff can take us very far in middle and high school. In university, though, there’s so much content, we just cannot learn everything. Then, what differentiates the A student from the rest is the capability to prioritize properly. > > At work, that’s the very same story. Yes, we can compensate for a lack of prioritization capability by just working more, but to be a top performer in a company, that’s not enough. The best people not only work a lot but also do a lot of the things creating the most value. On the other hand, we can perform well while having less stress and fewer working hours if we prioritize properly and do the things that create the most value. > > ## How to better prioritize > > Before we can prioritize, we need to know what to prioritize. Hence, the first step to prioritize properly is to create an overview of all the things we need and want to accomplish. To do so, I make use of the “Getting Things Done” principles: (1) I have a project list for each project in my life. Thereby, a project is defined as something that requires more than 1 action. (2) I have a next action list. Each and every project has a next action, which I captured there. > > Second, we need to evaluate which actions are most valuable. That is an iterative process and requires continuous reflection. Today, we might think project A and task Z should be prioritized over project B and task X; tomorrow, though, project B might reveal as more important. Depending on the circumstances and context, we have to make a conscious decision about what’s most important to us, whether is going out with a friend, spending time with our partner, working late hours, doing sports in the morning, or learning certain topics for an exam. > > At work, I ask my project lead in case I’m not able to prioritize my tasks/projects by myself. With my girlfriend, I’ve regular conversations on what new things we could try out, what we / I shouldn’t do (anymore), and what we / I should do more often. And for other areas of my life, I regularly reflect on what’s valuable to me and others and what’s not. > > Third, we need to communicate our priorities transparently, empathically, and clearly. As stated at the beginning, everyone has needs, a demand, and an own agenda. To harmonize those with ours, communication is key. --- # I asked for feedback and it changed my life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/i-asked-for-feedback-and-it-changed-my-life - Date: 2021-11-07 - Categories: Goal Achievement > *Feedback is the breakfast of champions. –* Ken Blanchard > > Summary: > > * The first step to obtaining (better) feedback is to ask for it > * Moreover, we need to use the feedback and aim to do things differently > * The more genuine the feedback, the more valuable it becomes > > Practical advice: > > * First, you need to be receptive for feedback. Be genuinely interested in the opinion of the person you ask for feedback > * Second, listen without interruption. Provide the person giving feedback with the feeling that you’re listening carefully > * Third, ask clarifying questions and for concrete improvement recommendations. Thereby, you can paraphrase the words you understood > > Dear friend, > > Some weeks ago, I wrote about the [importance of finding our strengths and how we can do so](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/find-your-strengths-and-focus-on-them). Thereby, I suggested asking friends, family, and colleagues for regular feedback and their view so that we can personally grow. > > I greatly love feedback and highly appreciate every person who spends their time to provide me with his/her opinion and advice. Since I started my YouTube channel, I’ve received thousands of comments from people providing me with feedback. Ever since I’ve read and answered every single one even though some of them were pretty harsh. > > When I was in high school, I regularly asked my teachers what I can do better and how I can improve. Their feedback greatly helped me to achieve better grades. > > Generally speaking, feedback is a great means to improvement in all areas of life. Whether it’s at work, in relationships, in sports, or in other hobbies, feedback helps us to grow. But why is feedback so vital, how can we obtain more and better feedback, and how can we make the most out of it? That’s what today’s blog article is about. > > ## Why feedback changed my life for the better > > When I was a teenager, I was shy and “socially awkward”. I loved discussing unusual stuff with people I knew, often appearing like an annoying smart alec (Klugscheißer). Looking back, I wouldn’t have enjoyed spending time with the person I used to be if I’d been another person. > > On my journey to a “socially enjoyable” person, I received a lot of feedback in the form of rejection. I forced my “socially awkward self” to get out, approach new people, and open conversations. Thereby, I wanted to go to parties (particularly private parties like birthday parties because I was too young for dancing clubs) and regularly asked people I knew what they were about to do at the weekend. Often, they told me they did nothing special and chilled at home even though, on the next Monday, I found out that they went out. > > When I finally got to a party, I had a really hard time getting into “not awkward” conversations. People often wanted to back out of the conversation as soon as I talked to them. These rejections, though, ultimately boosted my self-confidence. I knew that rejection is a normal thing. Once we open up and make ourselves vulnerable, rejection is part of the game. And the more conversations I had, the more enjoyable they became because received a lot of “real feedback” on what’s enjoyable and what’s not. > > Further examples of the positive impact of feedback: > > * At work, I regularly ask for formal feedback. This feedback insanely enhanced my professional abilities, such as problem-solving or communication skills > * Reflecting on my previous relationship, I learned to become a more considered and empathetic partner > * As a leader of a university organization, I asked my team leaders for feedback, greatly helping me to develop my leadership skills > * Starting weightlifting, I often asked people to give me feedback on my exercise technique, boosting my performance > > ## How to receive more and better feedback > > The more genuine the feedback, the more valuable it becomes. Talking to strangers yields more reliable and valid feedback than asking your best friend for it. Your boss might be a better source than your peers. And asking your partner for feedback on what you can do better in your relationship is better in a neutral setting than right after an argument. > > The first step to obtaining (better) feedback is to ask for it. Most people don’t ask for feedback in the first place. That’s quite unfortunate for 2 reasons: (1) People love being asked for their opinion and (2) their feedback can often save us plenty of time and/or misery. > > I made it a habit to regularly ask for feedback whether at work (formal feedback every 2-3 weeks), my YouTube community (polls and a call to action in every video), or my girlfriend (whenever I’m in doubt, I ask). At first, it won’t be easy, but – as with everything – we get used to it. > > ## How to make the most out of feedback > > Just asking for feedback, however, isn’t enough. If we ask another person for feedback and feel offended or even fight against the explanation, we won’t receive genuine feedback we can harness to grow. Moreover, we need to use the feedback and do things differently. > > When receiving feedback, you should consider these building blocks: > > First, you need to be receptive for feedback. Be genuinely interested in the opinion of the person you ask for feedback. > > Second, listen without interruption. Provide the person giving feedback with the feeling that you’re listening carefully. > > Third, ask clarifying questions and for concrete improvement recommendations. Thereby, you can paraphrase the words you understood. > > By regularly asking for feedback and applying these simple steps, you can substantially improve any area of your life. It doesn’t take much, but the results can be massive. --- # How to best deal with highs and lows in life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-best-deal-with-highs-and-lows-in-life - Date: 2021-10-31 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > *There would be no cloud-nine days without rock-bottom moments left below.* ― Richelle E. Goodrich > > Summary: > > * Highs and lows are an integral part of life – but we often forget this certainty > * We usually underestimate our “psychological immune system”; no matter how bad we feel, our “psychological robustness” ensures we will converge towards “baseline” happiness > * At the same time, however, hedonic adaptation will also make the highs of our life only a temporary endeavor > > Practical advice: > > * By actually noticing our highs, appreciating them consciously, and focusing on the moment, we can experience them even longer > * Talk to other people about your experiences, write down your appreciation and gratitude, and take pictures and videos to capture your best moments > * Consciously choose constructive expressions when faced with events that bring us down > > Dear friend, > > have you ever experienced that: Life goes better than ever. You are happy, grateful, and don’t have to worry about anything. So, you ask yourself *how long is that going to last*? > > Currently, I’m happy. 10/10 happy. I’ve never experienced so much joy in my life. I’m thriving in my job, I’m with the greatest girlfriend I couldn’t even have dreamed of, I’m surrounded by a wonderful family and great friends, … Nothing to complain about, right? > > Yet, my life won’t always be like that. For sure, that’s going to change. Like the ocean’s tides, our lives consist of lows and highs. A high will follow each low, and a low will follow each high. What’s different, though, we don’t know how long each “tide” will last. > > This certainty has powerful implications we can make use of to make our lives a little better. > > In today’s blog article, I will write about the lows and highs of life, how to best deal with the lows, and how we can enjoy our highs the most. > > ## Highs and lows in life > > No matter how calm and stable our lives appear, a closer look reveals ups and downs, whether of our own making or down to circumstances outside our control. It sounds trivial – highs and lows are just part of life – but we often forget this certainty. > > When we get to know the person whom we want to stay with for the rest of our life, when we get the job we ever dreamed of, when we have the craziest parties with our friends, when we hold our first child in our hands… these “high” life moments are integral parts of our lives. We all will have those, and we all will feel similarly pleased. > > Contrarily, we all will experience dark moments or even longer periods in our lives. Life is definite, and so, sooner or later, there will be periods of grief because one of our loved ones passed away. Simultaneously, luck and timing are crucial factors for success. Sooner or later, we will fail at some point in our lives. These lows are inevitable. > > ## Hedonic adaptation > > Regarding the lows in our lives, we usually underestimate our “psychological immune system”. We’re actually a lot more resilient than we like to think. Hedonic Adaptation – the process of becoming accustomed to both positive and negative circumstances – is a great help when we’re faced with the lows of life. No matter how bad we feel, our “psychological robustness” ensures we will converge towards “baseline” happiness. > > At the same time, however, hedonic adaptation will also make the highs of our life only a temporary endeavor. For instance, couples that experience a boost of happiness (high) when they get married will converge back towards their baseline happiness after a few months or years. The same goes for lottery winners, fresh couples, or people landing their dream job. > > Concluding, highs and lows are an integral but temporary part of our lives. Eventually, our happiness will always converge back to “normal”. > > ## How to best deal with lows and highs > > We learned that hedonic adaptation will make us become used to positive and negative events in our lives. Yet, there are means and tools we can harness to weaken or strengthen the effects of this process in order to make the most out of our highs and cope best with our lows. > > ### Enhance and prolong highs > > A great tool to thwart hedonic adaptation is to exercise “savoring” – the act of stepping outside of an experience to review and appreciate it. By actually noticing our highs, appreciating them consciously, and focusing on the moment, we can experience them even longer. > > This effect can be further enhanced by talking to other people about our experience or writing down our appreciation and gratitude. Thereby, we should prevent ourselves from thinking about the future and comparing our experience with others. Ideally, we not only write down our experience but take pictures and videos of it so we conserved it for later. > > A great thing to do is to celebrate our highs with others. Landed a great job? Let’s invite friends, go out and celebrate. Achieved very good results in this year’s finals in university? Let’s eat out and enjoy our favorite meal. > > ### Better cope with lows > > We now know that really no one can get around the fact that life has lows. By solely internalizing this certainty, we can soften the lows. It’s not that they will go away but they will feel less unpleasant. > > Moreover, we should keep reminding ourselves of the highs we’ve experienced so far. Having a journal or an album of pictures that captured these moments greatly helps. For instance, I’ve been journaling every day for more than 2 years now, and it feels amazing to dwell in these past memories. > > Ideally, we consciously choose constructive expressions when faced with events that bring us down. Being upset or worse drifting into negative coping behaviors makes bad things even worse. I use the following technique to obtain a more constructive state to better deal with the situation: I ask myself *How can I cope with this situation like a good role model?* I imagine my siblings and future children, for whom I want to be a good role model, are watching me in this very moment and will imitate how I deal with this event. That helps to prevent me from being too angry, sad, and disappointed. --- # Find your strengths and focus on them - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/find-your-strengths-and-focus-on-them - Date: 2021-10-24 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *In the sense of being true to yourself, the most honorable thing to do is face up to the strength potential inherent in your talents and then find ways to realize it. –* Donald O. Clifton Summary: * Improving our strengths, building on our talents, and increasing our already strong performance is a key to differentiating ourselves from others * Since we live in a “fixing” society where our parents, teachers, and managers spend the most time making us a “well-rounded” adult, student, or employee, we don’t really know what we’re great at * To identify our strengths, we can contemplate activities we love doing but others don’t as much as we do Practical advice: * Once we identified some of our strengths, first, we need to find activities where we can shine by harnessing them * Second, we need to reach out to mentors and emulate our role models * Third, use the knowledge of experts: Not only books but many other great sources of expert knowledge, such as blog articles, YouTube videos, or podcasts – that can boost our learning curve Dear friend, In my job, I regularly receive (formal) feedback. It’s a fundamental part of our organization’s culture and success. Thereby, our feedback process is based on 2 essential aspects: (1) Strength-based feedback (2) that goes both ways. Strength-based feedback is to identify a person’s strengths in terms of performance, knowledge, skills, and talents. Feedback is provided on what people do to succeed based on these strengths. “Development potentials” (weaknesses) are addressed only if they are below a certain “standard”. I love learning and feedback greatly helps me to do so. Strength-based feedback, though, is even better than just getting advice on what to do better. School – and most parts of society – provides us with typical “weakness-based feedback”. For instance, exams are designed to test our deficits. You don’t get points for the things you do well but receive grades based on the things you don’t lack. Nobody cares if you’re great in ancient history and the main topic of the history exam is World War 2. As a consequence, many people *don’t really know* what they are *good at* and *know only* what they are *not really good at*. In today’s blog article, I will elaborate on why we should focus not on our weaknesses but on our strengths and how we can find and enhance our strengths. ## Focus on strengths not weaknesses I thought a lot about the notion that we should work rather on our strengths than on our weaknesses. In high school, I wanted to eliminate all my flaws. For me, a good grade wasn’t an option – I desired the best grades possible in all school subjects. Also, I regularly thought about things I didn’t like about myself and devised plans to improve those. Today, that’s quite different. I know that I’ve got certain weaknesses and that’s totally fine. I still strive for [improvement](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/the-limits-of-self-improvement), but instead of spending my time on my weaknesses, I develop my strengths. For instance, I’m not good at things requiring a steady hand and patience. I don’t have a good eye for detail. Decoration and design are my enemies. Instead, I’m great at getting things started and done in time, I know what’s needed to make the most out of the time and resources. If you’ve got a great idea and tell me about it, be aware that I’ll make you get started and go the first steps. Another example: I love structure and problems. So, I want to break down and structure every problem I face. If you tell me a problem, my head is already analyzing how to break it down and what the first next steps are. In my job, though, there’s not always enough time to structure out every sub-set of a problem. Hence, sometimes, we need to work “at short range”; a situation I’m not really comfortable with. Yet, I rather try to improve my already strong analytical problem-solving skills instead of improving my weakness to feel comfortable working at short range. As a consequence, I work on projects with rather massive challenges but enough time to solve them than “easier challenges” but hardly time to solve them. Focusing on our strengths is better because of 3 reasons: First, there are already various people with a mediocre skill set similar to ours if we didn’t focus on our strengths. Improving our strengths, building on our talents, and increasing our already strong performance is a key to differentiating ourselves from others. We should aim to be known for something, allowing us to be more valuable and create the most impact for our world. Second, it’s much more motivating to work on our strengths than on our weaknesses. For example, I hated my German course in high school. My teacher was very kind, patient, and motivated. Yet, I had such a hard time getting from a decent student to a very good student in this subject. On the other hand, I loved Maths. When you gave me additional math problems, I was pleased and solved them enthusiastically. Achieving perfect scores was easy. Today, I love interacting with clients and presenting my analysis and end products. Hence, I work to improve these skills even further. Third, we become increasingly self-confident the more we stop “fixing” our weaknesses and start working at being better at what we’re already good at. Nobody is perfect. And if we look more closely at the “stars” out there – athletes, singers, entrepreneurs, politicians, … – all of them are known for one or few aspects. In many aspects, the average person is “better” than them. Becoming extremely good at something, makes us feel proud of ourselves, speak up, and stop hiding our weaknesses. ## How to find your strengths Since we live in a “fixing” society where our parents, teachers, and managers spend the most time making us a “well-rounded” adult, student, or employee, we don’t really know what we’re great at. When we bring our school grades report home, the bad grades receive the most attention. Our parents and teacher want us to have rather only “good grades” (Bs/2s) than a mixture of very good grades (As/1s) and poor grades (Ds/4s). Latter, though, would be much better for our personal development and career (assuming the same grade point average). To identify our strengths, we can contemplate activities we love doing but others don’t (as much as we do). For instance, do you love doing presentations? Do you love writing? Do you love Maths? Coding? Gaming? Playing with kids? Spending time with elders? Learning languages? For instance, I love Maths, thinking through problems, structuring and planning everything, motivating others to do better, making this world a better place, … In addition to this inner reflection process, we can ask our friends, family, and colleagues for regular feedback and their view: What do they think we’re great at? What do they like most about us? Where do they see us thriving? For example, I ask my project leads for formal feedback every 2nd week. I’m not sure what my girlfriend thinks about me doing something, I ask for her honest and genuine opinion. ## How to focus on your strengths Once we identified some of our strengths, **first**, we need to find activities where we can shine by harnessing them. In almost any role of our life – sibling, child, employee, manager, partner, friend, etc. – there are different activities involved that are key to that role. Even in the “sub-roles”, such as at work, there’re different activities involved: Not every consultant, lawyer, nurse, … has to be good at the very same things because there are so many nuances in every job. That implies that no matter what’s our current job or aspired career, we can find tasks and activities in our role where we can shine. Ideally, we find a job/major/hobby that “is made for us”, but even in our current situation, we can increase the focus on our strengths. We need to avoid projects and tasks where our weakness is an issue and our strengths cannot be applied well and put in the effort to work on those where we can shine. Second, we need to reach out to mentors and emulate our role models. What’re the people doing we look up to? How can those a few years ahead of us help us to do better? We shall never hesitate to ask a question and thoroughly observe their actions. Third, use the knowledge of experts. I love reading. Books are a highly underrated source of knowledge and experience. Good books are a compilation of well-selected experiences of people far more experienced than us. If we read a book on how to enhance one of our strengths, we can greatly benefit from their experience and “leapfrog” the majority of mistakes they made on their journey to mastery. But it’s not only books but many other great sources of expert knowledge, such as blog articles, YouTube videos, or podcasts – that can boost our learning curve. --- # How to find the ideal place to work - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-find-the-ideal-place-to-work - Date: 2021-10-10 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *Being a great place to work is the difference between being a good company and a great company* > > Summary: > > * An org’s culture is the implicit rules that make the employees do their job as they do it > * Establishing a great culture, as Netflix did, can create key advantages when it comes to attracting and retaining talent and outperforming competitors > * It’s key to define for oneself what’s the ideal work environment > > Practical advice: > > * First, ask yourself what you desire and need to thrive > * Second, make use of your network to assess the organization’s culture > * Third, make a decision on which organization is worth your time and effort. In doubt, listen to your gut > > Dear friend, > > Last week, I finished reading the book “That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea” written by Netflix’s founder Marc Randolph. > > I read the book not because I’m a fan of the famous streaming services but because I wanted to learn about the creation of Netflix’s unique and well-known working culture. The first time I heard of it was when a newspaper wrote about Netflix’s “No Vacation Policy”. Essentially, at Netflix, the employees decide on their own how much vacation they want to take. Virtually, they can take as much vacation as they want to. > > After some time, I happened to come across their PowerPoint slide deck on their “Freedom and Responsibility” culture ([here a link to the HBR article](https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr)). That was incredibly inspiring and the reason why I wanted to find out more about Netflix’s history and the formation of its unique culture. > > Culture is crucial when it comes to workplace satisfaction, organizational performance, and many other factors. But why culture is vital to thrive at work, what are the components of an ideal work environment (featuring the learnings from the book), and how we can find the ideal work environment for ourselves? That’s what today’s blog article is about. > > ## Why is culture so important to thrive at work > > First of all, what is (organizational) culture? Expressed in a business 101 definition, it’s the collection of values, expectations, and practices that guide the actions of the employees of an organization. More concretely, it’s the implicit rules that make the employees do their job as they do it. For example, Amazonians are known to be frugal, hence, they wouldn’t print something in color; my employer highly values confidentiality, thus, there’s no pens, notepads, or other office supplies with our brand name on it; SAP greatly values family and work-life balance, therefore, at their major company events, we could always bring family members with us. > > Culture isn’t, though, what companies write down on their websites or in their investor reports. It might be the case that these words are represented in an organization’s culture, nonetheless, culture is implicit and cannot simply be changed by writing down some fancy descriptions for it. Or as Peter Drucker once said: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” > > Establishing a great culture, as Netflix did, can create key advantages when it comes to attracting and retaining talent and outperforming competitors. Many people, including me, would rather take a pay cut and work in a great culture than stay at a higher paying job where the culture s\*cks. For me, culture has become the most important aspect when choosing an employer. I want to work at a place where people value the same things as I do since that gives me the motivation to do my best and makes me happy. > > Building and maintaining a great organizational culture is among the most important jobs of the company’s founders and leaders. By their actions and the actions of their first hires, they greatly shape it. And once established, it takes a lot of effort and time to change it. > > ## An ideal work environment > > When I read the PowerPoint slide deck on Netflix’s “Freedom and Responsibility” culture, I had the great desire to work for this company and be part of it even though I’m not really interested in their product. Reading the book about the foundation of Netflix gave me a good sense of how this culture emerged and developed and inspired me to think about my very own ideal culture. I asked myself how should the culture of an organization look like when I could shape it as I wanted to and came up with 5 aspects: > > First, the organization’s people should highly value **openness** – openness towards people, ideas, new technology, working styles, etc. I love working with people who are curious about what life has to offer. Working in a company where the employees explore new ideas, test new innovations, are open to all kinds of people, and try new things, that’d be awesome. > > Second, employees should focus on making themselves **proud** of their work: Striving for excellence, true impact, and results rather than effort. An organization where people inspire each other to achieve the best results, greatly celebrate the successes of each other and are proud to work with their colleagues. Your job should become your passion, and you should be empowered to become the best in whatever you’re passionate about. People not aspiring to become the best in their field (anymore) should be offered generous severance payments and provided with the opportunity to find an organization more suitable to them. > > Third, **honesty**. The organization’s people should never say something about another person if they couldn’t say it in his/her face, should always fight for the better argument beyond politics and hierarchy, should give each other honest strength-based feedback, and should strongly respect each other. Being honest should be rewarded and political gambling penalized. > > Forth, **integrity**. The way the employees do something should be the way they do anything. The values of the organization should be lived and adhered to – within and beyond the organization. That would require continuously holding oneself and others accountable. People not genuinely living the values of the organization should be let go. > > Fifth, the organization should greatly value **decisiveness**. People should be empowered – at all levels – to make decisions. Taking smart risks and making wise decisions in the face of uncertainty should be greatly honored. The organization should focus on making long-term-oriented decisions, treating root causes rather than symptoms. > > ## How to find a great place to work > > Since culture is implicit and the statements describing the culture of the company might not represent reality, it’s quite difficult to assess it as an outsider. Yet, I’m strongly convinced that we can find a great place to work and become part of a culture fitting us well. But how? > > First, ask yourself what you desire and need to thrive. What are your personal values? What are clear no-gos? Do you want to be part of an organization where you’re constantly challenged to progress? … where you will work with a broad variety of people? … where you will continuously receive feedback? … where you will be demanded to make decisions and take responsibility? … where you will have a great work-life balance? … where you will have strict rules and policies? Before I committed to another job, I’d ask myself these kinds of questions and compare the answers with my assessment of the organization. Only if there’s a match, I’d commit myself to the job. > > Second, make use of your network to assess the organization’s culture. Ask your friends and family whether they know someone working for the respective company and can connect you with the respective people. Schedule a call and ask sincere questions about their culture. If you don’t know anyone knowing someone working there, use professional networks, such as LinkedIn, to find employees and write them a short message to ask them for a short call. If you value openness and support, the response could even be the first indicator. Another possibility for upcoming graduates is to do an internship at the company to evaluate the organization firsthand. > > Third, after comparing the factors you seek in an organization and the information you obtained by calling other people or interning, you need to make a decision on which organization is worth your time and effort. I’d make this decision before applying to these companies so that you can prioritize them in your application phase. In case you’ve got multiple offers and cannot decide based on your evaluation, I’d highly recommend listening to your gut feeling. Eventually, if you made the effort and called people to ask them about the culture, you won’t make a bad decision no matter how you decide. Having a good feeling making your decision, i.e. listening to your gut, will help you to make a decision, ultimately mattering most. --- # How to wake up fully motivated - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-wake-up-fully-motivated-3-tips - Date: 2021-10-03 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *How we start our day determines how we create our life* > > ummary: > > * The hostility towards Mondays is an issue equivalent to the lack of motivation in the morning > * Often we’re dissatisfied with our job/going to school and don’t see any meaning in it > * The realization that we live only once and life is limited greatly boosted my motivation > > Practical advice: > > * First, before you go to bed, write down what you can look forward to tomorrow > * Second, create a morning routine that makes you excited to wake and start the day > * Third, develop a strong why and strive for it > > Dear friend, > > I recently received a message from a subscriber and reader of this blog/newsletter. It revolved around the question of how to get up fully motivated every morning. That made me thinking. > > Back in the days when I was a youth, I had a really hard time getting up and making myself ready for the day. I had to not only wake up quite early in the morning but also go to school. These factors combined were a huge downer. I didn’t like going to school. And who likes to wake up at 5.30 am? > > Today, it’s a whole different story. There’re days, I cannot wait to start into the day. Just lately, I happened to wake up 1 hour before my alarm and was so excited that I couldn’t get back to sleep and started my day. > > In this week’s blog article, I want to discuss why we hate Mondays and have problems being motivated in the morning, why we should make every day count, and how we can be more motivated starting our day. > > ## Why do we hate Mondays? > > Are you one of these people cheering for the weekend and fearing the beginning of a new week? > > The hostility towards Mondays is an issue equivalent to the lack of motivation in the morning. In both cases, there’re 3 major causes: > > First, the activities we spend the most time on are dissatisfying. Whether it’s dissatisfaction with our job or school – we invest the vast majority of our time awake into something we don’t enjoy. I really disliked going to school. I had to learn a lot of things that I didn’t want to and in which I didn’t see any meaning. Even worse, going and learning for school took most of my lifetime. Hence, it’s no surprise I had issues motivating myself. Many people – and probably you as well – are in a job or study a major that isn’t enjoyable and thus face this struggle, too. > > Second, it’s that we not only are dissatisfied with these activities but also don’t see a meaning in them. Purpose is the key to motivation. Once we see meaning in something, ascribe a purpose to it, we’ll be nurtured with loads of motivation. The stronger the purpose, the greater the boost of motivation. Unfortunately, many people struggle to find meaning in the things they do. I used to struggle as well. It’s not easy to reflect on why we do the things we do. Yet, having a clear answer to the question of *why* or realizing that there’s no meaning can have a huge impact. > > Third, too little sleep. That’s the most obvious cause why we’re not motivated on Mondays or generally in the morning. According to science, a lack of sleep causes a statistically significant drop in happiness and well-being. Going late to bed or partying the whole weekend leads to less sleep than we need, and, therefore, we lack motivation. > > ## Make every day count > > What greatly helped me to tackle my lack of motivation in the morning was to realize that (1) we lived only once and (2) life is limited. Sooner or later we will die. Sooner or later it’ll be over. The only challenge we have is to make the majority of the days that we have left *good days* (otherwise, being alive doesn’t make that much sense, right?). > > Of course, we cannot simply change all circumstances at once, e.g. quit our job, don’t go to school again, etc.; however, we can work towards a life full of good days. In my case that looked like the following when I was in school: > > I thought about how my ideal life in 5 years, i.e. with ~23, would look like. I wanted to work for a major consultancy, solve problems I’d love to solve, be in shape, have a good relationship with my family, and be surrounded by great friends. I knew that I had to work my ass off in school to get a scholarship so that I could finance my Bachelor’s. I knew that I had to do sports (lifting/bodybuilding) regularly and eat accordingly to get in shape. I knew that I had to study something where I expected like-minded people to make great friends. > > I still didn’t like going to school, but suddenly, I was fueled with motivation. I wanted to make every day count. I was on a path to a life where Mondays felt like Saturdays and going to bed and waking up felt great because a new day was ahead. > > Today, living the life I dreamed of 5 years ago, still not every day is a good day, but I truly love Mondays and appreciate every single morning as it were my last one. > > ## Be more motivated starting the day > > If you want to start your day full of motivation, I have 3 suggestions that work great for me: > > First, before you go to bed, write down what you can look forward to tomorrow. I’ve got a daily reflection routine during which I ask myself multiple short questions. 1 of those is the question “What can you look forward to tomorrow?”. I take 1 minute to brainstorm at least 3 things that will be part of the day ahead and make me happy, such as a nice cup of coffee, time with my girlfriend, a push workout, a call with my mother, hanging out with a friend, etc. There’s always something you can look forward to, and by focusing on the positive things ahead, you can boost your motivation. > > Second, create a morning routine that makes you excited to wake and start the day. Think about things you love doing, such as a nice cup of tea, a delicious breakfast, or texting your friends. Incorporate at least one of those into a new morning routine you create. For instance, when I wrote my bachelor thesis, I made a large cup of black tea, which made me really excited to get up in the morning. Nowadays, I do sports in the morning. Even though I don’t like working out that early, completing my workout gives me so much energy and motivation for the day ahead that I cannot wait to wake up and accomplishing it. > > Third, develop a strong why and strive for it. I am strongly convinced that there is no universally valid purpose in life. It all comes down to what we want to do with the years that were given to us in this world. Developing a clear purpose, though, gives us a great amount of energy and motivation. > > To find your purpose in life, ask yourself how you want to bequeath this world. What should this world look like when you leave it in a few decades? At the same time ask yourself, for whom do you want to be there and what are you willing to give for this world? With your actions today, you will shape the world of countless generations of tomorrow. When you become aware of this truth and find an answer to the question of why you want to live in our world, you found the purpose of your life. --- # How to better manage expectations - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/better-manage-expectations-3-tips - Date: 2021-09-26 - Categories: Relationships, Well-Being > > *Never raise expectations in others that you cannot realize: promise is less pleasing than disappointment is vexatious –* Norm MacDonald > > Summary: > > * When we create expectations that don’t come to fruition as hoped, we are often faced with disappointment, anger, and stress > * Expectations aren’t met because of 2 reasons: (1) Unclear expectations and (2) overpromised expectations > * Having no expectations of others leads to a significantly happier life > > Practical advice: > > * First, never assume. When in doubt, ask > * Second, rather over-communicate than under-communicate > * Third, under-promise and over-deliver. Whether in your private life or in your career, if you need to communicate expectations, take your estimate and lower it > > Dear friend, > > Imagine the following scenario: It’s your spouse’s birthday. You’d planned everything for him/her that you knew s/he’d love so that when s/he arrived home from work, s/he’d be wonderfully surprised. You had prepared his/her favorite meal, the lights were dimmed and candles were lit. The music was exactly what you knew s/he’d want. … > > When s/he walked in, s/he said: *Ugh. I’ve had a horrible day. I’m not even hungry. I’m going to go take a shower and go on the couch.* > > Most people would be angry and disappointed. How dare s/he? Where was his/her appreciation? > > However, what actually happened in this scenario is that your spouse failed to live up to your expectations, but that isn’t his/her fault. The expectations were yours; s/he had no obligation to fulfill them. > > Unclear, hidden expectations should be avoided. Not only in romantic relationships but also in friendships and in the workplace they cause too much anger, disappointment, and stress. > > In today’s blog article, I talk about the consequences when expectations aren’t met, why we fail to meet them, and how we can better manage our and other’s expectations. > > ## When expectations aren’t met > > By definition, an expectation isn’t an *agreement* between people but a *belief* that a certain outcome or event will happen. > > Expectations can have a huge impact on our feelings. When we create expectations that don’t come to fruition as hoped, we are often faced with disappointment, anger, and stress. > > In the workplace, we might have communicated implicitly that we’ll take care of something and get it done even though we couldn’t. As a consequence, our manager has certain expectations we won’t meet, leading to stress and frustration. > > In a friendship, we told our friend that we can make it to his party, but actually, we are unlikely to make it, overpromising and creating expectations we won’t meet. > > In relationships, unmet expectations are THE source for arguments. Often, it’s not that our partner doesn’t care but doesn’t know how to do better. For instance, imagine your girlfriend loves flowers. There’s nothing she wants more than flowers to her birthday. But you don’t know. She only implicitly told you that she would love getting some flowers. Every year, when it’s her birthday, you ponder how you can make her the greatest joy and prepare kind gifts, such as an intimate candlelight dinner. She really appreciates those, however, every year again, she’s disappointed that she didn’t receive her flowers. > > ## Failing to meet expectations > > Expectations aren’t met because of 2 reasons: (1) Unclear expectations: We unintentionally create expectations (2) Overpromised expectations: We intentionally create expectations, which we cannot meet. > > The first type of expectation is often undesired and unfortunate. Usually, we don’t want to fail to meet those and wouldn’t if we knew they existed in the first place: > > * If we knew how we can make our partner the greatest joy, we would do so > * If we knew that our friend expected us to give him something in return for his favor, we would do so > * If we knew that our colleagues expected us to take over a certain task, we would do so > > The second type of expectations – overpromising expectations – is rather the consequence of irresponsible behavior. That might sound harsh, but playing with the emotions of other people, particularly those we love most, is irresponsible and an asshole move. > > Maybe you know this French Netflix series “Lupin”. Assane – the master thief and main character of the series – is incredibly charismatic, a person whom you meet and instantly like. Yet, he is heavily unreliable. He has this tendency of always overpromising. His former girlfriend and mother of his son has zero trusts in his words anymore because, numerous times, he overpromised and hence raised too high expectations that he failed to meet. In my opinion, his behavior is totally irresponsible and kills all the sympathy I developed for him. > > ## How to better manage expectations > > To better manage expectations, I differentiate between internal and external expectations. Internal expectations are those I have towards others, external are those I create in others towards me. > > I decided for myself that I have zero expectations of others. I’m convinced that having [no expectations of others](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/stop-having-expectations-of-other-people-reasons-practical-implications) leads to a significantly happier life. Why? You can read another blog article of me, in which I thoroughly discuss this topic, [here](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/stop-having-expectations-of-other-people-reasons-practical-implications). > > External expectations are those we can only indirectly influence. For that, I’ve 3 practical tips to better manage the expectations of others. > > First, never assume. When in doubt, ask. You don’t know who is going to do what? You don’t know what another person needs? You don’t know what others think of you? Assuming is only the last means. It’s much easier and more sophisticated to just ask another person. > > Don’t fall into the trap of assuming someone has the same understanding of a situation, project, deadline, or whatever that you have. It sounds maybe too simple, but having a conversation in which you openly discuss what’s expected is the best way to manage the expectations of others. > > Second, rather over-communicate than under-communicate. Let others know exactly what your needs, perspective, and boundaries are. In the work context, clearly communicate when you’re available, your personal boundaries, where you are flexible. The better others know what you need, know, and desire, the better they can take into account your needs, perspective, and boundaries. > > In your private life, let your friends, family, and partner know what you need and why. If no one knows how to please you, everyone loses. For instance, if my family and friends back home know when I’m coming to visit and exactly how long I’ll stay, they less likely anticipate me staying longer and feeling hurt when I leave. > > Third, under-promise and over-deliver. Whether in your private life or in your career, if you need to communicate expectations, take your estimate and lower it. From a psychological perspective, a person is much less disappointed if you communicate lower expectations that you meet than you won’t meet desirable expectations. For instance, at work, I always take my estimate for how long a task might take and multiply it by 1.5x. That might sound a lot, but most of the time, my initial estimate is wrong anyway and so, I rather overdeliver. Particularly junior consultants and other junior employees, tend to overestimate the amount of work and time a task takes. --- # How to become more persistent and achieve your goals - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-become-more-persistent-and-achieve-your-goals - Date: 2021-09-19 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this, you haven’t* – Thomas Edison > > Summary: > > * Basically, persistence is the choice to continue something in spite of difficulty, opposition, and struggle to achieve that goal > * In any discussion of the attributes of successful people, persistence is often mentioned as the most important factor in success > * When it comes down to great performance, it’s not just talent but the product of ability (talent) and persistence > > Practical advice: > > * First, have a goal you’re obsessed with > * Second, if your plan doesn’t work, adapt and reevaluate it – but stick to your goal > * Third, develop and maintain a strong faith in your goal > > Dear friend, > > Last Sunday, my little brother wanted to take a train back from Hamburg to his hometown in Southern Germany. He has already purchased a ticket for the ICE (intercity train), which was restricted to a certain train departing at a certain time. Unfortunately, his train was canceled and replaced by an alternative train. Since he had a reservation for the canceled train, he wanted to make sure his reservation also worked for the other train. So, he wanted to go to the service office of the Deutsche Bahn to change his reservation to the alternative train before it departed. Midway, though, he noticed that he forgot his phone where he stayed for the trip because he was in such a hurry to change the reservation in time. > > Before he went back to pick up his phone, he had called me from the phone of his friend and asked me whether he can take the next train despite the restriction because he cannot get the alternative train anymore. I ensured him that he could because his train was canceled no matter the alternative train. He just had to go to the service office and tell them the story so the restriction will be lifted. After that, he picked up his phone and went to the service office, telling the employees what had happened. Those, though, had a completely different view of the situation and told him that he couldn’t take another train as the alternative train was scheduled at the very same time his train departed, and hence his ticket restriction couldn’t be lifted. > > Fully desperate, he called me again. Buying a new ticket would cost +100 Euro and he didn’t know what to do now. I told him everything will be fine, I will take care of it. He might have told the story too unconvincingly and might have been too little persistent. > > Thus, I went to the Mannheim train service office with the ambition to not go out of it unless my little brother will receive a valid ticket and get back home safely. I thought about how I could tell the story: Little brother, stranded in a foreign city, the first time he traveled, the train got canceled, leading to him being late … > > Being there, I had to queue and wait until an employee had time for me. During this time, I wrote my brother everything will be fine, he doesn’t have to worry. Also, I told myself that I have to get this done and cannot leave this place until I succeeded as otherwise my brother will be either stranded or +100 Euro lighter. > > After 10 minutes of waiting, I could tell them the story how I wanted to tell it. The Deutsche Bahn employee, though, told me the very same thing as his colleague told my brother in Hamburg. Alternative train at the very same time bla bla bla… Yet, I insisted that he would have been punctual if the train wasn’t canceled and it’d be a shame to deny him his reserved seat. After some back and forth, I told the employee that the reservation doesn’t matter and I just need to have a confirmation that his train was canceled. As that is true, the employee gave me a print-out stating that the train was canceled. With that, I went to another employee who apparently didn’t know that there was an alternative train and asked him whether he could lift off the restriction of the ticket because that’s the policy (train gets canceled → ticket restrictions lifted). And it worked. Just a little signature and a stamp later, I could send a photo of the document to my little brother and he was all fine. > > I always tell myself that persistence pays off. I only fail if I stop trying. And I can only quit if I’m forced to. But how does persistence really look like, why is it such an important skill to acquire, and how can we become more persistent? That’s what’s today’s blog article about. > > ## How does persistence look like > > Basically, persistence is the choice to continue something in spite of difficulty, opposition, and struggle to achieve that goal. To illustrate that a little more, let me tell you of the former president of the United States Abraham Lincoln. His life before his presidency was filled with discouragement, heartbreak, and failure. Despite all the adversities, he persisted and made it to the office: > > * Lincoln was born extremely poor, had little education, and was extremely isolated > * He was constantly rejected for jobs he would apply for > * Simultaneously, he suffered severe nervous breakdowns and deep chronic depression > * He ran for U.S. Congress and lost, same for U.S. Senate > * When he was finally elected to the State legislature, he lost the vote to be the speaker > * His run for Vice President was also a failure > * … > > There’re many incredible examples of extreme persistence, and Lincoln is just one of them: > > * Henry Ford’s early businesses failed and left him broke 5 times before he founded Ford Motor Company > * Thomas Edison needed more than 1000 attempts before inventing the light bulb > * Vincent van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime, though today, his works are priceless > > Being persistent is about not giving up and keeping going no matter the circumstances. Staying alive is the most natural form of persistence: Waking up every day and making sure to have enough food and water. While life is pleasing to most of us, a few people, e.g. depressed people, struggle to make a day count and keep alive. Essentially, we are all more or less persistent. > > Nevertheless, there are different degrees of persistence. The more failure, rejection, others stating “that will never work”, etc. someone experiences, the more difficult it is to persist. Whereas it’s rather easy to be persistent in going to work from Monday to Friday, it’s quite difficult to drop out of college to build a venture no one except for you believes in. > > ## Persistence – the key to success > > In any discussion of the attributes of successful people, persistence is often mentioned as the most important factor in success. There’s this famous quote “A winner is just a loser who tried one more time”, which greatly illustrates this notion. Most people who accomplished astonishing things failed multiple times before. Just imagine if Thomas Edison quit after his 1000th attempt or Abraham Lincoln didn’t try again to run for a higher office after he failed his second Senate attempt. These people wouldn’t have achieved what they have done. > > Often the only difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is the ability to keep going long after the rest have dropped out. > > Moreover, people often talk about talent being key for great performance. Yet, when it comes down to great performance, it’s not just talent but the product of ability (talent) and persistence. If either ability or persistence is absent, so is performance. Coupling your ability with persistence will provide you with an ongoing differentiator in life. > > ## Become more persistent > > What keeps persistent people going long after most people have given up? From my own research and experience it comes down to 3 factors: > > First, an all-consuming goal: Persistent people have a goal in mind that motivates and drives them. They are often dreamers and ascribe their lives to a higher purpose. They often think of their dream, most of the time it’s the first thing they think of when they wake up and the last thing before they go to bed. > > In life, it’s usually that if you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. Persistent people want it bad, and they never look for an excuse or a way out. Repeated failures and periods when it seems like no progress is being made often come before any major breakthroughs happen. Persistent people still strongly believe in their dream, keeping them motivated to go through these tough times. > > Second, the ability to adjust and adapt: Persistent people don’t stubbornly persist if their plan isn’t working, but they continuously look for new and better ways that will increase their chances of success. Persistence necessitates reevaluation. Without rethinking their strategy and approach, they may be persisting in a fruitless endeavor. > > Third, a strong belief in themselves: The highly persistent people have complete faith they will reach their final destination no matter what. Having a highly developed sense of who they are, persistent people continue on their plan without being greatly affected by what others think of them or being appreciated by those around them. --- # 10 signs of personal growth – how to avoid getting stuck - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/10-signs-of-personal-growth-how-to-avoid-getting-stuck - Date: 2021-09-12 - Categories: Goal Achievement > *The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible* – Richard M. DeVos Summary: * Fundamentally, we witness growth when we do something we’ve already done in the past and can do it with more ease * Personal growth allows us to grow and enhance every aspect of ourselves * Yet, growth isn’t inherently good. What we actually want is meaningful growth Practical advice: * Once a month, ask yourself: “What were you doing this time last year? Do you progress? Why/why not?” * Growth requires the realization that we aren’t good yet and growth comes at an expense * Only if we’re willing to leave our comfort zone, we will be able to set our own growth agenda and pursue goals successfully Dear friend, This week was freshmen week in Mannheim. My flatmate, a second-year student, let me be part of it by taking me with him and his friends to a freshmen meetup at the Neckar river. This endeavor reminded me of my time as a freshman 4 years ago. So much has happened since I arrived in Mannheim, and it’s absolutely stunning how much I’ve grown personally. Like me back then, the freshmen were curious about what they have to expect in the upcoming months, how they could prepare best, what they need to do in order to succeed, … Funnily enough, quite a few freshmen remembered me from my YouTube channel and therefore knew that I was successful in Bachelor’s (finished as the second-best of my cohort). So, many of them asked how I made it. I told them it’s actually straightforward. As my favorite writer Mark Manson says, success is determined by what pain we’re willing to endure: “Everybody wants something. It’s easy to want something, but how far will you go, how much pain are you willing to endure?” I told them that I had a really great time, but if they want to follow my path, which might seem glorious to them, they have to work hard for it and personally grow. Moreover, they have to come to the realization that (1) they have to be obsessed with improving (2) and they aren’t very good yet. In today’s blog article, I want to dive deeper into the topic of personal growth. What is personal growth, how is it triggered, what are signs of it, and how can we avoid getting stuck? ## What is personal growth? Fundamentally, we witness growth when we do something we’ve already done in the past and can do it with more ease. The first time I wrote a university exam was a real pain. I was freaking nervous and had no clue how much stress I had to expect. 3 years later, though, I wrote my last exam – no stress, no nervousness, just another 90 minutes in which I wrote down what I learned. Personal growth occurs when we try out new things and challenge ourselves. Thereby, at first, the easy things are difficult, and suddenly by growing personally, the difficult things become easy. The more often we do something, the better we will become. That’s true for everything in life. Personal growth allows us to grow and enhance every aspect of ourselves, such as our self-esteem or social skills. On my growth agenda, there are 3 large buckets: (1) Career, (2) Health, (3) Social. Each of those comprises multiple growth dimensions, such as (1.1) Conventional Career, (2.2) Sports, or (3.1) Family. And each of these dimensions comprises concrete growth goals, such as job promotions by a certain time (1.1 Conventional Career), preparing for a marathon until 2022 (2.2 Sports), or making time for multiple weddings this year (3.1 Family). Personal growth occurs either proactively or reactively, i.e. we either choose our growth ambitions and grow by pursuing them or face rather random challenges to which we react, inducing personal growth. Since we will always face problems in our life, and thus will always have to grow to a certain extent, I choose them rather than let life face me with problems I don’t want to face. For instance, I wanted to write good grades in high school, so I forced myself to start learning early and not few days before an exam. So, I choose the problem to overcome procrastination. The alternative was to have some terrible days right before the exam, learning as much as I could, and hoping that it was enough to score the grade I wanted. ## 10 signs of personal growth Sometimes, we have these “aha”-moments in which we come to crucial realizations, such as realizing that we have grown. Sometimes, though, we don’t have these realizations even though we made substantial progress. I regularly reflect on various things, including my personal growth, allowing me to become more conscious of changes. In the following, you can read a list of observations I made in the past and identified as signs of personal growth: 1. You know better what you want, e.g. what you seek in a partner 2. You can more easily go against the crowd, e.g. don’t drink alcohol if you don’t want to 3. You believe more strongly that you are in control of the outcomes in your life, e.g. set more goals 4. You’re more selective with your time, e.g. your time is only spent on things that truly matter to you 5. You’re more conscious about what you eat, e.g. 6. You speak up more often, e.g. be the initiator in a group 7. You less frequently compare yourself with others, e.g. with your fellow students or colleagues 8. You seek challenges more often, e.g. by trying out a new hobby and set an ambitious goal 9. You can better control your emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or envy 10. You make compliments more often, e.g. because you genuinely want the best for others ## Practical advice to avoid getting stuck We cannot not grow personally. Either we proactively grow by setting up our own personal growth agenda or life confronts us with various challenges that will let us grow. Yet, growth isn’t inherently good. Becoming a better drug dealer is also a type of growth but that will make your life even worse. What we actually want is meaningful growth, i.e. growth that will make our lives better. There 2 things that greatly allow me to grow personally and have an even better life: First, the right mindset. Growth requires the realization that we aren’t good yet and growth comes at an expense. Only if we’re willing to leave our comfort zone, we will be able to set our own growth agenda and pursue goals successfully. It’s great to have desires and wishes, but they are worthless unless we make a conscious decision to pursue them and pay the price of obtaining them. Secondly, regular reflection. Once a month, I ask myself the following questions: “What was I doing this time last year? Do I progress? Why/why not?”, “5-year plan: What can I do to achieve my goals/projects?”, “What are the main 3 goals for the upcoming month?”, and “Am I still consistent with my core values and mission statement?”. These questions help me to make myself more conscious of my very own growth agenda, re-evaluate decisions made and goals set, and steer my life towards a future I want to live in. --- # How to deal with unfortunate incidents (bad luck) - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-deal-with-unfortunate-incidents-bad-luck - Date: 2021-09-05 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *You can’t control external circumstances, but you can take action to get you to a place where you find opportunities* > > Summary: > > * Anger is our natural response to threats in various forms > * Being angry isn’t always a bad thing, the key is managing our anger properly > * Whenever something bad happens to us, we tend to not only become angry but also drift into other unfavorable behaviors > > Practical advice: > > * First, have the right mindset: Being upset makes bad things even worse > * Second, ask yourself *How can I cope with this situation like a good role model?* > * Third, think about how you can make the most out of the situation > > Dear friend, > > When I came back from vacation a week ago, I saw my bike a few meters away from where I had left it. It was as if someone had thrown it there. The chain was detached from the gear, and the handlebar was abnormally bent. After a quick restoration, I tried driving it. Unfortunately, the front wheel was deformed so that the bike couldn’t run smoothly anymore. Too bad! > > From time to time, life confronts us with these unfortunate incidents: Whether it’s a traffic jam when we need to be punctual, a theft who stole our wallet, a friend who let us wait for hours, or a car driver who smashes our car – there’s no single person not affected once by these kinds of incidents. > > But why do we feel so angry and upset in these situations, what are other negative coping reactions, and how can we better deal with them? That’s what’s today’s blog article about. > > ## Why do we feel angry > > Anger is our natural response to threats in various forms, such as people insulting us, circumstances preventing us from obtaining what we want, or perceived injustice. When we’re angry our body releases adrenaline, our muscles tighten, and our heart rate and blood pressure increase. Our senses may feel more acute and our face and hands may flush. > > When I saw my bike laying on the ground and severely damaged because it was thrown away numerous meters, I became really angry. First, I thought what an a\*\*hole is that disrespectful of the property of other people. I fantasized about how I found the offender and confronted him/her. Then, I could calm myself down and asked me more sensible questions: How long would it take to fix my bike? What does it cost? And how do I get to the gym in the morning? … > > Being angry isn’t always a bad thing. It can help us to share our concerns when we’re not able otherwise. It can also motivate us to do something positive and make a change in this world. The key is managing our anger properly. > > ## Negative coping behaviors > > Whenever something bad happens to us, we tend to not only become angry but also drift into other unfavorable coping behaviors, for instance: > > Self-victimization – we ask ourselves “Why is this happening to me? Why am I so unlucky? Why doesn’t this happen to anyone else?”; > > Self-blame – we make self-depreciating comments like “Why am I so stupid to have done that? Only someone like myself can make such a dumb mistake.”; > > Dejection – we lose hope, or worse we give up. We decide it’s not worth it, that life is out to get us, and we should just stop trying altogether. > > From my experience, these behaviors are toxic and unfortunately common. While anger can boost our motivation to make a change, raise our voice, or at least do something about the situation, these common coping behaviors are guaranteed to make things even worse. Hence, we should prevent ourselves from drifting into them if we’re faced with bad luck. > > ## What to do when bad things happen > > Ideally, we consciously choose constructive expressions when faced with an unfortunate incident. These situations are inevitable and every once in a while we’ll be confronted with them. Therefore, we shouldn’t let things run their course but prepare ourselves and choose the right approach to better deal with these incidents. > > First, have the right mindset: Being upset or worse drifting into negative coping behaviors makes bad things even worse. Instead, take a few deep breaths, calm yourself down for 2 minutes, and let the stress hormones get out of your body. > > Second, ask yourself *How can I cope with this situation like a good role model?* Imagine your siblings, children, or whoever you want to be a good role model for is watching you in this very moment and will imitate how you deal with this unfortunate incident in the future. Do you want them to be angry, feel depressed, or self-victimize? No, of course not. > > Third, think about how you can make the most out of the situation: > > * Did someone steal your wallet? Make sure that will never happen again, call the police, and make the first steps to get your replacement documents > * Did someone destroy your bike? Make sure your bike will be at a safer place, get to a bike workshop, and purchase a bike insurance > * Did the train have a delay? Make sure you have a list with activities to fill the spare time, call the people waiting for you, and ensure you have enough buffer time in case of unpunctuality > > It’s not easy to take a constructive stance in face of these incidents, yet, it’s the best way to deal with them. To make the most out of the situation, I ask myself how would another person deal with the incident, a person who is great at dealing with this kind of situation. > > We tend to get stuck in our minds and keep an “inner perspective”. By getting out of our minds, asking us *How can I cope with this situation like a good role model?; How would people x, y, z deal with this incident?*, we enable us to better cope with the unfortunate incident. --- # The limits of self-improvement - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/the-limits-of-self-improvement - Date: 2021-08-29 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Relationships > > *With each challenge in our life, we are presented with an opportunity to grow as a person* > > Summary: > > * Personal development – a.k.a. self-improvement – completely changed my life for the better > * Yet, just doing personal development for its own sake isn’t good either > * We cannot infinitely improve every area of life; our resources – time and energy – are limited > > Practical advice: > > * We need to prioritize our energy and time > * Be careful adopting new dreams and goals that could harm the success and happiness you’ve already built > * Ideally, what we do serves a higher purpose > > Dear friend, > > Most people who personally know me think I am an uncommon person (a mixture of strange, quirky, and extraordinary I’d say). One reason for that is my aspiration to [never be satisfied](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/never-satisfied-always-grateful). About 5 years ago, I decided for myself that I’ll never be satisfied – whether with my grades, my body, my social skills, my sleep, my hobbies, or my relationships with friends and family. > > I aspire to this infinite improvement because it makes me a happy person. For sure, I could be happy without this aspiration, but my curiosity strives for more. The past years have shown me that life has so much to offer, and by making today at least a little bit better than yesterday, I nurture my curiosity and hunger for life’s opportunities. > > But this aspiration comes at an expense: We cannot improve everything anytime. We have to budget our energy and time. And raising our standards to a certain level will make that the new default, i.e. if we achieve very good grades, we get used to them, feel miserable when we get “just” a good grade, and don’t feel happy as we used to. Self-improvement for its own sake clearly has its limits. > > In today’s blog article, I will elaborate on why I still aspire to be never satisfied, why not everything should be improved, and what I do to overcome this conflict. > > ## Aspire to be never satisfied > > Personal development – a.k.a. self-improvement – completely changed my life for the better. The little shy kid from the countryside who was inhibited by his inner beliefs and anxieties became a highly self-confident, positively-minded, cosmopolitan adult who aspires to make our world an even better place. > > The good thing about life is that once we really want something and commit to it, we will most likely obtain it. In terms of personal development, that could be to (1) become more fit and healthy (2) find our purpose in life (3) acquire or enhance our personal skills (4) improve our personal relationships. > > Until this point, everyone would agree that personal development is basically a good thing. Yet, my aspiration to be never satisfied – i.e. never stop this personal development journey – creates controversy: “How can you ever be happy if you’re never satisfied?”, “That cannot be fun!”, “Sounds quite miserable, doesn’t it?” > > Well, I need to admit I wouldn’t recommend this way of living to everyone. I made certain experiences that taught me crucial lessons leading to this highly personal commitment. > > Happiness isn’t about satisfaction, it’s about gratefulness, great relationships, and many other factors. Just because I’m not satisfied with something doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for it. Rather the opposite is true, I greatly appreciate every aspect of life. > > I don’t compare myself to others since that really makes us feel miserable. My aspiration to become better and better comes from comparing to my “fictitious best self”. I ask myself what I can do better, what are things I can marginally improve, and how can I ensure to give 100% the next time? > > I learned that solving problems, particularly those we chose ourselves, makes us happy. And, as you might have already experienced by yourself, life is all about solving problems. You will never reach a state where there’re no problems to solve. > > For me, it feels greatly satisfying to “improve” the various aspects of life: Whether it’s the relationships with my friends, family, and colleagues, my self-confidence, my social skills, my health and fitness, my financials, etc. Hence, those are “problems” I love solving. > > ## Not everything should be improved > > Contrarily, just doing personal development for its own sake isn’t good either. > > First, hedonic adaptation – the tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major recent positive or negative events – makes us want more and more. No matter what I improve and how much happiness this improvement yields, it’s just of a temporary nature. For instance, the first time I ran at a 4:30 pace was an incredibly satisfying achievement. Today, though, I’d be rather disappointed if aimed for my maximum performance and ran this pace. > > Second, we experience diminishing returns in almost any area of life. Whether it’s the number of delicious sweets we eat, the number of trips home to visit our family in a year, the number of gifts at Christmas we receive – those are all experiences that start out highly valuable at first but then diminish in value the more frequently we do them. > > Third, life is all about economics. We cannot infinitely improve every area of life; our resources – time and energy – are limited. For example, if we spent all our energy to improve our career, there might not much be left to enjoy the company of our friends and family. Hence, we have to carefully prioritize and choose the things we want to spend most of our time and energy on. > > ## Overcome the improvement dilemma > > In the past few years during this personal development journey, I’ve learned a few crucial things. Improvement is a good thing and, actually, it’s not the problem; rather, it’s the why motivating the improvement that matters. Therefore: > > First, we need to prioritize our energy and time. I regularly reflect on what are the largest areas of improvement in my life and which of those have the best impact on it. For example, I focus on projects in my job as a consultant that might not be the fanciest ones but comply most with my “personal operating model”; I limit my alcohol consumption to 6 events per year as I prioritize my health over pleasure; I quit my TikTok channel to have more time for my friends and family at the weekend. > > Second, don’t “self-improve” for its own sake. As previously written, hedonic adaptation will make us want more and more of something to get a similar happiness boost as we got the first time. For instance, aiming for very good grades just to have them is suboptimal; aiming for more and more money is suboptimal; optimizing our diet more and more just to improve it is suboptimal. > > We need to be careful adopting new dreams and goals that could harm the success and happiness we’ve already built. Ideally, what we do serves a higher purpose. Personally, I want to improve myself to increase my leverage to make our world a better place, help my friends and family, and improve the lives of other people. --- # Make better decisions – the negligence of alternatives - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/make-better-decisions-the-negligence-of-alternatives - Date: 2021-08-22 - Categories: Communication > *You and only you are responsible for your life choices and decisions –* Robert T. Kiyosaki > > Summary: > > * The negligence of alternatives leads to unfavorable decisions > * We usually forget to think about alternatives to the option under discussion > * Most often, the optimal decision lies in-between the most obvious options > > Practical advice: > > * From now on, you should tell yourself that there’s much more than the status quo and 1 option > * Ask yourself what are the implicit assumptions limiting your ideation and decision-making > * Let your friends, colleagues, or family be your thought partner > > Dear friend, > > During my vacation last week, I read a book about “acting smarter”, i.e. how to prevent errors in reasoning to make better decisions. Usually, when I look for a new book, I search for content that helps me to improve a particular area of my life (career, health, relationships, etc.). In this case, though, I had no real expectation towards to book and read it rather for my own entertainment because I wanted to fully focus on the time off. > > To my surprise, the book offered multiple new concepts I’d never thought about before. One of them in particular still makes me wonder how many times I fell into this “cognitive trap”. The author calls it “alternative blindness”, i.e. comparing an alternative with the status quo instead of the other possible alternatives. > > In today’s blog article, I will explain this cognitive trap in more detail, tell you why it’s actually so bad, and give you practical advice on how to prevent this cognitive trap. > > ## The negligence of alternatives > > Imagine you contemplate whether you should go to university again in order to pursue an MBA. Most people, including me, would think about this decision the following way: It’s either the MBA or not doing the MBA, i.e. we compare the pros and cons of the MBA relative to the status quo. > > Another example: Imagine you have this genius business idea and think about starting your own company. In order to evaluate this opportunity, you compare the pros and cons of starting your own company with your current situation (status quo). > > That might be intuitively right, however, from a rational perspective, it’s rather wrong. A good decision-maker would think about other possible options. For example, an MBA takes 2 years to complete, costs a 6-digit amount of money, and requires you to stop working full-time. With these “resources” plenty of other options are feasible. Imagine you take the $150,000 and invest it into 3 startups, contribute your knowledge, and take these lessons learned for your later career. Or you invest the $150,000 in your own business. Or just take some selected university courses for 6 months and go back to work. And there are plenty more options. > > Particularly politicians are faced with this cognitive error as they often need to decide whether something new is going to be built or not. Should we build the new hospital? Should we build the new school? The new stadium? New play garden? It’s most often status quo versus something new and not “what could we do best with the money, land, and other resources?”. > > ## Why this cognitive error is so bad > > This negligence of alternatives leads to unfavorable decisions because the optimal option and hence decision is usually a mixture of both alternatives. If we go back to the example of starting our own company, the best way might be that we don’t quit our job immediately but start slowly, work at the weekend, ask for a reduction in working hours, and work full-time on our new ventures when we could prove that (A) we have the discipline and stamina to work as our own boss and (B) our product/service is actually something the market wants. > > Moreover, we forget to think about alternatives to our options. Maybe it’s not our own company that works best for us but working for a startup. Maybe it’s not an MBA we should pursue but a PhD. > > For example, many students who graduate with their Bachelor’s and want to pursue a Master’s see only 2 options: Either a gap year filled with multiple internships or directly continuing to study. However, there are so many more options: Working full-time for a year, starting earlier with the Master’s, prolonging the gap year for another year, starting with the Master’s and doing a gap year in-between, etc. Because of the negligence of alternatives, we fail to grasp so many great opportunities. > > ## How to avoid the negligence of alternatives > > First, you have to stop imposing bans on your thinking. From now on, you should tell yourself that there’s much more than the status quo and 1 option. On the one hand, there are many options in-between. On the other hand, there might be even more alternative options available. > > Second, make the restrictions on your thinking visible. Ask yourself what are the implicit assumptions limiting your ideation and decision-making? Can you really just do an MBA? Can’t you use the time, money, and energy alternatively? > > Third, let your friends, colleagues, or family be your thought partner. I often ask other people what they think about my endeavors, what they would do in my situation, and whether they see alternative options. That’s much more about obtaining a new perspective than about the actual outcome. --- # A habit that changed my life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/a-habit-that-changed-my-life - Date: 2021-08-15 - Categories: Communication > > *The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear –* Nelson Mandela > > Summary: > > * Habits are not only easily implemented but also incredibly powerful > * Every habit consists of 3 essential parts: (1) Trigger (2) Behavior (3) Reward > * The goal of developing and implementing a habit is to do it as consistently as possible so that after some time you do it automatically > > Practical advice: > > * Our self-confidence is rarely related to our actual abilities but mostly based on our perceptions > * Micro-risks allow us to get used to inconvenient situations, enhancing our self-worth, skills, and abilities > * Make it a habit to take micro-risks to live a better life > > Dear friend, > > This week, I enjoyed my vacation in Palma de Mallorca and went together with my loved friends to Berlin for the weekend. Palma greatly exceeded my expectations. From what I had heard and seen before, Palma was more like a cheap and dirty party oasis for European party tourists, but my girlfriend and I were proven the opposite: Clean beaches, a beautiful old town, relaxed and modest tourists, great day-time activities, and a great and broad choice of restaurants. Surely, that wasn’t our last trip to Palma. > > During our trip, we went to a large waterpark in Magaluf (a little town next to Palma). There were various water slides: from little slides for toddlers to gigantic slides like “the Beast” for real action lovers. When I first saw the latter – a 30-meter tall free-fall slide – my body cringed in fear. I’m afraid of heights. This fear, though, didn’t stop me to ride it. > > I developed my very own “overcome-my-fear”-habit: Whenever I feel afraid of something, e.g. riding a monstrous slide or asking a stranger a question, I force myself to do it. It took a great amount of willpower and time to climb the stairs – I felt so sick and got so slow when I had to take the last few steps on the scaffold of the slide. And I asked at least 5 times the safety instructor whether I’ll be safe – he literally laughed at me because I was so feared. Yet, eventually, I just rode the slide. Even though it was a real pain, I felt indescribably happy afterward. Once again, I overcame my fear and didn’t let it prevent me from living my life to the fullest. > > In today’s blog article, I’m going to write about how I came up with the idea to develop such a habit, how I make sure to never let my fear limit myself, how it helped me to become more self-confident and hence changed my life, and how you can become more self-confident, too. > > ## How habits work > > 4 years ago, when I first read the well-known book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, I was strongly convinced to make more “conscious” use of this concept. Duhigg greatly illustrates why habits are not only easily implemented but also incredibly powerful – in almost any area of life. > > Basically, every habit consists of 3 essential parts: (1) Trigger (2) Behavior (3) Reward. The (1) trigger can be everything as long as it is consistent: A certain time (6 pm), event (waking up), place (your bed), behavior (your dog barking), etc. The (2) behavior is the actual habit, such as brushing your teeth, reading a book, working out, watching the news, etc. The (3) reward can also be everything as long as it is consistent: You treat yourself with some candy (after a study session), you get a boost of dopamine (after overcoming your fear), you feel energized (after a nap), you feel clean (after showering), etc. > > The goal of developing and implementing a habit is to do it as consistently as possible so that after some time you do it automatically like brushing your teeth. In order to achieve this level where no more conscious effort is required, we’ve to invest willpower first. In the beginning, it can be really tough, but it will take less and less mental energy until the habit is successfully implemented. > > ## The overcome-fear habit > > As always when I finished reading a book, I wrote down to-dos – the “so-what” next actions – after completing the Power of Habit. One task was to develop a new habit with the knowledge acquired through this book. Thereby, I came up with this idea of the overcome-fear habit. > > Fear is not something generally bad, it’s essential for our survival. Yet, too often we’re limited by this inconvenient feeling, particularly when we’re faced with “social anxiety”. In these situations, we’re not in danger, but rather our brain distorts reality and comes up with various thoughts that make us feel afraid of a situation, such as talking to our crush or giving a presentation. > > Overcoming our fear in these situations is not easy but highly rewarding. Most often, we obtain a temporary happiness boost, e.g. when we ask someone for his/her number and receive it. Sometimes, though, it can literally change our lives, e.g. giving a speech or asking someone for a date. > > Given this importance and impact potential, I decided that I want to develop this overcome-fear habit so that I’ll never let my fears prevent me from living my life to the fullest. Hence, I needed to define (1) trigger (2) habit (3) reward. In this case, I wrote down: (1) trigger: Whenever I feel afraid of something (2) habit: I have to do it as fast as possible (3) so that I’ll never regret it and obtain a temporary happiness boost. > > As you can imagine, it’s really difficult in the beginning to perform this habit. Whether I approached strangers, asked seemingly stupid questions in a lecture, wanted to present first when we had to present something in university, raised my voice when we had to bring up arguments in a discussion or drove with the freefall tower when went to a funfair and there’s one. It took some time, but my consistency paid off. Today, I don’t feel the same fear anymore and most of the things I feared in the past, I either don’t fear anymore or fear less. > > For instance, in Palma, we purchased an umbrella, which I wanted to sell at the end of our vacation there. Before I had implemented this habit, it would’ve taken me a lot to overcome myself to talk to strangers sitting at the beach and ask them whether they want to buy our umbrella. Nowadays, that’s rather a fun event. > > As described in the title, this habit literally changed my life. In so many situations, it helped me to do something I was really feared but also was really important for my today’s life. For example, when I first saw my girlfriend, her appearance was so impressive that it made me feel anxious as when you want to talk to your high school crush and start to think about the conversation in your head. This anxiety was the trigger for my overcome-fear habit. I knew I have to talk to her. I was unbelievably nervous, and it took me so much to convince myself to actually do it. When I talked to her, I was freaking insecure. Like in a movie, I stuttered, talked awkwardly, and got massively sweaty palms. Luckily, she was rather overwhelmed by the situation, why she didn’t notice all the awkwardness. Even though I really f\*cked up this situation, I was incredibly happy that I had overcome my fear. After my workout (I approached her in one of my exercise breaks as I wanted to act as fast as possible to prevent my brain from making up excuses not to talk to her), I went to her again. Since all the initial pressure was released and I wanted to excuse my weird behavior, I could now very easily talk to her. Luckily, this conversation went really well because, today, I cannot live without this person anymore. > > ## How to become more self-confident > > As you can imagine, the overcome-fear habit greatly helped me to attain strong [self-confidence](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/signs-of-true-self-confidence). Our [self-confidence](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/signs-of-true-self-confidence) is rarely related to our actual abilities but is mostly based on our perceptions. My perceptions greatly changed when I started to not let my fear prevent me from doing something. Yes, I often failed but these failures made me even stronger and happier. > > “Artificial fear”, such as social anxiety, is just in our head, just based on our perceptions. By regularly challenging these perceptions, we can change them and, suddenly, we attain stronger self-confidence. > > Therefore, a great technique for increasing our self-confidence is to regularly take “micro-risks”. Those are situations with the probability of a minor negative outcome. For example, you talk to a person you don’t know. In this case, the very worst outcome is that this person insults you and says something like “piss off”. Even in the worst case, though, you’re not really affected negatively. On the other side, these situations allow us to challenge ourselves and, most often, we’re rewarded (1) with a good outcome (the person is actually nice to us) (2) with a new experience, boosting our self-confidence. > > Micro-risks allow us to get used to inconvenient situations, enhancing our self-worth, skills, and abilities. You don’t have to implement a habit as I did and take every risk as fast as you can, but making it a habit to take micro-risks can greatly help you to live a better life. For example, you can make it a habit to (1) talk to a stranger at least once a week (2) be kind to another person at least once per day (3) never hesitate to ask a question no matter how dumb you think it is. --- # Ownership – a key skill to develop - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/ownership-a-key-skill-to-develop - Date: 2021-08-09 - Categories: Communication > *If you do not take ownership of your actions, your actions will eventually own you –* Suman Rai Summary: * Simply spoken taking ownership implies that the people around us can trust us to do the right thing * Taking ownership implies taking full responsibility for our careers. If there’s someone to blame, it’s ourselves – nobody else * Learning to take ownership is the prerequisite for being a proficient leader Practical advice: * Stop blaming others if you cannot do your job. Take full responsibility for your tasks and their outcome * Be proactive and always have next steps ready * Communicate transparently and don’t overpromise Dear friend, This week, I finished another consulting project. It’s crazy how fast time is running, isn’t it? Being on vacation for a week (I went to Palma de Mallorca together with my girlfriend – if you have any recommendations, highly appreciated!), I’ve got plenty of time to reflect on the past weeks. One thing my thoughts revolved around a lot was the skills needed to succeed in my job. In consulting, we’ve to build a versatile skillset to support our clients in dealing with their complex and ever-changing challenges. Thereby, a vital skill every consultant has to develop is *ownership*. Taking ownership, though, isn’t something exclusively crucial in management consulting but a skill everyone should develop to be successful in his/her job. In my opinion, it’s among the most important skills to climb the career ladder, build a successful business, or master an expert role. But what does taking ownership actually mean, why is it key to success, and how can we learn and advance this skill? In today’s article, I will answer these 3 questions, give you a brief look into how taking ownership in consulting looks like, and provide you with my recommendations based on my learnings. ## What does taking ownership mean? Simply spoken taking ownership implies that the people around us can trust us to do the right thing. It’s about proactivity, i.e. taking the initiative. Taking ownership is when we believe that taking action is not someone else’s responsibility but we’re accountable for the quality and timing of an outcome, even when we’re working with others. To make it more intuitive: How does *not taking ownership* look like? We wait for our boss to tell us what to do. We let others solve problems for which there’s no clear responsibility. We blame our boss or colleagues if something doesn’t work out instead of finding ways to manage it better. We care more about putting in the effort (working 8 hours) than about making an impact (getting actual results). Also, taking ownership implies taking full responsibility for our careers. If there’s someone to blame, it’s ourselves – nobody else. In consulting, taking ownership means being fully responsible and accountable for one’s own workstream. Each consulting project has at least one workstream, which can be seen as a sub-project consisting of a series of tasks. While the outcomes (deliverables) of each workstream are clear up front, the way towards project completion can be full of uncertainties, making the job challenging. Despite all the challenges and uncertain circumstances, a consultant has to deliver. Thereby, the real challenge comes from orchestrating numerous stakeholders and inputs while delivering in high quality and in time. For instance, imagine you want to conduct 3 expert interviews to provide your client with vital market insights as part of your workstream. Taking ownership means being fully responsible for the outcome, i. e. even if the experts have to postpone the interview at short notice or don’t provide you with the insights you wanted to obtain, you have a plan B to deliver in high-quality and in time. ## Why is it such an important skill? First, taking ownership builds trust. Your manager and the managers of your managers will develop more and more trust once you consistently demonstrate ownership. Ownership isn’t about doing all by yourself or about delivering the perfect result but making the best out of the situation with the available resources. By anticipating roadblocks, thinking ahead, always having a Plan B, and keeping your manager in the loop, you show control over the situation independent of the outcome. Second, taking ownership means putting oneself in the driver’s seat. Those who take ownership have control over their work and hence a higher degree of freedom. Third, learning to take ownership is the prerequisite for being a proficient leader whether in an existing organization or in your own business. Practicing taking ownership without the obligation to take full responsibility has the great advantage that there’s still someone whom you can rely on. The higher you climb the career ladder, the more severe mistakes in taking ownership become. Hence, the earlier in your career you start to practice this skill, the better. ## How to demonstrate ownership First, you should adopt the right mindset. Stop blaming others if you cannot do your job. Take full responsibility for your tasks and their outcome. Additionally, don’t rely on your manager for task accomplishment. Of course, you should assume that they will support you, however, you shouldn’t rely on them to deliver in high quality and in time. Second, be proactive and always have next steps ready. If you’ve got a meeting, think about what you want to get out of it, how you can contribute, and what are possible next actions. Don’t wait for your manager/colleagues to tell you what to do. Third, communicate transparently and don’t overpromise. It’s key to keep your managers informed about your current situation. Let them know if you anticipate possible roadblocks or need help with something. As an owner, you’re 100% responsible for the delivery in quality and in time. Hence, never overpromise. Once you raised certain expectations, you have to fulfill them no matter the circumstances. --- # How to give your best to your life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-give-your-best-to-your-life - Date: 2021-08-01 - Categories: Goal Achievement > *To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift* – Steve Prefontaine > > Summary: > > * Giving our best is about putting all our energy into whatever life situation we’re currently experiencing > * Whether it’s time, money, or energy, I want to make the most out of these scarce resources > * Giving our best implies being fully present, continuously challenging the status quo, and not stopping when things become uncomfortable > > Practical advice: > > * Telling ourselves that we want to give our best is the first step > * Second, we need to think about what the ideal result would look like > * Third, we need to regularly reflect on our performance and how we can further improve > > Dear friend, > > This week was training week, i.e. together with my peers, I worked through multiple case studies to advance my consulting tool kit. > > While I really enjoyed developing my skills and expanding my network within the firm, I had a hard time giving my best: Not only the remote setting offers plenty of distractions but also I’ve already had multiple similar trainings at the consultancy I worked before my current employer. > > Giving my best, though, is one of my most important values. I’m always striving to give my best. Hence, despite the difficulties, I had to find ways to make the most out of this training, e.g. minimizing distractions (put my smartphone off) or finding ways to be more challenged (always try to think of something I didn’t know and ask for it). > > But why do I always want to give my best, how does that actually looks like, and how can we give our best more often? This is what today’s article is about. > > ## What does giving our best look like > > Doing our best is not about meeting expectations or achievements. It isn’t about success or failure – whatever these words even imply. It’s about putting all our energy into whatever life situation we’re currently experiencing. It’s synonymous with living out each and every moment to its fullest potential. > > For me, that implies 3 things: > > First, I’m fully present: If I’m in a working meeting, I constantly ask myself how I can contribute best. If I’m at a party, I don’t go on social media. If I’m in online training, I remove distractions. If I’m in a lecture, I’m fully concentrated, contribute, and ask questions. If I’m with my girlfriend, I dedicate my full attention to her. … > > Second, I continuously challenge the status quo by striving for continuous improvement. Every day, I ask myself what I can do better the next time, aiming for [marginal gains](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/the-power-of-marginal-gains). > > Third, I don’t stop when things become uncomfortable. > > Now, giving our best doesn’t mean getting the best results. Sometimes, we’ll feel tired. Sometimes, we’ll be sick. Giving our best means doing the best we can in a given situation under the given circumstances. > > ## Why always give your best > > “Can’t you just relax sometime?” – For years, people I got to know have asked me this question. And indeed, if I’m alone for myself at home on a Sunday evening, I cannot simply do nothing and relax. Also, if I attend a seminar, go to a conference, join a party, cook with my girlfriend, etc., I cannot just let the event pass me by. The same goes for most other life occurrences. “Just relaxing” is not an option. > > But why? > > Put simply, I always strive to commit wholeheartedly to every second of life. Whether it’s time, money, or energy, I want to make the most out of these scarce resources. > > I’m afraid of regret. If I’m an old man, I want to tell myself that I had a great life. For years, I’ve been constantly rethinking what that actually means. To the present day, I’ve come to the same conclusion that I always need to give my best to achieve this status. > > Moreover, it’s actually more fun if I’m (more) challenged. For instance, the training I completed this week was more enjoyable because I forced myself to be present and not just relax. > > ## How we can give our best more often > > If we want to strive for optimal performance in any area of our lives, we need to wholeheartedly commit to this effort. Telling ourselves that we want to give our best is the first step. For instance, if we want to be better in university, we can tell ourselves that we want to make the most out of each lecture. > > Second, we need to think about what the ideal result would look like. In the case of the university lectures, we might want 3 things: (1) Not get distracted by fellow students or other distractions (2) Not be afraid to ask a question if we didn’t understand something (3) Not stop thinking if the content of the lecture seems to complicated. Ideally, we aim for a result that is SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound). > > In my case, I do 2 things to ensure I’m always giving my best: First, I contemplate the 3 most important goals of the next day before I go to sleep and ask myself what I can do a little better the next day. Second, every morning, I write down each task of the day and prioritize them. > > For instance, yesterday night, I wrote down the 3 following goals: (1) Write a great blog article (2) Get the most out of the chest workout (3) Have a great time with my girlfriend in the evening. > > Third, we need to regularly reflect on our performance and how we can further improve. On the one hand, we need to fine-tune our efforts: What are the things that yield the best results for a particular activity? On the other hand, we need to prioritize our efforts. If we commit ourselves to always give our best, we cannot simply spend all our energy on each and every task. By doing so, we would spend all the energy on the first tasks of a day and would have no energy left for the things we do in the evening. Unfortunately, our time, energy, and focus are limited. I cannot spend all my energy and focus on a running session in the morning to improve my running performance if I have to work intensively on the same day. Hence, we should regularly ask ourselves whether we prioritize properly, i.e. whether we spend our energy and time on the things that [matter most](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/how-to-determine-what-really-matters-to-you). --- # My learnings from optimizing caffeine intake for 1 year - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/my-learnings-from-optimizing-caffeine-intake-for-1-year - Date: 2021-07-25 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > Coffee, the favorite drink of the civilized world *– Thomas Jefferson* > > Summary: > > * At first glance, caffeine seems like a superweapon, but, as with almost everything in life, it entails some serious risks > * Caffeine is literally a drug bearing the risk of adverse effects and addiction > * Correctly used made use of, though, the risks can be counterbalanced > > Practical advice: > > * Don’t consume more than 3 cups of coffee (300-400mg caffeine) per day > * Don’t consume caffeine past lunch > * Do take a break at least once per week > > Dear friend, > > The first time, I experimented with caffeine was in high school. I read that caffeine can boost physical performance, i.e. I could lift more weight in the gym. When I tried it out, though, that didn’t end well – I got really sick and almost had to quit the workout. > > A not long time after, I learned that caffeine can boost also cognitive performance. So, I gave it another try and took a little caffeine before an exam. Well – that didn’t go well either. Even though I was a quite decent student in high school, I used to be nervous before each exam. The caffeine made that even worse. > > After these setbacks, I consumed caffeine only when I went out with friends and drank my long drinks mixed with an energy drink like RedBull. > > During the second half of my Bachelor’s degree, I gave it another shot. I bought a coffee when I had to work through a particular lecture, which was unbelievably boring. The caffeine greatly helped me to get through that course. > > This experience made me witness first-hand the benefits of coffee/caffeine. Consequently, I started to experiment again more and more. For instance, during my Bachelor’s thesis, I used to drink 2 cups of black tea every morning. In San Diego, I made use of coffee to sustain my “never sleep longer than 7 am” habit. And today, after thousands of cups of coffee, I’m very close to my optimal “caffeine routine” optimizing my performance and counterbalancing the risks of caffeine intake. > > But how does my caffeine/coffee routine look like? How much do I consume? When do I consume? And what are the associated risks according to science and my personal experience? This is what’s today’s article about. > > ## Why we should consume coffee > > There’re plenty of reasons why people drink coffee: It makes us feel awake in the morning; we get in a positive mood; it’s a social ritual; we get an energy boost; … > > Those are all good reasons, but coffee/caffeine can do so much more if made use of correctly: > > * It enhances our creativity and hence our problem-solving skills > * It improves our reaction time > * It makes dully tasks (more) fun > * It significantly increases our physiological performance > * It boosts our memory > * It makes us behave more self-confident and extroverted > * … > > At first glance, caffeine seems like a superweapon, but, as with almost everything in life, it entails some serious risks. > > ## The risk of habitual caffeine consumption > > Caffeine is literally a drug: A substance that can produce both a physical state-altering effect and a consciousness and perception-altering effect, while simultaneously bearing the risk of adverse effects and addiction. > > The first thing we experience quickly when consuming caffeine regularly is the formation of tolerance. That implies that we’ll need more and more caffeine to achieve the same effect every day. Our very first cup of coffee will have a significantly stronger effect than a cup of coffee after weeks of regular consumption. As a consequence, caffeine consumption can lead to a vicious circle and hence to the consumption of amounts that aren’t healthy anymore. > > The second adverse effect relates to sleep. When we consume caffeine, our body’s adenosine is inhibited, sleep pressure is reduced, and we feel less tired. That’s the reason why we feel more energized and motivated. > > At the same time, though, our sleep quality suffers: If we have too much caffeine in our blood when we go to sleep, our “sleep pressure” is still reduced and, thus, we will have not only a hard time falling asleep but also less deep sleep. > > This effect can also lead to a vicious circle: (1) We consume too much or too late caffeine, (2) hence sleep badly and are tired, (3) and the next day, we drink even more and/or later caffeine to counterbalance the lack of energy, (4) making our sleep even worse. > > Thirdly, caffeine can also be counterproductive to your productivity. As I described to you in the introduction, too much caffeine can lead to hyperstimulation: We become unfocused, want to multitask, cannot focus on one thing at a time, and hence waste our precious time with other things, e.g. daydreaming. > > Additionally, there’re many more disadvantages of caffeine, such as high blood pressure, increased excretion of micro-nutrients, dehydration, … > > ## My coffee routine > > Now, how do I consume caffeine/coffee, and how do I counterbalance the adverse effects? > > First, I drink 2 cups of coffee a day with ~100mg of caffeine each. From my extensive research on coffee and its caffeine content, we can roughly say that filter coffee made with 12g of Arabica coffee has about 100mg of caffeine. In the Western world, most coffee is made with Arabica beans. Sometimes, though, you will get a mixture of Arabica and Robusta beans, which have a higher (~2x) caffeine content. I use my AeroPress to make coffee (filter coffee). If you rather enjoy drinking espresso or variations of it (Lattes, Cappuccinos, etc.), you can assume ~60mg caffeine per Espresso (shot). > > Second, I drink my last coffee at least 30 minutes before lunch. That’s due to 3 reasons: (1) From my experience, drinking coffee after lunch is too late and will result in a significant worsening of our sleep. Many people drink their last coffee/espresso/coke/etc. in the afternoon or even later. That’s fine because the adverse effects of sleep deprivation are counterbalanced by the caffeine intake, but it’s not optimal. (2) Coffee intake right before/after lunch inhibits our micro-nutrient resorption. (3) Drinking my second coffee before lunch greatly helps me to prevent a midday low. > > Third, I pause my coffee consumption once per week to (partially) reset my caffeine tolerance. > > In sum, the amount, the timing, and the break of caffeine greatly help to make use of the great benefits of this substance while simultaneously keeping the adverse effects to a minimum. --- # Why mindset matters - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-mindset-matters - Date: 2021-07-18 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Success is not an accident, success is a choice. –* Stephen Curry > > Summary: > > * Mindset = established set of attitudes towards ourselves and the outer world > * The right mindset is among many success factors, such as societal and economic starting point, intelligence, luck, etc., one of the most important ones > * The ideal mindset, though, doesn’t exist. Each mindset has its pros and cons > > Practical advice: > > * To change your mindset and the way you think about success, you need to challenge yourself and experience first-hand that you will improve > * Try to model the people you look up to > * Stop comparing yourself and get inspired instead > > Dear friend, > > This week, a member of my YouTube community asked me how important the right mindset is to become successful. That made me think a lot. > > I reflected on my past and thought about the time when I drastically changed my personality. At the beginning of high school, I invested heavily in my personal development to become a totally different person. A premise for this change was the adoption of a new mindset: The way I thought about myself, the people surrounding me, and the general world had to radically change. > > In today’s article, I will write about the meaning of different mindsets, why it’s important to actively shape one’s own mindset, and how we can do that. > > ## Mindset – what does it mean? > > The word mindset describes our ways of thinking, convictions, behavior patterns, and inner attitude. It’s our established set of attitudes towards ourselves and the outer world. For instance, our mindset determines how we deal with failures, such as a bad grade or insufficient feedback so that we aren’t promoted. > > There’re plenty of psychological theories examining the differences in mindsets and the corresponding implications. Today, we will focus on the *implicit theory of intelligence* by Carol Dweck and colleagues. It refers to our fundamental underlying beliefs (mindset) whether or not our intelligence or abilities can change and hence whether we can be successful or not in any area of life. > > Thereby, Dweck – a well-known researcher in the field of psychology and lecturer at Stanford University – differentiates between a (1) *fixed* and a (2) *growth* mindset and defines them as: > > (1) *In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb.* > > (2) *In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching, and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.* > > It’s not that we have either a fixed or a growth mindset – we may fall on some spectrum between the two types of theories, and our views may change given different situations and training. Generally spoken, though, about 40% of the general population have a fixed mindset, 40% have a growth mindset, and 20% do not fit well into either category. > > ## Fixed vs growth mindset > > Now, how important is the right mindset to become successful? And what’s the ideal mindset? > > In my view, the right mindset is among many success factors, such as societal and economic starting point, intelligence, luck, etc., one of the most important ones. Particularly with regard to “relative success”, i.e. comparing the achievements of a relatively similar group (e.g. people born in the same developing country with a similar economic and societal background), it’s the most crucial factor. > > The ideal mindset, though, doesn’t exist. Each mindset has its pros and cons. Ideally, we’re aware of this fact and willing to adapt our mindset towards our aspirations. To be able to do that, we first have to know what we want to achieve in life and how we define success. That’s a whole different story though. > > Nevertheless, having and living a growth mindset tends to be the better deal: > > Research shows that people with a growth mindset generally have positive and stable self-esteem and do not question their intelligence in the face of failure. Instead, they remain remaining eager and curious. They believe that they can learn and grow personally and hence can change our world for the better. > > Contrarily, a fixed mindset attributes failure to a lack of ability. With a fixed mindset, we believe that we’re either born with a talent and succeed or fail no matter how much effort we exert. Typical statements are: “It’s always been this way, it won’t change.” or “I don’t have the talent, I will never be able to X.” > > A fixed mindset is not generally bad, though. For instance, a fixed mindset can greatly help you to take care of responsibilities, be accountable, and achieve consistency in something you’re good at. > > ## Adopt a different mindset > > In my youth, I always believed that success requires talent and luck, and that it comes overnight. In the last few years, this belief has completely changed. Today, I truly believe that success in most areas of our lives does not require great talent and much luck, but rather it requires consistency, effort, and willpower. > > This mindset shift took years to unfold, and, today, I’m still continuously refining the way I think about myself and the outer world. > > Imagine you’ve got a similar mindset I used to have and now want to work towards a growth mindset. What could you do to attain it? > > ### Change how you think about success > > A fixed mindset makes you think being successful means things come easy to you, whether it’s being a straight-A student or a world-class soccer player. But actually, the contrary is true: The best people in a certain discipline are the best people because they continuously challenge themselves and do the things that are difficult for them. They don’t stop where most people would do. That’s the reason why they are the best of the best and why it seems things come easy to them. > > To change your mindset and the way you think about success, you need to challenge yourself and experience first-hand that you will improve. Think about a skill, a hobby, or a subject in your school you would love to improve. Instead of telling yourself that you’re at your limits think about how you could improve and execute. > > Moreover, try to model the people you look up to. What did these people do to become the person they actually are. You will be greatly surprised by how much continuous effort they actually spent over the course of plenty of years. > > ### Stop comparing yourself and get inspired instead > > When you hear a friend talk about being passionate about a personal project, achieving a perfect grade, or being promoted at work, resist the urge to compare yourself and feel envious. > > Everyone has a different starting point and nobody is the same. What’s better: Compare to the best self you could be and become inspired by the people surrounding you. You will never know how much effort someone exerted and how much luck actually was involved. Take their achievements as an inspiration and ask yourself what can you learn from them to become better? > > ### Surround yourself with growth mindset people. > > Do you know the saying that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with? > > What will greatly help you to change your mindset is to surround yourself with people who think this way. I know we cannot simply break relationships with the people we spend the most with. Nevertheless, you should always keep in mind that these people will greatly influence the way you think about yourself and the outer world. > > Hence, when you move to another city, change your university, have a new employer, etc. – be very picky when choosing the people you want to spend most of your time with. --- # Feeling too dumb to speak up? How to deal with it and change your perspective - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/feeling-too-dumb-to-speak-up-how-to-deal-with-it-and-change-your-perspective - Date: 2021-07-11 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know* > > Summary: > > * We’re not dumb but make comparisons we shouldn’t do in the first place > * By judging ourselves as dumb, we put ourselves in an unfavorable situation > * We fail to contribute if we’re too afraid to speak up as a consequence of calling ourselves dumb > > Practical advice: > > * First, master the art of listening right > * Second, even if you don’t know anything, you can contribute to a discussion methodologically > * Third, be curious and eager to learn > > Dear friend, > > Ever had a discussion with someone apparently far more experienced than you? Maybe the boss of your boss, a medical doctor, colleagues with decades of experience, your parents? > > Feels quite frightening to dissent or contribute, right? > > After finishing last week’s project, I joined a new one this week, reminding of a situation I’ve encountered a few times in the past: > > Every time we work on something new, we first have to learn the ropes (i.e. get into the topic). Particularly at the beginning, though, we struggle with even the most simple topics, such as abbreviations or definitions. > > In consulting, surrounded by top-notch experts and highly motivated colleagues, junior colleagues often have to fight this feeling of “being dumb”. Even though this natural reaction is totally common, it’s something we need to take special care of. > > In today’s article, I will write about why we feel dumb in the first place, why it’s totally common but still bad, and what we can do about it so that we can better deal with our anxiety to speak up. > > ## Almost everything in this world is relative > > According to dictionaries, dumb means lacking intelligence or good judgment. Telling ourselves that we’re dumb thus implies that we lack mental abilities and experience to make good decisions (judgment). > > What’s wrong with that? > > First, wherever we made it – great university, great employer, great position, etc. – the people who gave us this opportunity were convinced that we’re capable of filling that role. Hence, we should trust rather their judgment that we’ve got the necessary abilities and experience than ours that we lack them. > > Second, almost everything in this world is relative. Most people – including you and I – compare things to make judgments, and – as you might guess – it’s not always a wise approach. For instance, if you’re surrounded by tech geeks and everything you can do with a computer is to browse on your favorite sites, send emails and share selfies on social media, you’re likely considered as “not smart”. If you move to a place where people know absolutely nothing about computers (e.g. a retirement home), though, your little activities on a laptop suddenly make you look “really advanced”. > > When we compare ourselves with others and don’t have the edge, we call ourselves dumb. In fact, though, we’re not dumb but make comparisons we shouldn’t do in the first place. > > ## Just because it’s common doesn’t make it acceptable > > By judging ourselves as dumb, we put ourselves in an unfavorable situation: > > First, no matter how little experience we have, we can always contribute creative ideas. Creativity knows no limitations. If we call ourselves dumb, though, we subordinate ourselves, preventing us from contributing ideas, which might lead to a better outcome. > > Second, there’s nobody knowing everything and always considering every relevant factor. Hence, even if we’re significantly less experienced than the people surrounding us, we still can contribute by highlighting aspects not considered yet. However, we fail to contribute if we’re too afraid to speak up as a consequence of calling ourselves dumb. > > Third, since we fail to contribute our ideas and perspective, we learn less than we could. Therefore, not only the result is worse but also we can contribute less in the future due to our flatter learning curve. > > ## How to speak up despite feeling dumb > > Now, what can we do about this natural reaction? > > First, master the art of listening right. Before I contribute anything, I first listen carefully: Listening is purposeful and focused rather than accidental. It requires motivation and effort. Listening, at its best, is active, focused, and concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by another person. > > Moreover, good listening is much more than being silent while the other person talks. The best listeners periodically ask questions that promote discovery and insight. If you don’t understand something, you can “hide” your lack of experience and understanding by asking “what does this mean FOR YOU” instead of asking “what does this mean”. > > Second, focus on contributing your perspective instead of great insights. Even if you don’t know anything, you can contribute to a discussion methodologically. If we’re less experienced than the people surrounding us, we shouldn’t expect ourselves to contribute groundbreaking insights. > > What’s a great method to give your perspective is to challenge unstated assumptions. Think about what’s implicitly assumed and why these assumptions lead to a rather suboptimal outcome. For instance, your friends talk about politics and discuss why we should (not) increase taxes. You now could question the assumption of whether that is the only means to achieve the desired goal (more equality). > > In the work context, your colleagues might discuss how they structure the PowerPoint presentation for a virtual workshop. You then might question whether they need to have a PowerPoint presentation in the first place and don’t use tools like MURAL. > > Third, be curious and eager to learn. Particularly at the workplace, you should learn the ropes as quickly as possible. One method that greatly helps me: Every time, there’s is something I don’t know I write it down as a question if I cannot ask someone to explain it to me at the very moment. Then, I schedule a short meeting with one of my more experienced colleagues and ask them all these questions during the meeting. This method greatly helped me to get into a new topic faster. --- # 3 tips for immense personal growth - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/3-tips-for-immense-personal-growth - Date: 2021-07-04 - Categories: Communication > > *If there is no struggle, there is no progress –* Frederick Douglass > > Summary: > > * No matter in which area of life, personal growth makes us solve problems easier > * To personally grow, we need to try new things and challenge ourselves > * The sweet spot for personal growth lies in *just-manageable tasks* > > Practical advice: > > * The most important lever to grow better is to (1) embrace and listen carefully to feedback and (2) regularly ask for it (consistency) > * Say rather yes than no to things that are challenging > * Reflecting regularly allows you to critically rethink your ideas, thoughts, and action, boosting your personal growth > > Dear friend, > > I’ve just finished another consulting engagement, and, reflecting on the past weeks, I’m once again surprised how much I could learn and personally grow over the course of a few weeks. > > I greatly appreciate the learning opportunities my job offers me. I can witness a true difference between the person I’m today and the person I was when I started 6 months ago. > > When I decided to become a strategy consultant, I had very high expectations with regard to this aspect. In my opinion, personal growth is among the most important factors when we have to choose a job early in our careers. > > But why should we care about growth? And how do we grow best? In today’s blog article, I will answer these questions and give you 3 practical tips on how to boost your personal growth. > > ## Why we should care about personal growth > > Simply spoken, personal growth makes us solve problems easier – no matter in which area of life. When we grow, we can have better relationships, advance our careers, better enjoy our hobbies, … > > By focusing on personal growth, we can experience great benefits: > > First and foremost, the more we grow, the more we’re able to overcome the limitations that prevent us from living life to the fullest. For instance, when I was a teenager, I was very shy and had great anxiety to talk strangers. By challenging myself and focussing on developing my personality, I could attain great confidence and lost all my shyness, even making me able to approach my girlfriend when I saw her the first time in the gym. > > Second, by growing, we can handle once difficult situations more easily. Can you remember the first time when you tried to talk in a foreign language? Even if you’re still feeling not super confident, you feel much more confident now than the first time you tried. > > Third, what I’ve experienced during my personal growth journey: My life simply became better and better. Growth allows me to have more fun, experience more satisfaction, and improve my relationships. > > ## How we grow best > > To personally grow, we need to get out of our comfort zone: We need to try new things and challenge ourselves. That can be as simple as learning a new word in a foreign language or as challenging as accepting a new job in a different country where you’ve never been before. > > There’re different degrees of getting out of our comfort zone, and, ideally, we don’t overwhelm ourselves but find the sweet spot where we grow best: Little challenging tasks imply little growth while massive challenges lead to anxiety and overload. Hence, we cannot simply say the more challenging a task the better we grow. > > But when do we grow best? > > The sweet spot for personal growth lies in *just-manageable tasks.* Those are the goals and duties for which we perceive our skill level as high and which we perceive as highly challenging but not too overwhelming. > > Ultimately, the key lies in finding the right balance. And it’s about not only picking the right tasks and goals but also taking rest seriously. > > ## 3 tips to boost your personal growth > > There’re 3 things that have greatly enhanced my personal development in the past few years: > > ### Feedback > > The most important lever to grow better is to (1) embrace and listen carefully to feedback and (2) regularly ask for it (consistency). > > Whether it’s your partner, your sports mate, your teacher, your sibling, or your colleague, by embracing their opinions and listen carefully to his/her advice, we can grow rapidly. I know it’s not easy. Our first natural reaction to people giving us advice is rather protective than embracing. In these moments, when we want to justify ourselves, we should rather pause and appreciate the time spends on our growth. > > Moreover, it’s even more important to regularly ask for feedback. How can you do x, y, or z better in your relationship? What can you do better to get promoted faster? What can you do on top to receive a better grade? > > ### Just-manageable tasks > > The second lever is just-manageable tasks. By saying rather yes than no to things that are challenging, we can grow faster and stronger. > > For instance, if your partner suggests a long trip to another country, rather say yes than no; if your boss asks you want to present your results to a major audience, rather say yes than no; if your friend has a great business idea and wants you to join, rather say yes than no. > > Or to express it with the words of Richard Branson: “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!” > > ### Reflection > > The third lever and a habit that is greatly underrated is reflecting. > > When I started to reflect regularly, I didn’t really have any expectations. I just wanted to try out this habit because so many people praised it. At first, I didn’t really saw a benefit. I just wrote down the biggest successes of the past day and the things I can look forward to the next day. > > Then, I started to write down the 3 most important goals of the next day and, additionally, reflect on a weekly and monthly basis. That changed everything. > > I’ve never felt so much happiness, control over my life, focus on the right things, and creativity. > > Reflecting regularly gave me the opportunity to rethink ideas, thoughts, and actions so that I was able to make the most of them. It truly helped me to become a better self by boosting my personal growth. --- # What I love about my job - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/what-i-love-about-my-job - Date: 2021-06-27 - Categories: Well-Being > > *The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. –* Eleanor Roosevelt > > Summary: > > * The people we’re surrounded with at work are the most important aspect > * Strategy consulting is about helping people (clients) to solve problems > * No two days in my job are the same > > Practical advice: > > * 3 factors are crucial when looking for a job: (1) People (2) Purpose (3) Well-being. > * We shouldn’t do a job in which we don’t see any meaning > * We shouldn’t be in a role that is harmful to our health no matter how great the other benefits are > > Dear friend, > > I cannot believe that this year is already half over. Time is running so fast, doesn’t it? > > One factor that greatly contributes to my perception of time surely is the job I started at the beginning of 2021: For almost 6 months, I’ve been working as a strategy consultant. And it still feels like I’ve just started even though so much has happened. > > Since I was 18, I’ve wanted to work in this area. I read articles, watched videos, and browsed various online forums to soak up information on this job, making me more and more excited. > > Today, I have the job I dreamt of several years ago, allowing me to evaluate whether my past imagination corresponds to reality. > > In this week’s article, I will write about the aspects of my job I greatly appreciate and talk about aspects to consider when choosing a job. > > ## What I appreciate most in my role > > By far the best aspect of my work is the people whom I work with. Because of my job, I was lucky enough to be always surrounded by highly motivated, purpose-driven, and very kind colleagues. > > My colleagues were always determined to go the extra mile and don’t stop when things become difficult. They don’t do the job to make a living but do it to make a positive, enduring impact in our world. > > Whenever I needed help, there’s always someone offering proactively her/his support. I truly believe that together we can achieve so much more, and it feels so great to work with people who think the same way. > > Moreover, I’m still astonished from time to time how exceptional the people are whom I work with. I greatly appreciate the expertise of our leaders and the great achievements of my peers. There’re so many people who were the best of their class at the best schools for their subject. And so many bring even more stunning practical experiences to the table. > > ## No two days are the same > > The second aspect I truly love is a combination of multiple aspects: (1) There’s not a single day I didn’t learn something new (2) My job is to solve real problems (3) Each day is unique. > > If I had to explain to a child what strategy consulting is about, I’d say that my job is to help people (our clients) to solve problems. In essence, this factor is one of the very few commonalities that consulting engagements have in common. Besides that, every engagement is more or less unique: > > Today, I might work for a cosmetics manufacturer and help it to transform its organization while tomorrow, I might work for an energy company and help it to devise its new business strategy. Additionally, not only industries and functions might change from engagement to engagement but also each consulting team might consist of different people. > > Within a consulting engagement, there’s also great variety: Each and every day, we want to come closer to the problem solution. During this journey, we’re faced with multiple sub-problems, which might be of a totally different nature. In collaboration with our clients, we come up with and refine possible problem solutions, which themselves are unique. > > Due to this variety, we continuously expand our knowledge and tool kit (methodologies) and hence become better and better in making enduring positive change. > > ## Aspects to consider when choosing a job > > In my opinion, 3 factors are crucial when looking for a job: (1) People (2) Purpose (3) Well-being. > > First, as already stated, the people we’re surrounded with at work are the most important aspect. Research shows that simply having a best friend at work greatly increases our engagement and motivation to do the job. > > If we want to be truly happy, we need to find a job where we love working with the people around us. In my case, I’m looking for people who are purpose drive and hence highly motivated to solve problems and true team players who focus on rather the positive impact than their individual gain. > > Second, the job should contribute to our life purposes. We shouldn’t do a job in which we don’t see any meaning. The more a job brings us closer to the pursuit of our individual purpose of life, the more motivated and happier we are. Since our job takes up a large part of our lives, it’s not a great deal to neglect this aspect when choosing a job. > > Third, physical and mental well-being is also a key component. There’re many jobs where we can work something meaningful to us together with great people, however, among those are also jobs that exceed our mental or physical capacity. We shouldn’t be in a role that is harmful to our health no matter how great the other benefits are. --- # 3 tips to withstand high pressure - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/3-tips-to-withstand-high-pressure - Date: 2021-06-20 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *Pressure is a word that is misused in our vocabulary. When you start thinking of pressure, it’s because you’ve started to think of failure –* Tommy Lasorda > > Summary: > > * There’re three key triggers of a high-pressure challenge: (1) Limited time (2) A critical task (3) Fear of failure > * After identifying the key drivers of pressure, we can think about possible levers to reduce and make use of it > * We shouldn’t defend ourselves against stress responses but embrace them > > Practical advice: > > * A so-called brain dump – writing out everything you need to do – will greatly help you to release pressure and make the situation more manageable > * Next to each action then, you indicate when the task needs to be completed so that I can prioritize it accordingly > * Force yourself to take care of yourself when you’re under pressure > > Dear friend, > > You most likely agree: Suffering from great pressure is a nasty experience. > > When we have too little time for too much work and feel anxiety because we’re afraid that we cannot meet certain expectations, we feel as if the whole world is on our shoulders. > > I’ve already faced such challenges multiple times, and I’m quite sure the future will bring some more. Dealing with great pressure is a skill we can attain and enhance. It’s not that we cannot do something about it and have to bear with it. > > In today’s article, I want to write about the causes of great pressure and possible remedies so that you can not only deal with it but also perform better. > > ## Causes of great pressure > > There’re three key triggers of a high-pressure challenge: (1) Limited time (2) A critical task (3) Fear of failure. > > ### (1) Limited time > > When time becomes tight, most people get under pressure. Suddenly, we become hectic, lose track of things, and – instead of speeding up and getting things done – our progress slows down, making things even worse. > > ### (2) A critical task > > The greater the responsibility and impact of a task, the greater the associated pressure. > > ### (3) Fear of failure > > Fear of failure plays a substantial role. We don’t want to disappoint ourselves, our boss, colleagues, friends, family, etc. and fear the consequences in the social environment. > > Fear is the trigger that has the largest influence on our experience, but, fortunately, it’s also the trigger we can best control. > > ## The right mindset matters > > After identifying the key drivers of pressure, we can think about possible levers to reduce and make use of it. > > ### (1) Limited time > > Yes, a task might have tight deadline, but this has several advantages, too: > > * First, since it’s definite, you surely know when it will be over and you’ll be released > * Second, there’s still time left – make the most out of it! > * Third, people know that you’ve got limited time to accomplish the task, lowering their expectations > * Fourth, time limitations allow us to focus on the things that truly matter and offer the largest impact > > ### (2) A critical task > > In high-pressure situations, we need to accomplish crucial tasks, which have a significant impact on something or someone. If the task wasn’t important from our point of view, we wouldn’t feel pressured. > > That’s actually a good thing: We now have the chance to prove ourselves – showcase colleagues, bosses, friends, family, and ourselves that we can manage important duties. > > Moreover, independent of the outcome, we have a steep learning curve. We’ll never feel the same amount of pressure in a similar situation again. Just by sustaining, we learn to better deal with these kinds of situations. > > ### (3) Fear of failure > > Unfortunately, we tend to think rather negatively than positively about great challenges: Instead of viewing the task as a great opportunity, we’re afraid of the consequences in case of failure. Thereby, we set ourselves for failure. > > The more we think about a stressor in a negative light, the worse we’ll feel. Hence, we should either avoid thinking about it or reframe the situation. I rather choose the latter. > > Plenty of studies show that we systematically overestimate the impact of a negative event on our lives. Hence, even in the worst case, we’re better off than we estimated. > > A simple question greatly helps me to escape irrational thoughts: *Is that going to matter in 5 years* Most of the time, the answer will be *no*. And this certainty greatly calms me down. > > Another crucial aspect of reframing the situation is in the very moment of high pressure: When we’re faced with stress responses, such as our heart beating stronger, breath getting faster, and palms being more sweaty, we shouldn’t defend ourselves against them but embrace them. > > We need to think of our body and mind helping us to rise to a crucial challenge. We need to be grateful for these stress responses since they will make us perform better. > > ## 3 practical tips to better deal with pressure > > ### Make a list > > What are the actions you need to undertake to accomplish your task? Creating a to-do list is my way to go to combat feeling overwhelmed. > > A so-called brain dump – writing out everything I need to do – greatly helps me to release pressure and make the situation more manageable. > > ### Prioritize > > Next to each action, I indicate when the task needs to be completed so that I can prioritize: > > * Which actions are most crucial? > * Which actions are most urgent? > > Those that fulfill both criteria are the ones I tackle first. > > It’s key that if we’re confronted with a major source of pressure, we need to start to break things down into steps and determine what needs to be done right now and what can wait instead of thinking about the entire situation and getting overwhelmed. > > ### Foster healthy responses > > When we are stressed and overwhelmed it is easy to fall into bad habits: eating and drinking unhealthy things, consuming too much caffeine, not sleeping, not exercising, generally not taking care of ourselves at all. Forcing myself to take care of myself when I’m under pressure actually gives me more energy and helps me to focus. > > I make sure I’m eating enough healthy food and drink enough water. Moreover, I set aside some time to exercise. > > Moreover, you need to rest and take your breaks. It’s still a common belief that skipping breaks makes us achieve more – in the long run, though, that’s wrong. > > Spend time with friends and family at the weekend. Go outside and breathe fresh air. We handle pressure with more focus and grace if we cultivate healthy responses to pressure, and make sure to take care of ourselves. --- # How to become more consistent - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-become-more-consistent-3-practical-tips - Date: 2021-06-13 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come* – Dwayne Johnson > > Summary: > > * We greatly overestimate what’s possible in a few weeks and greatly underestimate what’s possible in 10 years > * Success isn’t about eureka moments. If we want to achieve certain things in our life, it’s about aiming for consistent progress > * Short-term-oriented decisions inhibit us in a way so we cannot live our lives to the fullest > > Practical advice: > > * First, we have to always stick to the promises and expectations we communicate > * Second, we need to make use of routines and incorporate them into our workflows > * Third, we need to continuously remind ourselves to think more long-term > > Dear friend, > > During my run today, I was struggling to maintain my pace. I felt exhausted and overwhelmed because of the hot temperatures. As always when the pain arises, my brain thought up reasons and tried to convince me to run slower or even stop. It eventually brought me to the point where I asked myself: Should I quit and take a break? > > Regularly, I’m faced with similar situations: Should I … > > * go on social media even though I have to write this blog post? > * buy those sweets or that candy even though it’s not optimal for my health? > * go to the lake nearby even though I have to study for the upcoming exams? > > In such situations, we have to decide: Short-term pleasure or long-term happiness. The price we pay for the latter: Unease, discomfort, or even pain. > > I firmly believe consistency is key. It always pays to persevere the struggle. And because my conviction is so strong, I don’t succumb to short-term pleasure and so didn’t quit today either. > > In today’s blog article, I’ll write about why consistency is crucial for success and how you can become more consistent, too. > > ## Why consistency is key for success > > It doesn’t matter which area of life we look at: Relationships, ventures, career, health, sports, music, art, etc. – we greatly overestimate what’s possible in a few weeks and greatly underestimate what’s possible in 10 years. > > We won’t establish a great friendship in a week. It takes a lot of time – not months but years – until we really get to know someone. The same goes for sports, getting in shape, building a company, or getting the job we always dreamt of. > > Success isn’t about eureka moments. If we want to achieve certain things in our life, it’s about aiming for consistent progress. We need to exercise, read, work, learn, study, … on a regular basis. Inconsistency is the enemy of results. True success emerges when we do all the many minor things right, day-in and day-out. > > But all too often we forget this certainty. We indulge ourselves, stop when we should go on. We question the process and, suddenly, settle for short-term pleasure. > > Unfortunately, we have only one life and even worse our lifetime is limited. Short-term-oriented decisions inhibit us in a way so we cannot live our lives to the fullest. > > ## Where you must not be consistent > > Although consistency allows us to reach our true potential, it’s not optimal to be consistent in all areas of life either. We have only resources that are limited: Time, energy, willpower, … We cannot become a tennis star, sing like Adele, be a great father, and sleep 8 hours a day altogether. > > If we want to live a great life, we have to decide what we want to improve or maintain. Other activities need to be minimized or eliminated. > > And yes, there are things we cannot or don’t want to eliminate: You might have family obligations, an annoying job that pays your bills, or a few more exams until you can become a lawyer. It’s very difficult to aim for consistency when we’re not inspired and motivated at all. In these cases, we need to minimize our resource input so that we’ve more energy and time for the things that truly matter to us. > > ## Tips to become more consistent > > First, we have to always stick to the promises and expectations we communicate. We must never become the person we don’t trust. To be consistent, we need to believe in ourselves and our ability to hold ourselves accountable. Once our own imagination of ourselves is spoiled, we’re much more likely to abandon ourselves again and again. And it’s even the little things such as writing something down on our to-do list and not doing it. > > Second, we need to make use of routines and incorporate them into our workflows. Each and every routine has (1) a trigger (2) an activity (3) a reward. If we want to be consistent, routines are our strongest allies. The more willpower is needed to perform something – such as running at your max pace, studying from sunrise to sunset, or saying no to sweets in a diet – the stronger and more attractive the reward has to be. Once the routine is established and performed over the course of a few weeks, less willpower will be required to perform it. Eventually, after a few months, we don’t have to spend any willpower to maintain it. > > Third, we need to continuously remind ourselves to think more long-term: We greatly overestimate what’s possible in a few weeks and greatly underestimate what’s possible in 10 years. --- # How to actually solve your problems by thinking outside the box - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-actually-solve-your-problems-by-thinking-outside-the-box - Date: 2021-06-06 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Big ideas come from forward thinking people who challenge the norm* > > Summary: > > * We’ve already generated a large pool of proper solutions, but just because they work, they’re not optimal > * By changing our perspective, leaving the realm of conventional thinking, we can form ideas and solve problems in a way superior to what’s known > * Telling yourself to think outside the box has no or even an adverse effect on your creativity > > Practical advice: > > * First, you need to identify the box: What are the implicit assumptions limiting your ideation and problem-solving > * Second, use brainstorming to find creative solutions > * Third, bounce your ideas off your friends, family, and colleagues > > Dear friend, > > Maybe during a class, maybe during a meeting, you surely have heard of the phrase “thinking outside of the box”. This overused expression is attributed to innovators and creatives who find solutions to problems in an unconventional way. > > Plenty of studies show that creative people are happier and more successful in their endeavors. A good reason why I’ve been working on becoming more creative for years. I read books, watched videos, consumed web articles, and tried out several things. Today, I strongly believe that creativity is a skill anyone can enhance since my “creativity muscle” is stronger than ever before. > > For instance, since I’m still in my probationary period, I can’t easily take some days off and go on vacation. So, I needed to think about alternatives in order to go abroad and enjoy some days on the beach after the victory over the pandemic. A rather unconventional idea, which came to my mind, was to move abroad and work remotely from there for a certain time. > > Too often, when we’re faced with a problem, we are limited by implicit assumptions, such as in this case that you can only travel when you can take some days off. For instance, by identifying these implicit assumptions – i.e. *making the box visible* – we enable ourselves to think more broadly – i.e. *outside of the box* – and hence find better solutions to our problems. > > In today’s article, I will write about the benefits of thinking more often outside of the box and provide you with the tools and concepts that greatly help me to become more creative. > > ## The benefits of unconventional thinking > > Every single day, we face multiple problems. For most of these problems – e.g. what do I eat for lunch? – we’ve already generated a large pool of proper solutions. However, from time to time, we are faced with issues for which we don’t have a proper answer yet. > > There’re many ways how we can obtain a solution for these problems: Ask a friend, search on the internet, trial and error, … Most often, these solutions are pretty straightforward, not far from what’s common and known, and they work decently. > > Just because something works, though, it’s not optimal. Apple is a great example for that: They weren’t the first who produced a smartphone, wireless in-ear headphones, or a portable music player, but they were the first who developed products that not only worked but were optimal for their use-case, leading to their superior market position. > > Unconventional thinking – thinking out of the box – enables us to find better solutions. By changing our perspective, leaving the realm of conventional thinking, we can form ideas and solve problems in a way superior to what is known. > > ## Expanding your box > > Unfortunately, I used to think that I just need to tell myself that I need to think outside of the box and suddenly great ideas are generated. But no surprise, that’s completely wrong. Studies show that when a team is encouraged to think outside the box, the creativity levels drop compared to control groups. > > There’s this well-known *Nine-Dot Problem*: The task is to connect 9 points arranged in a square with a pencil by four or fewer straight lines without setting the pencil down. Most people take a long time until they find a solution because they assume they cannot leave the square formed by the 9 dots even though nobody ever stated that there’re boundaries. The solution lies in leaving this implicitly assumed square (→ box). Here you can see a picture of a solution: > > ![](/images/essays/how-to-actually-solve-your-problems-by-thinking-outside-the-box-1.png) > > In contrast to telling people to think outside the box, a non-verbal cue, such as drawing a square outside the 9 dots, allows people to solve the 9-dot problem better than average. By helping people to discover their implicit assumptions – their box – they can more easily leave the realm of conventional thinking. Hence, the better approach is to tell oneself to expand one’s own box since expanding implies to first identify the limits and only then push them wider. > > ## How to become more creative > > In order to think more unconventionally and find creative solutions, there’re various approaches and tools. In the following, I will introduce to you those that help me most in my daily life. > > First, you need to *identify the box*: What are the implicit assumptions limiting your ideation and problem-solving? Can you go abroad only when you don’t have to work? Do you have to stay within the square of the 9 dots? A few more examples: > > * Netflix/Spotify: Media (films, music, etc) must either be purchased or physically borrowed > * Airbnb: Nobody would ever let a stranger sleep on their coach or live in their home > * YouTube: Only professionals and media companies can produce videos > > Second, I love brainstorming to find creative solutions to my problems. In the middle of a blank paper, you write down the problem. Then, everything that comes to your mind you have to write down. It’s crucial A) to write everything down and B) not to judge your ideas. Brainstorming is about idea generation, the idea selection comes after your brainstorming session. > > Third, I use techniques, such as the Pareto Principle or the 10x Rule, to force myself to leave the realm of conventional ideas. For instance, the 10x Rule implies that you think 10x bigger than you actually thought: > > * You want to learn a new language? → What’d you need to do differently if you wanted to learn 10 languages? > * You want to go on vacation and stay a few days in another country? → What’d you do differently if you wanted to visit 10 countries and stay a few weeks? > * You want to prepare for your exams in 5 weeks? → What’d you do differently if you had only 5 days? > > Fourth, bounce your ideas off your friends, family, and colleagues. Generating great solutions isn’t what we see in movies – a eureka or aha moment – but rather a social and collaborative process. --- # Greatly increase your productivity – harness the 80/20 rule - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/greatly-increase-your-productivity-harness-the-80-20-rule - Date: 2021-05-30 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Doing less is not being lazy. Don’t give in to a culture that values personal sacrifice over personal productivity* – Tim Ferris > > Summary: > > * Simply spoken, this concept states that for many outcomes roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes > * The examples go endless. Of course, no one was on-site with a ruler that measured out exactly 80% and 20% for all these things, but the approximate ratio of 4:1 kept showing up > * The Pareto Principle allows you to focus on the things that have the most significant impact on your life > > Practical advice: > > * Make a list of the 10 things you spend the most time on > * Circle the two that truly drive your results. Do more of those > * Look at the others. Eliminate ruthlessly. Automate or outsource what you can. Press pause on the rest > > Dear friend, > > You most likely have heard of the *Pareto Principle*, right? > > Simply spoken, this concept states that for many outcomes roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes. Other names for this principle are the 80/20 rule or the law of the vital few. > > It’s a kind of universal truth about the imbalance of inputs and outputs, and the main point of it is not the ratio but to find the small things that give you the biggest results. > > Sounds quite simple, right? > > Although I’ve been familiar with the 80/20 rule for several years, I didn’t put it into action until late last year. I need to admit that I wasn’t really convinced of the potential and didn’t really know how I could apply it to my life. > > In today’s article, I will write about the benefits of applying the Pareto Principle, 10 astounding real-life examples of it, and simple steps to make use of this concept. > > ## Benefits of identifying the vital few > > There is a practical reason why we should take advantage of the Pareto Principle: It allows you to focus on the things that have the most significant impact on your life. > > For example: If 20% of the food you eat is leading to 80% of the illnesses and health problems you have, you can simply identify bad eating habits and fix your diet. Similarly, if 20% of your free time is driving 80% of your happiness, you may want to focus on these hobbies and do more of them. > > The most interesting thing about the 80/20 rule is the ability to analyze your goals and tasks differently. You will start to tackle what will give you the most results and happiness first. > > ## 10 real-life examples of the Pareto Principle > > 1. 20% of infectious individuals are responsible for *superspreading*, transmitting, and spreading 80% of the disease including sexually transmittable diseases > 2. 90% of complaints are made by 10% of users > 3. 80% of customers only use 20% of software features > 4. In health care in the United States, 20% of patients have been found to use 80% of health care resources > 5. 20% of drivers cause 80% of all traffic accidents > 6. 20% of athletes win 80% of the time > 7. 85% of the important conversations are from 15% of the emails. > 8. 20% of my YouTube videos account for 70% of my views > 9. The Dunedin Study has found 80% of crimes are committed by 20% of criminals. > 10. 80% of the pollution originates from 20% of all factories > > The examples go endless. Of course, no one was on-site with a ruler that measured out exactly 80% and 20% for all these things, but the approximate ratio of 4:1 kept showing up. The point is that you obtain maximum benefit from a small input, or something costs you a lot more than it’s worth. > > ## How to apply the principle > > I applied this concept to various areas of my life: > > * Lifting exercises: What are the 20% of exercises that yield 80% of the progress > * My YouTube Channel: What are the 20% of tasks to be done until a video is uploaded that yield 80% of value for my subscribers > * Food: What are the 20% of my diet that bear 80% of my nutritional health risks > * Happiness: With which activities do I spend 20% of my free time that lead to 80% of my happiness > * Work: What is the 20% of your work that gets you 80% of the credit and recognition from your team or boss > > James Clear – author and productivity expert – devised a simple formula to make use of the 80/20 rule in your life: > > *(1) Make a list of the 10 things you spend the most time on.* > > *(2) Circle the two that truly drive your results. Do more of those.* > > *(3) Look at the others. Eliminate ruthlessly. Automate or outsource what you can. Press pause on the rest.* > > *(4) Repeat* > > Once you’ve applied this simple recipe, you can easily focus on increasing the efficiencies in your life. --- # How to better deal with stress and grow faster - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-better-deal-with-stress-grow-faster-3-tips - Date: 2021-05-23 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time. –* Leonard Bernstein > > Summary: > > * Stress is our psychological and physical reactions to the physical and mental strain caused by specific external stimuli (stressors) > * It’s not stress that is bad but the belief that it is > * C*hronic stress,* no matter how it’s perceived, causes serious health effects whereas properly harnessed *acute stress* enhances your performance and health > > Practical advice: > > * First, we need to adopt the right mindset: Instead of avoiding and defending against stress responses, we need to embrace them > * Second, you need to find space and time for recovery > * Third, struggle is great but too much acute strain isn’t optimal either > > Dear friend, > > I’m quite sure you’re familiar with one of the following situations: Imagine that you have to give a presentation, persuade a client, ace an exam, or go on a date with your crush – and it’s not only very important but the first time you do it. When I think back to similar situations, it immediately hits me how stressed I felt back then. > > These experiences were often unpleasant because my body showed an intense stress response, which manifested in various ways: My heart beat faster and stronger, sweat production was increased, my mind was blurred, and I couldn’t recall basic concepts. > > It’s commonly believed that stress is bad and should be avoided. Regarding my past experiences, you might think I would endorse this belief; however, I’m firmly convinced that stress is a good thing, and what’s bad about stress is how it’s managed and perceived. > > In today’s article, I will write about the concept of stress, why – from a scientific perspective – it’s actually good, and what we need to keep in mind when dealing with stress. > > ## Why stress is good > > According to Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University, people who experienced a lot of stress in the last year have a **43% increased risk of dying** compared to their peers. Yet, that’s only true for the people who **also believe that stress is harmful. Contrarily, people** who experience a lot of stress but **don’t view stress as harmful** not only are less **likely to die** but also have the lowest risk of dying. > > From this, we can infer that it’s not stress that is bad but the belief that it is. > > Of course, we have to distinguish the different types of stress: C*hronic stress,* no matter how it’s perceived, causes serious health effects whereas properly harnessed *acute stress* increases brain functioning, boosts our immune system, prepares us for future stressful situations, etc. Hence, we need to stop demonizing and avoiding stress and start learning to properly manage it to prevent ourselves from experiencing chronic stress. > > ## The concept of stress > > Before we will dive deeper into the topic of stress management, we need to clarify first what stress actually is and why we experience it. > > Basically, stress is our psychological and physical reactions to the physical and mental strain caused by specific external stimuli (stressors). Virtually everything that takes us out of our *comfort zone* is a stressor. The degree of strain (stress) a stressor triggers varies from person to person: Some people deliver a speech in front of hundreds of people with ease whereas most people would be under extreme strain. > > And why do we feel stress? > > It’s the body’s approach to deal with conditions such as threats, challenges, or physical and psychological barriers. These kinds of situations trigger so-called *fight or flight* responses. As you might have experienced by yourself, most of this *magic* happens to us without our consent. That’s because the sympathetic nervous system as part of our autonomic nervous system (ANS) drives this fight or flight response, and the ANS is mainly working by regulating the body’s unconscious actions. Hence, it’s rather difficult to directly influence stress reactions. > > ## How to make use of stress > > Knowing that stress is a signal for a crucial situation, we can now better re-frame our view of stress: > > Stress isn’t a bad thing but our perception and improper amounts of it. Acute stress is a sign of a situation of high relevance. Our systems, including the ANS, prepare us to be best prepared for the upcoming challenge and take it seriously. > > Experiencing stress can greatly boost your performance and live longer. However, these benefits require us to take a different stance on stress and properly manage it. > > First, we need to adopt the right mindset: Instead of avoiding and defending against stress responses, we need to embrace them. Your heart is beating stronger? Your breath is faster? Your palms are sweaty? That’s your body helping you to rise to a crucial challenge. It’s your autonomous systems achieving peak performance. From now on, you need to be grateful for these stress responses since they will make you perform better. > > Second, frequent acute stress without rest will lead to chronic stress. And chronic stress is severely bad. Hence, you need to find space and time for recovery. Not only the brightest minds but also the strongest, fastest, and most tenacious people spend their time either pursuing an activity with ferocious intensity or engaging in complete restoration and recovery. This approach prevents burnout and cognitive fatigue and simultaneously fosters breakthrough ideas and world-record performances. > > Third, the struggle is great but too much acute strain isn’t optimal either. If you’re feeling too aroused or even anxious, you should rather aim for something less challenging. You should aim for *just-manageable challenges,* which manifest when you take on something that makes you feel a little out of control but not quite anxious or overly aroused. --- # How to boost your learning curve: From challenges to learning opportunities - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-boost-your-learning-curve-from-challenges-to-learning-opportunities - Date: 2021-05-16 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Every challenge contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth* > > Summary: > > * It’s not generally a bad thing to be in one’s comfort zone > * Nevertheless, there’re significant reasons to regularly challenge oneself > * Every once in a while, life offers us the chance to challenge ourselves to safely step out of our comfort zone > > Practical advice: > > * Ask yourself whenever you’re feeling inconvenience and discomfort: Why do I have this feeling right now? > * Quickly evaluate the long-term benefit of (not) making use of this opportunity > * Make a decision and act as soon as possible > > Dear friend, > > Virtually daily, life offers great learning opportunities that enable us to safely step out of our comfort zone. > > For instance, in a foreign language class, you might be asked what you’re about to do this weekend. Many people feel inconvenient or even stressed when they’re asked to answer such a question in another language in front of other people, preventing them to speak up and capitalize on this learning opportunity. > > Another example: You’re in a team and need to elaborate an improvement concept. After you successfully conceptualized a great solution, someone asks who’s going to present it to your boss/teacher/… Again, discomfort and stress arise in all of your teammates, and only hesitantly someone volunteers. > > Stepping out of our comfort zone isn’t an ease – for anyone. But why should we nonetheless regularly step out of our comfort zone? How can *daily learning opportunities* help us to do so? And how can we make use of them? That’s what this week’s blog article is all about. > > ## Learning outside of your comfort zone > > The comfort zone is the routines and realms of our daily lives that give us a sense of familiarity, safety, and security. Unfortunately, this expression has become an overused negatively connotated buzzword for teachers, coaches, and other motivators who encourage us to push our boundaries and try activities outside our usual limits. > > It’s not generally a bad thing to be in one’s comfort zone. There’re many good reasons to stick to our familiar, safe, and secure routines. Hence, it’s quite unfortunate that motivators often don’t emphasize with people who would rather stay inside. > > Nevertheless, there’re significant reasons to challenge oneself and getting regularly outside of one’s comfort zone: > > First, we cannot live life to the fullest once we stop learning. Every time you say no to a challenge and avoid leaving your comfort zone, you risk another regret. Don’t want to do that safari because you’re too afraid even though you would love to do it? Didn’t ask that boy/girl for a date because it’d cause inconvenience? If you don’t perform activities that scare or challenge you, you miss out on growth opportunities. And if you don’t try something new, you won’t succeed at anything new. Rewards come to those willing to take risks. > > Second, you’ll never be truly happy if you cannot overcome your dissatisfaction with parts of your life. For instance, every time you travel to another country and feel too ashamed to use your basic foreign language skills, you’ll feel terrible. What’s worse, though, nothing will ever change if you don’t leave your comfort zone and start using the foreign language. Another common example: There’s a person at work, school, in your sports club, … who behaves like an a\*\*hole. If you and nobody else leave the comfort zone and speak out against this person, this person won’t change. > > Third, the more often you challenge yourself and get out of your comfort zone, the less stressful and inconvenient it will become, and at some point, you’ll find yourself having fun breaking out of your familiar routines and realm. > > ## Daily learning opportunities to challenge yourself > > Every once in a while, life offers us the chance to challenge ourselves to safely step out of our comfort zone. For example, a foreign language class is a safe environment to practice speaking another language. Nobody will ever talk sh\*t about you because you mess up the pronunciation or grammar when you’re in this safe learning environment. > > Too often, though, we portray these situations not as such but rather as unpleasant, annoying, or even pointless. In your next/first job, you’ll be very likely asked to elaborate and present something in a group during your onboarding week. Yes, this procedure won’t feel like a great pleasure and you’ll question the purpose of those exercises. And when it comes to the question if you want to present your results to another group, you will feel stress and discomfort. Nonetheless, these challenges are great learning opportunities to practice vital skills you’ll definitely need in the near future. > > By harnessing these little challenges and seizing them as development possibilities, you can safely and easily boost your learning curve. But how can we actually do that? > > ## Identify and capitalize on growth opportunities > > First, we need to spot the challenges that manifest as great learning opportunities. Ask yourself whenever you’re feeling inconvenience and discomfort: Why do I have this feeling right now? For example, your boss/teacher asked the question in your group: “Who wants to volunteer and lead this initiative on \[insert a topic you’re passionate about\]?” > > Since the question was raised, your hands have been sweating and your stomach has been feeling upset. Most people would succumb to these defensive reactions, not even ask themselves why they actually feel this way, and try to alleviate them. This default behavior makes total sense, though, it’s not optimal. Our instincts want to protect us from seemingly dangerous and unfamiliar situations, but our amygdala – the part of our brain mainly responsible for these reactions – cannot think long-term but only short-term. > > Second, once you identified a situation that might reveal as a great learning opportunity, you need to quickly evaluate the long-term benefit of (not) making use of this opportunity. “What are the benefits of volunteering and leading this initiative on \[this topic you’re passionate about\]?” What could you learn? What do you have to invest in? What are the risks? > > Thirdly, make a decision and act as soon as possible. Don’t let someone else make the decision or the opportunity pass you by. Too often, we wait too long. Give yourself a max. of 5 seconds to act. The longer you wait, the more inconvenient the situation will become and the less likely you will make use of it. --- # Stop having expectations of other people - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/stop-having-expectations-of-other-people-reasons-practical-implications - Date: 2021-05-09 - Categories: Communication, Relationships > > *If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed –* Sylvia Plath > > Summary: > > * You’re not in this world to live up to the expectations of others and they’re not in this world to live up to yours > * Past experiences and implicit wishes are major sources of (unmet) expectations > * People change but *we* cannot change people. They will change on their own terms – not ours > > Practical advice: > > * Make it a habit to not take it personally if somebody lets you down > * Clearly communicate your values and desires > * Hold yourself accountable for your values. You shouldn’t spend time and energy on people who aren’t good for you in the long term > > Dear friend, > > A long time ago, I saw an Instagram post of Gary Vaynerchuck (an entrepreneur who often shares also personal advice) stating: “Wanna be happy? Have zero expectations.” > > It took me a while to comprehend the practical implications of this message. Many people are regularly and severely let down because they worry too much about the actions and thoughts of other people. Particularly, when we expect others to behave or react in a certain way, we’re often disappointed. By throwing out expectations onto others, we set ourselves up for frustration. > > In today’s blog article, I want to talk about the problem of having expectations of others, how we can reduce our expectations of others, and what we should do instead. > > ## The origin of expectations > > Why do we have expectations of other people in the first place? > > First and foremost, society lives and breathes expectations. Our parents have expectations when we grow up. At work, in school, or in our sports club, we’re expected to act and think in a certain way. Society burdens us with various expectations, and as a member of it, we’re taught having expectations of others is totally fine. > > Secondly, many of us believe they are entitled and thus can simply project their expectations on other people. Yes, needs are real, we all have various needs, and yes, we’re entitled that certain needs are met, such as freedom of speech and unimpeachable dignity. In many cases, though, there’s no justification for our expectations. For instance, we might have a bad day and feel frustrated and hence expect others to show consideration. Yet, other people have the same rights and same needs, too. Just because we have this need due to this very justifiable reason, we’re not entitled that others show a desirable behavior. Further examples are: You did someone a favor, you made someone a gift, you smiled at someone, or you complimented someone. Yes, it’d be great if others returned our favors and deeds, but still, there’s no justification for our expectations. > > Third, past experiences and underlying wishes are major sources of (unmet) expectations. Often, we expect others to act in a certain manner because we experienced a certain behavior in the past. For example, as a straight woman, you might expect men to approach you and do the first step because, in the past, that’s always been this way; however, you might also meet a straight man who is used to other women who always approached him. As a consequence, you might think that the man isn’t interested in you and the man might think vice versa even though the opposite might be true. > > ## Why you shouldn’t have expectations of other people > > Bruce Lee once said: “I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.” These harsh words imply a mindset that, when adopted, would help many people to a more fulfilled, happier life. In the following, we want to focus on the latter part: *you’re not in this world to live up to mine \[expectations\].* > > When we stop having expectations of other people, we will enjoy more peace and contentment. We cannot control the behavior and thoughts of other people. It’s not that by imposing our expectations on other people they will suddenly change their way of thinking. Yes, there’re many great people in this world who have a good amount of empathy and can match our desire for certain needs. Nevertheless, we should respect others who live up to their own expectations. > > Indeed, people change but *we* cannot change people. They’re uniquely themselves and know who they are. They want to be confident and comfortable being who they are and if they want to change, they will change on their own terms – not ours. > > It just doesn’t make sense to be upset and disappointed about something we cannot control. I’m not saying we should stop caring about others. I love doing others a favor. I love helping others to change their habits, behavior, appearance, … I really care for my friends and family, but I don’t do that because I expect something in return. The simple act of giving is what makes me happy. > > Ultimately, there’s just no practicality in having expectations of other people. From a rational point of view, there’s virtually no reasonable argument why we should have expectations of factors we cannot control. > > ## How to limit your expectations > > After reading the preceding two paragraphs, you should now understand why we have expectations of other people and why we should stop having them. In this chapter, we focus on the practical implications: How can you reduce your expectations of others and what should you do instead. > > Firstly, you should aim for zero expectations. Make it a habit to not take it personally if somebody lets you down. From my own experience, I can tell it’s rough and takes time, and you’ll be surprised once you become aware of your subconscious and explicit expectations, how many of them you actually have. Instead of feeling down when someone disappoints you, practice empathy: Ask yourself, why this person might have behaved this way. If you cannot find a sensible reason, simply ask the other person empathically why s/he behaved the way s/he did. > > Secondly, adjust your behavior. From this day, you should never do/give something because of implicit expectations again. When you do/give something for/to another person you should either have an agreement and clearly state your expectations or do/give without expectations. > > Moreover, you need to hold yourself accountable for your values. You shouldn’t spend time and energy on people who aren’t good for you in the long term. For instance, a wo/man might be a nice leisure pursuit, but if s/he doesn’t meet your standards and match your core values, s/he is a pass and needs to be let go anytime soon. **Remind yourself**: It’s not that you don’t care for other people rather, as Bruce Lee said, you’re not in this world to live up to the expectations of others and they’re not in this world to live up to yours. People and things that don’t match your expectations have to be released. > > Thirdly, clearly communicate your values and desires. Yes, you shouldn’t expect something from others, nevertheless, we all have desires and wishes, and many people love to please yours. For others to be able to fulfill our wishes, however, we must express them clearly. Please, stop demanding others to read your wishes from your lips. Different experiences and differences in parenting greatly influence the way we think about the desires and needs of other people. Even if the other people try hard to guess your desires and wishes, they will never get them as well as if you clearly stated them. --- # Live a better life – fall in love with solving problems - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/live-a-better-life-fall-in-love-with-solving-problems - Date: 2021-05-02 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *To live is to solve problems –* Mark Manson > > Summary: > > * Life is essentially an endless series of problems > * Fortunately, problems aren’t generally bad. There are *good* and *bad* problems > * The solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems > > Practical advice: > > * To live a happier life and increase the number of *good* problems, you need to take care of the *bad* problems first > * Stop denying these problems exist and blaming others or outside circumstances for your problems > * Take full responsibility for all your problems > > Dear friend, > > Have you ever imagined a *problem-free life*? And do you think problems are rather something *good* or something *bad*? > > In our world, there’s no such thing as a problem-free life. Just the act of staying alive is a landscape of various problems confronting us every second on every day. We’ll always have to solve problems. > > You might now think “captain obvious, tell me something new!”. > > Even though this realization seems to be trivial, there’s a lot behind it. Since the day I acknowledged that we cannot and thus shouldn’t aim for a problem-free life, I’ve gained a massive boost in motivation and vitality. > > In today’s article, I want to talk about why you should fall in love with problems and surround yourself with those you want to solve and how you can do that. > > ## Good and bad problems > > Life is essentially an endless series of problems. You cannot escape them; the solution to one problem is the creation of the next. Just think about it: After you found the love of your life, you need to find and undertake activities you both enjoy. > > Fortunately, problems aren’t generally bad. There are *good* and *bad* problems – i.e. problems you want to solve and those you don’t want to have in your life. > > Let’s look at some examples: > > * I love eating delicious food. Scanning through the menu in a nice restaurant to find the best dish for me is something I really enjoy. Paying lots of money for a dish that didn’t satisfy my hunger I really dislike. > * How about intimate relationships? Relationships are *the* source of problems but also *the* source of happiness. Opinions differ, personalities clash, preferences don’t align, feelings get hurt, communication gets confused, emotions ebb and flow, and so forth. But there are definitely various exceptionally joyful moments in every relationship, too. > * Social problems: Choosing the perfect outfit to go out can be super exciting for one person but a great struggle for someone else. > > Most of these problems are simple: Decide what you want to eat, find a good movie to watch, go to the restroom, … Sometimes, though, problems are complicated: Fixing your relationship after you had a fierce argument, finding a university course you can feel good about, starting with a new hobby such as running. These complex problems are fast created but may take a while to be properly managed. It’s *easy* to get pregnant but bringing up a child is totally different level. > > Often, when we complain about life, it’s when we feel overwhelmed by the number of *bad* problems: How can I convince my crush to fall in love with me? How can I become a doctor despite my weak GPA? How to pay all the bills? > > It’s not that we dislike problems in general. Actually, we love solving them – the *good* ones. Consequently, don’t hope for a life without problems. Hope for a life full of good problems. > > ## Fall in love with solving problems > > One of my favorite authors – Mark Manson – wrote in his book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F\*ck”: > > > *Happiness comes from solving problems. \[…\] Happiness is a constant work-in-progress. The solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems.* > > Like Mark Manson, I strongly believe happiness comes from solving problems. The emphasis here is on *solving.* Avoiding or denying your problems is the sure path to make yourself miserable. What’s also bad is the feeling that you cannot solve a problem. > > True happiness occurs when we find the problems we enjoy *having* and enjoy *solving*. > > Money isn’t the solution here. You cannot fix your relationship with your parents with money. You cannot fix your self-esteem with money. You cannot fix your nicotine addiction with money… Money is a great means to solve many problems, though, the secret sauce is to avoid problems you don’t want to solve in the first place. > > *The solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems.* > > When we want to increase the number of *good* problems in our lives, we cannot simply live day-by-day but have to think more long-term: > > * You might enjoy eating convenience food to satisfy your need for food *today,* but this behavior will surely generate problems you don’t want to solve in a few years > * You might enjoy postponing that important decision to tomorrow, but that’ll make the problem even worse > * You might still deny that you’ve got a toxic relationship, but you’ll surely regret this denial when things get even worse > > ## Surround yourself with *good* problems > > For years, I’ve been trying to eliminate and minimize the number of *bad* problems in my life to make room for problems I love solving. And there’re so many *bad* problems you can easily circumvent by making easy decisions right today. > > To live a happier life and increase the number of *good* problems, you need to take care of the *bad* problems first. They won’t easily go away by themselves. > > The most important step in order to tackle them is to stop denying these problems exist. We must stop deluding or distracting ourselves from reality. It may make us feel good in the short term, but it leads to a life full of bad problems later on. > > Additionally, we need to start believing that we can solve our problems. Too many people blame others or outside circumstances for their problems. Yet, it’s us – we need to take responsibility for everything in our lives. > > Then, when we successfully proactively solve *bad* problems, we almost made it. Now, there’s great room for all the problems you love solving, such as enhancing relationships with your friends and family (plan family events, boyz/girlz-weeks, or go out and party, etc), spend more time on your hobbies, or commit yourself to a meaningful voluntary organization. > > Of course, you can and should combine these two steps. For instance, you could start a new hobby that solves your current and future health problems or leave your current job and find a more meaningful position. > > Ultimately, **you need to decide**: Do you accept that there’s no problem-free life? Do you take full responsibility for all your problems? And are you willing to solve your bad problems from today on? --- # Gratefulness – a secret weapon to a happy life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/gratefulness-a-secret-weapon-to-a-happy-life - Date: 2021-04-25 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *Be thankful for what you have and you’ll end up having more –* Oprah Winfrey > > Summary: > > * Unfortunately, our minds are built to get used to joyful things > * Thus, they stop bringing us the happiness that we expect > * A super weapon against this issue (hedonic adaptation) is practicing gratefulness > > Practical advice: > > * Gratitude is all about being thankful and appreciative of the things that we have > * To induce gratitude, there’re various ways, which require little time and no money > * Maximize the benefits of gratefulness by making exercising it a habit > > Dear friend, > > Recently, I realized that I was once again a victim of *hedonic adaptation*. > > Since high school, I was working towards my current job. I wanted to become a strategy consultant so badly. Yet, when I finally got the job with the employer I always wanted to work for, all the joy quickly diminished – thanks to hedonic adaptation. > > Hedonic adaptation – the process of becoming accustomed to things – is one of the few culprits that strongly affect our happiness. Because of this inherent process, you will get used to whatever you obtain or achieve, bringing your boosted happiness level back to normal. > > Can we do something about this villain? > > In today’s article, I will write about why we’re unhappier than we could be, how practicing gratefulness can help us to overcome hedonic adaptation, and how we can apply this concept easily to our lives. > > ## Why hedonic adaptation impedes our happiness > > Hedonic adaptation is our tendency to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite positive or negative events or life changes. As we achieve our goals (more money, a better job, better look, marriage, nice house, etc.), expectations and desires rise simultaneously, resulting in only a temporary gain in happiness. > > Unfortunately, our minds are built to get used to stuff. The problem with all the seemingly awesome things – for instance the job I was working towards – that once we get them, usually they stick around. They become the new normal. And thus, they stop bringing us the happiness that we expect. The major reason why lottery winners aren’t significantly happier. > > But we not only get used to things but also obtain new reference points when life changes occur. For example, when I was still in university, I didn’t care how much money I’d be earning in my first job. I was a student and every entry-level job was paying more than I could spend. Now, because of my new job, I’ve adopted a new reference point. Earning less in my next job/position would somehow hurt my happiness. Not because I wasn’t satisfied with this amount of money but because it’d be relatively less than my new reference point. > > ## How gratitude helps to enjoy a happier life > > A super weapon against hedonic adaptation is gratefulness. Gratitude is the feeling and expression of thankfulness and appreciation. When someone does you a great favor and you feel a great desire to return that favor as you’re so thankful, that’s gratitude. > > But gratitude isn’t something that just comes over us, we can also make a conscious effort to trigger it. For example, right now, you could write down three things you’re grateful for and why you’re appreciating these things. You’d trigger the same feeling as when you felt *naturally* grateful. > > In the research of positive psychology, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps you to feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, and improve your health. It allows you to retrieve positive memories, be thankful for past blessings, take good fortune not for granted, and maintain a hopeful and optimistic attitude. > > By reminding myself of how I was cheering for myself to land that job, how great I felt after getting that offer, and what a great time is ahead, I can strongly inhibit the effects of hedonic adaptation. Fortunately, the power of gratitude can be applied to everything subject to hedonic adaptation. > > ## Practicing gratitude – high impact, low effort > > Gratitude is all about being thankful and appreciative of the things that we have. To induce this feeling, there’re various ways, which require little time and no money. The more effort we spend to express it, though, the more we will get out. Here are some gratitude exercises and activities you can try out: > > * Make a list of 5 things you’re grateful for right now (health, family, friends, achievements, etc) > * Send your parents, friend, partner, teacher, boss, … a thank you message > * Note down 7 things you love about yourself > * Think about a challenging situation and how you’ve overcome it > * Contemplate 3 people who had a great positive impact on your life > * Re-experience a snippet of your life when you cheered for the things you’ve got today > * List 3 mistakes you are very grateful you made > > What greatly helps me to maximize the benefits of gratefulness is to make it a habit. I incorporated gratitude exercises into my systems so that I don’t have to remind myself to regularly practice it. > > For instance, every night, I reflect on the past day and ask myself four questions, including the two questions: *What were my achievements today?* and *what are the things I can look forward to tomorrow?* > > Additionally, every Sunday I ask myself *what were the highlight moments of the week?* to remind me of all the things that made my day. And, at the end of every month during my monthly reflection, I read and enlarge the list of all the things I’m grateful for. > > These activities greatly help me to fight the effects of hedonic adaption, making my life a little more joyful. --- # Easier and better decisions – how to deal with risk - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/easier-and-better-decisions-how-to-deal-with-risk - Date: 2021-04-18 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *There’s no wrong time to make the right decision –* Dalton McGuinty > > Summary: > > * Empirical research shows that individuals assess their loss and gain perspectives in an asymmetric manner > * Hence, we tend to take a risk only if it’s over-proportionally compensated, … > * … leading to rather irrational than economically optimal decisions. > > Practical advice: > > * Set yourself a deadline. If there’s no deadline, we’ll postpone our decisions further and further into the future > * Second, contemplate and decide on clear decision-making criteria and research the required data > * Third, evaluate the data, listen to your gut, and make a decision before the deadline is reached > > Dear friend, > > This week, I had my eyes lasered. The LASIK surgery I underwent reshaped my cornea so that I can see clearly and sharply without glasses or contact lenses. It went really well, and after one night of recovery, I’ve already achieved above standard visual acuity. > > But why did I expose myself to this risk and opt for this surgery? Many people with a vision impairment greatly fear this surgery even though it’s relatively safe and they’d love to get rid of their glasses and lenses. > > Unfortunately, we often tend to fear and thus avoid risky decisions. Instead of making a decision, we often postpone them into the future. In the best case, there’s a deadline so that at least then we make a decision. Sometimes, however, there’s no cut-off date, leading us to put off the decision for far too long. > > In today’s article, I will share with you why we often fail to make risky decisions, what helps me to make easier and better decisions, and how you can improve your decision-making, too. > > ## The problem with risky decisions > > Generally, we’re risk-averse. We tend to take a risk only if it’s over-proportionally compensated. *Daniel Kahnemann* – a renowned researcher in the field of psychology and Nobel-prize winner – developed the so-called *Prospect Theory*, which intends to explain this irrational behavior. > > From a rational perspective, a gain of 100€ should lead to the same amount of pleasure as a loss of 100€ leads to an absolute amount of discomfort. Yet, empirical research shows that individuals assess their loss and gain perspectives in an asymmetric manner. For example, for some individuals, the pain from losing 100€ could only be compensated by the pleasure of earning 200€. People would choose rather a safe 90€ than a 10% lottery to win 1000€. > > Once uncertainty is involved, we tend to make irrational rather than economically optimal decisions. Most often and even worse, though, we cannot even decide in the face of risk. This decision-making paralysis is what we often observe when we cannot decide on a job, university course, new hobby, etc. > > ## Quantification of outcomes > > What greatly helps me to make easier and better decisions is a quantification of the prospects. In the case of the LASIK surgery, I thought about the cost savings and the gain in quality of life versus the time and money for the surgery as well as the corresponding risks. > > Regarding the cost and time, my LASIK surgery was ca. 2250€ in total and will take me about 10 hours of my lifetime (preliminary inspection, surgery, and three check-ups). > > In contrast, I save about 3000€ for contacts (100€ per year), about 500€ for new glasses, and about 900 hours (5 minutes per day \* 365 \* 30 / 60) in the next 30 years. > > From a cost and time perspective, this is a very clear decision. > > With regard to qualitative aspects, LASIK has been in use for more than 30 years. Hence, there’re practitioners with decades of experience and a track record of thousands of successful surgeries. Yet, there’re post-surgical risks as in any procedure. For me, the gains in quality of life (no loss of contact lenses, no need to buy new glasses, no eye tickling in the evening, etc.) clearly outweigh these risks. > > The quantification of outcomes and contrasting of risks and benefits greatly support decision-making and can be applied to various situations, particularly those involving risk. > > ## Make easier and better decisions > > To tackle risky decisions, the following approach has proved a great service to me in the past: > > First, set yourself a deadline. If there’s no deadline, we’ll postpone our decisions further and further into the future. By setting a clear cut-off date, we can ourselves from procrastinating. > > Second, contemplate and decide on clear decision-making criteria. What do you need to know in order to make a decision? And how are these factors weighted? For instance, for my LASIK surgery, I wanted to know the cost and time required as well as the associated risk. > > Third, collect the necessary data. Based on your decision-making criteria, you make your research. Search on Google, ask your friends and family, etc. If there’s no data available, try to estimate. > > Finally, evaluate the data, listen to your gut, and make a decision before the deadline is reached. No matter how much data you collected and assessed, ultimately you should make a decision that feels right. --- # Mindset matters: How to start something new - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/mindset-matters-how-to-start-something-new - Date: 2021-04-11 - Categories: Communication > > *Big things often have small beginnings* – T. E. Lawrence > > Summary: > > * In the beginning, the easy things are difficult; later, the difficult things are easy > * We need to embrace the process > * Having the right mindset greatly helps in overcoming the drop in motivation > > Practical advice: > > * First, set process goals > * Second, make it as easy as possible to take action > * Thirdly, think of obstacles that inhibit you or make you stop and think of what-if plans > > Dear friend, > > In the past few weeks, I’ve once again faced the difficulties of starting something new. I’ve set myself the goal to learn inline skating. In the beginning, as usual, I was motivated as hell. It didn’t take long for me to order a pair of skates and protectors online. But yeah, once I had to actually ride my first meters on the skates, all the energy and euphoria went away. I sucked. And I hated it. > > It’s always the same: In the beginning, we’re very motivated about an idea, but when it comes down to taking action and execution, our motivation diminishes rapidly. > > I knew this emotional rollercoaster would happen. When I started with this blog, with running, or with my Youtube channel, I faced the very same issue. > > In today’s blog article, I want to talk about how I manage to get started and keep going, why the right mindset matters, and how you can start something new successfully, too. > > ## The struggle is real – why it’s hard to get started > > There is this statement from the book “The winners’ laws” I always remind myself of when I want to start something new: *In the beginning, the easy things are difficult; later, the difficult things are easy.* > > There’s so much truth in it. Every time we start something new, we suck. Can you remember the first time you spoke your first English words (to my non-native English readers)? Swam your first minutes? Had your first presentation? Wrote your first essay? Had your first job interview? > > When I started with my Youtube channel, my first videos were terrible even though it took me numerous hours to cut and edit them. Today, the quality is significantly better (still great room for improvement though) and it takes a fraction of time to produce one of them. > > And it’s always like that: When we keep going and put in the hours, we improve and the difficult things become easy. > > Another reason why it’s hard to get started: At the beginning of the process, it often feels unrewarding. The first few steps usually yield no real benefits. E.g. my feet, legs, and hips hurt so much the first few times I rode inline skates; my first 20 videos consumed hundreds of hours of work but produced fewer views than one of my videos does today; it’s such a struggle to learn grammar and vocabulary, and still, you cannot have a real conversation at the beginning of learning a new language… > > Moreover, because we’re highly motivated in the beginning but not long after experience a steep drop in euphoria once we took the first actions, we lose confidence in ourselves and in our goals. We start to doubt: *Was it really a good idea to start a Youtube channel? Teach yourself to ride inline skates? Learn a new language? Pick of this or that hobby?* Since we disbelieve in ourselves, it becomes even more difficult to keep going. > > ## The importance of the right mindset > > Therefore, maintaining the right mindset is crucial. > > We need to embrace the process. Yes, it feels embarrassing to upload a crappy video, speak the first words in a new language, present the first time, … but it’ll always be that way. > > Our body and brain are true miracles of nature. Just by practicing, we improve. We’re capable of adapting to various stimuli just by exposing ourselves to them. > > This certainty alone can carry you easily through the struggles of starting something new. > > The most challenging part of this journey is the time frame between the drop of the initial euphoria and the first successes. Having the right mindset greatly helps in bridging this gap. Afterward, you’ve already built enough momentum to keep going despite new struggles. > > ## Get started and keep going > > Yes, having the right mindset is crucial. Relying on pure willpower, though, doesn’t work. We need to create the right systems to make an idea or plan become reality. > > First, we need to set process goals. Missing proper goal setting is often the deal-breaker when people want to get started with something new. > > When we want to start something new, we usually have a goal in our minds. This goal, however, is usually rather a vague vision than a concrete target. For instance, I just wanted to learn inline skating to have a fun alternative to running that I can enjoy together with my girlfriend. > > To get there, to achieve this vision, we have to do certain things. These things, we need to identify and write down. In the case of inline skating, it’s pretty simple: I just had to ride regularly and become comfortable. Hence, I noted down – in my personal development chapter in Notion – the process goal “ride inline skates 60 minutes per week”. > > By committing to this goal and actually taking action, I simply improved and now already have a lot of fun riding. Indeed, the first few times were unpleasant, but I had a very easy goal: Just go for a ride once per week. > > Second, you need to make it as easy as possible to take action. I’m a full-time employee, and even at the weekends, I’ve plenty of things to do. Thus, I needed to find a time slot solely dedicated to this new endeavor. I chose Monday morning, 7:30 am. This might sound stupid to you, but for me, that’s the perfect time to try something new. Little to no distractions, work starts at 9 am, no reason not to go for an easy ride – a perfect fit for me. Yet, what works for me doesn’t have to work for you. You have to determine the circumstances that will help you to take action as easily as possible. > > Thirdly, think of obstacles that inhibit you or make you stop and think of what-if plans. By anticipating factors that will make you fail, you can greatly increase the likelihood of your success. This technique is called mental contrasting and stems from the field of psychology. > > For example, what would happen if it rained on a Monday morning? What could I do to still hit my 60-minute-inline-skating-goal? What should I do if I was seriously injured? What has to change if I didn’t progress? What if I lose motivation? … > > Yes, it takes time and effort to think about potential obstacles and corresponding what-if plans, but if you encounter one of these obstacles, you will have a good solution at hand and thus keep going. --- # 8 signs of true self-confidence - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/8-signs-of-true-self-confidence - Date: 2021-04-04 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life –* Golda Meir > > Summary: > > * Self-confidence is defined as having trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment > * If you’re truly confident, you can openly talk about your weaknesses > * Having strong self-esteem implies having a strong internal source of confidence > > Practical advice: > > * Write down all weaknesses and differentiate between those to change and those to accept > * Talk regularly about your weaknesses > * Learn to take micro-risks > > Dear friend, > > When I was still in school, 7th/8th/9th grade, I looked up to some guys. I wanted to be like them: Fearless, funny, quick-witted, likable, … or to frame it more buzzwordy: *self-confident.* > > Back then, I didn’t really know what I was seeking since I didn’t even understand what self-confidence is. I just wanted to be like these guys. So, I tried out several things, read books, watched videos, and asked people for advice. > > Even though my starting point was deep low and it took me a great amount of time to witness some progress, I succeeded: Strangers, friends, colleagues – various people have complimented me and my degree of self-confidence. Some of them even said to me that they wanted to be like me and asked for advice. > > If you asked me today whether this development was right, I’d say that being seemed as likable, funny, and fearless – external validation – is the wrong motive. I’m very grateful that I started to work on my personality at that time, but true self-confidence shouldn’t be built on external opinions but on strong self-esteem. Fortunately, I understood this important lesson in the process early enough. > > In today’s article, I’ll write about true confidence: What are signs of true confidence? What’s the difference between internal and external self-confidence? And what can you do to attain higher self-confidence, too? > > ## Signs of true self-confidence > > The societal image of confidence is blurry. Often, confident behavior is presented as impudent, inconsiderate, and aggressive. “A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures.” This imagery, though, confuses people and pushes them into developing unfavorable, anti-social behaviors (i.e. overconfidence). > > Self-confidence is defined as having trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment. It’s an attitude about your skills and abilities. It means you accept and love yourself and have a sense of control in your life. You know your strengths and weakness well. > > You might have already heard this vague definition multiple times. Thus, I want to give you a few concrete examples of how self-confidence really looks like: > > If you’re truly confident, you… > > * can openly talk about your weaknesses > * avoid bragging (The desire to be constantly in the spotlight and asking for attention by loudly boasting about various things are usually a defense mechanism for people who are not really satisfied with their internal image and who lack stability) > * don’t rely on outside compliments for a confidence boost > * can accept a compliment (A confident individual will accept a compliment, recognize it, but will not let it impact their internal picture of themselves too much) > * can accept and manage criticism > * don’t crack under social pressure (Knowledge of own values and accountability to adhere to these moral standards) > * aren’t afraid of other people’s success > * aren’t afraid to argue and be wrong (The risk of being wrong in front of other people and seeming stupid or silly is massive. Only with true confidence, you can accept the fact that you can’t always be right and can’t win every argument. It also helps you realize that there is no humiliation in being wrong) > > ## Internal vs external sources of confidence > > When we talk about self-confidence, we use to think of actual behaviors: Self-confident people act in a self-confident manner. In contrast, self-esteem is more about what’s going on inside a person. > > Having strong self-esteem implies having a strong internal source of confidence. You know who you are, your worth, and that you need no compliments. In case you highly value the person you nakedly are, to be self-confident, you need to translate these inner beliefs into the outer world, i.e. act accordingly. If you fail to do that, despite high self-esteem, you’ll appear little self-confident to others. > > On the other hand, your self-confidence can also be built on external validation: You earn a lot of money, drive those expensive cars, have those designer clothes, look like a supermodel, regularly receive compliments for all these achievements, … Because you know that “you made it”, you behave like a self-confident person – regardless of your self-esteem. > > External acknowledgment, however, is elusive. If you lack self-esteem and built your personality on external validation, your self-confidence is fragile and you will feel confident only in situations in which you feel superior to others. > > ## Attain higher self-confidence > > Having high or low self-confidence is rarely related to your actual abilities, and mostly based on your perceptions. Perceptions are the way your think about yourself, and these thoughts can be flawed. > > As I wrote in the last paragraph, external acknowledgment is the wrong source to nurture your personality. Rather, you should focus on building strong self-esteem – internal source of confidence – and translate it into your actions. There’re three things that greatly helped me do that: > > 1. I wrote down all my weaknesses and differentiated between those I can and want to change (e.g. getting in shape) and those I cannot or don’t want to change and thus accepted (e.g. my tiny teeth). The most important part then is to write down your goals to change the things you want and work towards them and to start falling in love with the person you’re. > 2. Talk regularly about your weaknesses, don’t be shy. People love sharing and opening when they feel understood and heard. You can contribute to a great conversation when you show your weaknesses and vulnerability. For instance, when people talk about that starting a sport is a big hurdle, I share that my first runs were embarrassingly slow when I started running regularly (they really were!). Or when my friends talk about their struggles in their relationship, I tell them how disastrous my empathy is. > 3. Regularly take micro-risks. Micro-risks are situations with the probability of a minor negative outcome. For example, you try to make someone a gift, talk to a person you don’t know, object to an opinion someone raised in your group, share something personal making you vulnerable, etc. Micro-risks allow you to get used to inconvenient situations and increase your faith in your skills and abilities. Simultaneously, micro-risks are easier to handle. In case of failure, you’ll still feel disappointed or hurt; however, the negative outcome will be significantly less impactful. --- # How to harness positive emotions to live a better life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-harness-positive-emotions-to-live-a-better-life - Date: 2021-03-28 - Categories: Well-Being > > *The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart* – Helen Keller > > Summary: > > * Positive emotions are worth cultivating, and we need to find ways to add more of them to our lives > * The main limiting reason is fear – particularly fear of rejection > * Too often, we don’t bother to let negativity take so much space in our lives > > Practical advice: > > * Make it a habit to answer questions genuinely > * Appreciate people as much and often as you can > * Always have a smile on your face > > Dear friend, > > I frequently ask myself, what makes life great? When do I truly feel happy? > > Repeatedly, this reflection process came down to one thing: Emotions. > > Appreciation, adoration, amusement, excitement, interest, joy, nostalgia, satisfaction, sympathy, triumph – positive emotions are the spice in our lives. Without them, life is plain and dull. > > But – as you might have already experienced as well – it’s not that simple with emotions. > > In today’s article, I’ll write about the importance of positive emotions, factors curbing them, and how I add more *spice* to my life by making use of emotions. > > ## The importance of positive emotions > > What do you like better: > > A job where you can never joke around for fear of getting fired if you do OR a workplace where you can laugh, be happy, and be upset? > > Friends who show and share their true feelings, aren’t afraid to talk about failure and weaknesses, and exhibit empathy when you pour out your feelings OR who always try to be cool, have a neat appearance, and don’t talk about their struggles? > > A partner who loves every perfect imperfection of you, appreciates when you share your feelings, and doesn’t hesitate to open up her/his feelings too OR who is afraid of disclosing weak spots, cannot talk about her/his passions, and maintains different personalities depending on the situation? > > When we cannot show our true emotions, we’re something missing. Life feels different when we feel safe to share our inner self: We have more energy, are more resilient, feel a stronger sense of connection, maintain a higher level of discipline, feel at ease, etc. > > Positive emotions are worth cultivating, and we need to find ways to add more of them to our lives. > > ## Why we lack positive emotions > > Even though we all value positive emotions and would have rather more than fewer of them, we struggle to have more of them. But why? > > The main limiting reason is fear – particularly fear of rejection. Why should we disclose our inner feelings when we’re punished for doing so? Why to appear different when being different isn’t desired? Why should we talk about our struggles when others don’t want to listen? > > To induce various emotions, we need to open up. We feel less excitement, appreciation, interest, nostalgia, sympathy, triumph, adoration, … if we cannot share. Sharing feelings amplifies them many times over. Thus, fear of rejection greatly inhibits our capacity to feel positive emotions. > > Secondly, we often opt for convenience and comfort instead of true joy: Why should we focus on the positive aspects of a problem when ranting feels more satisfying? Why should we appreciate a colleague’s great work rather than talk shit about our boss’s silly presentation? Why should we take the risk and try something new when we already have a decent life? … > > We can have much more positivity in our lives if want to. Positive emotions are very easy to capture. Yet, or just because of that, we don’t bother to let negativity take so much space in our lives. > > ## How to have more positive emotions > > There’re various ways to invoke positive emotions – too many to be exhaustively listed here. And what works for others might not work for you too. Hence, we just have to try out and see what helps us to add more positive vibes to our lives. > > Thanks to all the books and articles I read, videos I watched, and other media I consumed, I found a few simple methods, which I want to share with you: > > First, to deal with the fear of rejection, I needed to learn that honesty always pays off in the long-term. There might be people who will talk me down for opening up or sharing my true thoughts, however, much more often I’m rewarded for being open and genuine. Therefore, I decided for myself to always tell the truth when I’m asked for my opinion. I don’t impose my opinion on anyone, but when asked, I’m genuinely honest. > > That also implies that I’m not afraid to be myself. It was very difficult for me to expose my weaknesses, failures, or silly habits when I was used to not tell the truth when asked. Today, I know that I’ll have so much more to laugh, appreciate, love, adore, marvel at, … if I’m not scared of being myself. > > I know it’s easier said than done. Yet, you can start by making it a habit to answer questions as genuine as you can and slowly get used to opening up. > > Second, I try to appreciate people as much as I can. Whenever I spot an opportunity to praise a friend or colleague, I just write a quick message or express my appreciation personally. If I’m not able to do it at the very moment, I write a reminder so that I don’t forget it. > > Appreciating the work of others requires you to be more conscious and attentive. Most often, it’s not that we forget to appreciate someone but that we aren’t witnessing an opportunity to do so. We simply don’t make enough effort to sense the micro achievements and little favors of the people surrounding us. > > Third, make it a habit to [always have a smile on your face](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/why-to-always-have-a-smile-on-your-face). I cannot tell you why but simply faking a smile will make you instantly feel better. Moreover, having a smile on your face will infect others to feel better as well – and having happy people around you will rather help you to feel more positivity than not having them around you, right? > > In my opinion, an abundance of positive emotions requires you to adopt the right mindset. It’s not something that just happens to you but something you decide for. You need to make a decision to give negativity less space and go the extra mile to ban it consciously. Make the decision to stop gossiping. Make the decision to see the glass half-full. Make the decision to practice gratitude. --- # How a simple rule can boost your productivity - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-a-simple-rule-can-boost-your-productivity - Date: 2021-03-21 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out* – Robert Collier > > Summary: > > * Since the day I applied the two-minute rule the first time, I’ve never procrastinated on small tasks again > * The satisfying feeling of getting little duties done is more than enough to justify the application of the two-minute rule > * The rule will not only make you accomplish many things that would have otherwise simply felt off the map but also save you much time > > Practical advice: > > * Simply spoken, the two-minute rule states that if a task will take two minutes or less to complete, we have to do it as soon as possible > * We cannot respond to every request right after we receive them if we want to maximize our productivity > * Don’t simply do a job just because it only takes two minutes. Make sure that the two-minute task you are completing is one of your priorities > > Dear friend, > > Doctor appointments, dirty dishes, trash piling up, email requests,… Too often, we procrastinate small duties, and undone little things take up our brain space. > > But why? > > It’s not that these kinds of jobs are difficult to accomplish. The opposite is often the case. > > And that’s actually the problem: These little tasks are often not very urgent and barely important. Hence, we don’t prioritize but subordinate them. Individually, they have little to no impact, though, in sum, they lead to unwanted stress. > > In today’s blog article, I want to talk about a cure to this issue – the so-called *two-minute rule*, its benefits, and how it’s applied. > > ## The two-minute rule > > Since the day I applied the two-minute rule the first time, I’ve never procrastinated on small tasks again. It’s such an ease now to accomplish all the little duties I face every day. > > And the rule is pretty simple: If a job takes two minutes or less to complete, you should just do it. Don’t think about it, don’t add it to your to-do list, don’t put it off for later. Just knock it out. > > Some examples when I adhered to this rule: > > * Received an e-mail request I could answer in a minute > * Had a snack and washed the plate immediately > * Put a new trash bag in the trash can > * Called my dentist for an appointment instead of writing it on my to-do list > * Answered a WhatsApp message asking for something important > * Wrote down an idea for my YouTube channel or blog > > Applying this concept to my life, I’ve experienced several benefits. Not only I accomplished so many things that would have otherwise simply felt off the map, but also I saved so much lifetime by not postponing these little tasks and had fun in doing so. > > ## Why the two-minute rule works > > The first time I heard about this rule – that was when I read through David Allen’s *Getting Things Done* – I was very skeptical whether this concept could really benefit my life. I used to write down these little tasks on my to-do list, whether it was taking out the trash, washing the dishes, or making an appointment with my doctor. That took some time but also allowed me to plan things out. And when I forgot to note them down, I thought they probably weren’t important enough. > > Yet, I sometimes forgot crucial duties, and things got messy as a consequence, e. g. dished pilled up, a non-urgent email request suddenly became very urgent. Thus, I gave the rule a try. And as I wrote in the last paragraph, it brought various benefits to my life. > > For me, this rule works quite well because I feel virtually forced to do a task when I don’t note it down. And since these tasks are by definition easy and quickly done, they’ll be accomplished for sure once decided to tackle them. > > Additionally, the psychological effect of the 2-minute rule shouldn’t be underestimated: What’s accomplished is accomplished. Done. Checked off. This satisfying feeling of getting even these little duties done is more than enough to justify the application of this guideline. > > Moreover, the two-minute rule isn’t about the results you achieve, but rather about the process of actually doing the work. The focus is on taking action. You don’t even think about the duty anymore. For instance, if you don’t like calling your doctor or washing the dishes, you will have a much easier time doing it. > > ## It’s all about quick wins – how to apply the rule > > Simply spoken, the two-minute rule states that if a task will take two minutes or less to complete, we have to do it as soon as possible. Of course, we cannot always accurately estimate how much time a job requires; yet, we can often make a good guess. In doubt, I choose to do the task. > > At first glance, the two-minute rule seems to be pretty easy to implement. And yes, it actually is – under the right circumstances. Nowadays, distractions from our electronic devices are significant. When we don’t turn off the constant influx of notifications, we’ll never get to our real duties because we’ll be busy doing two-minute tasks the whole day. > > We cannot respond to every request right after we receive them if we want to maximize our productivity. Rather, we need to block time slots in which we check our inflow channels (mailbox, WhatsApp messages, etc) and work through the messages. Then, the two-minute rule is a great tool. > > Moreover, don’t simply do a job just because it only takes two minutes. Make sure that the two-minute task you are completing is one of your priorities. Don’t get sucked into someone else’s yes when you didn’t mean to. That is not a productive use of your time. You can do someone a favor, for example, wash the dishes for your flatmate or answer a quick survey for a colleague. But even if these jobs take less than two minutes, they won’t increase your productivity. > > Generally, you also should use idle time – such as small time frames in which you’re trapped between meetings – for small low-value tasks. For instance, I take a break at least every 50 minutes. Right now, while I’m writing this blog post, I reserved my next break for washing my dishes even though I could have done it right after lunch. This way I use idle time more efficiently. > > Eventually, the two-minute rule should increase your productivity so that you have more time for the things that matter to you; it’s not about just doing more things in less time. Therefore, you shouldn’t blindly apply this rule. --- # How to make better decisions - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-make-better-decisions - Date: 2021-03-14 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *Direction is so much more important than speed. Many are going nowhere fast* > > Summary: > > * Having clear principles sets free from decision paralysis > * Decision guidelines make decisions not only faster but better > * For me, the good decision is the one maximizing my long-term happiness > > Practical advice > > * A good starting point is to think about what’s most important to you > * By reflecting on your past, you can identify the things for which you genuinely care > * You should consistently stick to and refine your decision-making principles > > Dear friend, > > Every day, we have to make numerous decisions. Even though most of them seem as they had little impact on our life (how do I dress today?), many of them will have a significant effect (should I order junk food or cook by myself?). Some decisions take like no effort because we formed habits around them (shower in the morning?); some decisions, however, are a real pain (what should I study in college?). > > For years, I’ve been trying to *optimize* my decision-making because of several reasons. I don’t want life to pass me by without me really taking control. I want to be in the driver’s seat. And I don’t want to spend too much time on difficult decisions. > > What’s most important, though, I want to live without regrets and with maximum happiness. > > Many people seek to do the same. Yet, they fail. They choose short-term indulgence over long-term joy; select an easy hill instead of the great mountain; opt for social recognition above true passion. > > But how can we improve our decision-making? > > In today’s blog article, I want to illustrate one of my key decision-making principles, which enables me to make better decisions, and talk about its impact on my life. > > ## Why I have clear decision-making principles > > We all know this feeling of decision paralysis: We are faced with a difficult choice and don’t know what to choose: *What should I study after high school? Where should I do my first internship? Which career should I pursue? Should I quit my job?* > > Having clear principles sets me free from this limitation and enables me to make difficult decisions more easily. > > The same goes for the many day-to-day decisions, which in aggregate may have a severe impact on our lives: *Should I order pizza with my colleagues or eat my leftovers later at home? Should I go to the gym this evening or watch some YouTube videos? Should I prepare an agenda for tomorrow’s meeting or blame my manager that she forgot to* set up *one? …* > > Guiding principles make my decisions not only faster but better. > > I want to maximize my long-term happiness; thus, every decision I make has to contribute to that goal, no matter how seemingly irrelevant the decision. > > To choose long-term joy over short-term indulgence, climb the great mountain instead of an easy hill, and opt for true passion above social recognition, I always ask myself key questions representing my guiding principles. And by genuinely answering them, I get a clear picture of what’s a good choice and what’s not. > > ## Be the person you needed when you’re younger > > You might ask: *What’s a good decision? How do I know?* > > Unfortunately, you need to find an answer to this question by yourself. For me, the good decision is the one maximizing my long-term happiness. And since this guideline is rather vague, I devised concrete decision-making principles connected to my core values and this overarching life goal. > > One of my decision-making principles is to *act as a good role model.* I want to always think long-term when making a decision. But as this notion of *long-term thinking* is rather unspecific, I derived concrete questions I always ask myself when I’m faced with a choice: > > *What happens if everybody acted as I do? Do I want my siblings, future children, or friends to act in the same way?* Additionally, I strive to be *the person I needed when I was younger.* > > In the beginning, when I started thinking through all my decisions so intensely, I struggled to find clear answers to these questions: How should I know what happened *if everybody acted the same way*? However, the more often I applied this concept to my decisions, the less difficult and the faster making a decision became. > > Investing in this initial effort allowed me to significantly improve my decision-making. I’ve never been as happy as I’m today. For years, I’ve not regretted anything. And I truly feel like I’m living the life I’ve always wanted and wouldn’t trade with anyone. > > ## Develop your decision making principle > > It took me months if not years until I found the basis of my today’s core principles. That doesn’t mean you’ll need as much time as I did, however, you’ll definitely put in some work to develop your very own guideline. > > A good starting point is to think about what’s most important to you. What are your values? What do you expect from life, from yourself, from others, and your environment? > > Additionally, you should prioritize these factors. > > What greatly helped me is to think about past decisions I’m grateful for and proud of. Why did I choose x, y, or z? Why was it important to me? > > For instance, I asked myself why I wanted to get very good grades in high school. What were the driving forces? Would I do the same retrospectively? > > By reflecting on your past, you can identify the things for which you genuinely care. Then, based on your values, you can derive decision-making guidelines. For example, you highly value justice and equality. A guiding principle could be the golden rule: *In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.* > > Of course, your value might change or you’ll want to adapt your decision-making principles. Nevertheless, you should consistently stick to and refine them. Unless you make a conscious effort, your decision-making won’t likely improve. > > Hence, commit yourself to find what’s most important to you, derive your very own guidelines, and apply them as consistently as possible. --- # How a lack of positive thinking hurts my well-being - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-a-lack-of-positive-thinking-hurts-my-well-being - Date: 2021-03-07 - Categories: Well-Being > > *Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute –* George Bernard Shaw > > Summary: > > * Thinking something won’t work out will make your disappointment in case of failure feel less harming > * Yet, optimists suffer significantly less than the opposite in the face of a major challenge and uncertainty > * You cannot really grasp the significant change in well-being until you try it for yourself. > > Practical advice: > > * Every person can learn positive thinking > * Being optimistic is a decision – a decision one has to make every day again > * Stop social comparisons – the only way to be always positively minded is to compare oneself with the person who you were yesterday > > Dear friend, > > This week, I was reminded once again how vital positive thinking is to my well-being. > > I somehow felt less energy and motivation than usual in the last month, and I couldn’t really tell why. When I paid more attention to this issue during my monthly reflection, I also realized that my overall happiness suffered. Digging deeper, I came to the conclusion that the drop of my well-being was due to a lack of positive thinking. > > Right after this realization, I took care of this behavioral change. I told myself to be more optimistic and think positive in face of difficulties and challenges again. As a result, my motivated and energy came back. > > In today’s blog article, I want to tell you why positive thinking makes my life so much better and how you can benefit from a more positive mindset too. > > ## Optimists vs pessimists > > You might know this quote from Winston Churchill: *A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.* Even though this expression is clearly biased, I think there’s some truth in it. > > I know a few people who clearly describe themselves as either positively or negatively minded. While my optimistic friends find themselves more relaxed in stressful or challenging situations, my negatively minded friends go through rough times once they find themselves faced with uncertainty or unfamiliar challenges. > > I totally understand why pessimists want to see the glass half-empty: Thinking something won’t work out will make your disappointment in case of failure feel less harming. I’ve already experienced very low lows because I set goals, told myself it’ll work out for sure, and eventually failed. If I had thought more negatively or just a little more realistically, I surely would’ve suffered significantly less. > > What do you think is worse: Being disappointed after a failure and feeling blue for a few days *or* being stressed out and not relaxed once you face uncertainty for weeks or even months? > > I believe that’s the actual difference between optimists and pessimists. On average, both are wrong most of time. Usually, pessimists underestimate the outcome, optimists overestimate it. While the pessimist is clearly less harmed by failure, the optimist falls deep. Yet, optimists suffer significantly less than the opposite in the face of a major challenge and uncertainty. > > ## Optimists have a better time > > As I told you in the beginning, I experienced a drop of my well-being last month. I use to walk always with a smile on my lips, think of the opportunities rather than of the obstacles, and love challenging myself. This mindset and way of life massively boost my happiness and well-being. Usually, I cannot wait until its tomorrow, but in the past month that all was different. Making things worse, my motivation dropped as well. I assume that a lack of positive thinking was the cause of this behavioral change. > > Many people think that success and well-being create optimism, and not vice versa. However, Martin Seligman – a leading figure in the science of psychology – found vast evidence showing the reverse to be true: an optimistic attitude and mindset lead to well-being and success. > > According to his research, optimists tend to do better in school, work, and extracurricular activities, perform better than predicted on aptitude tests, are more likely to win elections when they run for office, have better overall health, and may even live longer and have better relationships. > > There’re plenty of further advantages of positive thinking, however, you cannot really grasp the significant change in well-being until you try it for yourself. > > ## How to benefit from optimism > > Seligman is a strong proponent of the idea that every person can learn positive thinking. I can only support this notion. In my view, being optimistic is a decision – a decision one has to make every day again. If you want to go through life with more positivity, you need to tell yourself that… > > * good things will happen in the future > * things will work out for the best > * challenges and obstacles are opportunities to learn > * mistakes are necessary and good as long as you take responsibility for them > * failure is part of the process… > > This shift in mindset will massively help you to cope with uncertainty and major challenges. > > What’s more, you need to stop comparing your progress and achievement with those of others. It’s short-sighted to compare your grades in school, performance at work, or skills in sports with those of people around you. There’ll always be people worse or better than you. > > The only way to be always positively minded is to compare oneself with the person who you were yesterday. Making a mistake today provides you with the opportunity to do better tomorrow. Comparing yourself to others, though, will make you feel miserable and afraid of mistakes. > > Ultimately, it’s key to adopt the right mindset, make the decision to go through life more positively, and don’t let social comparisons spoil your well-being. --- # Do more and do better – the importance of breaks and rest - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/do-more-and-do-better-the-importance-of-breaks-and-rest - Date: 2021-02-28 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither. –* Alan Cohen > > Summary: > > * It’s tempting to force ourselves to focus well past the point of fatigue > * Unless we take care of rest and mental breaks and hold ourselves accountable, the quality of our work will suffer > * Uncontrolled breaks become a distraction for our co-workers or fellow students as well > > Practical advice: > > * The first step is to acknowledge that taking breaks is not a negative thing > * Make sure you do something different in your break but don’t distract others from their work > * Be rigorous: Make sure that you take your breaks and that it doesn’t last too long > > Dear friend, > > When I was a university student, I wanted to study as effectively as I could since I wanted an average of 1,0 (GPA equivalent of 4.0). To sustain 80 hours of effective study time per week in the exam period, though, I couldn’t simply work through all the study materials. Studying is much more about quality than quantity. Thus, I created a system. > > Crucial parts of this system were to take controlled breaks and do sports. Paradoxically, while my fellow students were taking less and less time to eat healthy, exercise, and take breaks, I did the opposite and did even more sports, ate more consciously, and did more breaks. > > In today’s blog article, I write about why breaks are crucial for high performance, discuss downsides of taking uncontrolled breaks, and share with you how I make sure to have enough quality breaks. > > ## Why you need to take controlled breaks > > When we’re striving to hit a deadline, or a tough challenge gets us feeling the pressure, it’s tempting to force ourselves to focus well past the point of fatigue. > > But taking much-needed breaks is essential if we want to perform at our best. In fact, according to recent psychological studies, taking multiple short breaks leads to more creativity, productivity, life satisfaction, and quality of life. Rest and recovery is an issue not only of well-being but also of high performance. > > When faced with long tasks, such as studying before a final exam or working on a presentation deck, it’s best to impose brief breaks on ourselves. Unless we take care of rest and mental breaks and hold ourselves accountable, the quality of our work will suffer. > > ## It’s difficult to rest > > I can totally understand that we stop caring for our well-being when we’re faced with lots of pressure. In stressful situations, we cannot think clearly and make well-thought decisions. We also feel that every second counts and we shouldn’t waste any second. Hence, rest and breaks seem to be a luxury we cannot afford. > > And it’s not only us but our environment: When we take a break, we might be perceived as lazy by our boss, colleagues, team mates or fellow students. > > Unfortunately, the way our society treats this issue isn’t optimal. Taking controlled breaks and resting is performance enhancing. And not paying attention to it causes not only stress and depressions but also worse cognitive and physiological results. > > Yet, breaks, if not monitored and controlled, can become a distraction, not only for us taking them, but for our environment (co-workers, fellow students, etc.) as well. Stepping away from our desk or task can reduce our productivity because it creates a potential lapse in our focus and disrupts our flow. > > Therefore, it’s key to develop the required discipline to take controlled breaks, which are predetermined and not spontaneous, time-limited, and pertinent (i. e. bring your productivity up again). > > ## Make sure to take enough quality breaks > > The first step is to acknowledge that taking breaks is not a negative thing, but actually beneficial for you and your performance in the long run. We might get more hours into the day by taking no breaks, but as I said, it’s the quality not the quantity. And work is a marathon not a sprint. > > Second, work in sprints and use the *Pomodoro Technique.* This working mode implies a break down of work into intervals separated by short breaks. During the work periods, distractions should be limited to a minimum so that a strong focus level can be reached. I love working in chunks of 40-50 minutes combined with a 10 minute break. Traditionally, the Pomodoro Technique suggests working periods of 25 minutes and a 5 minute break. > > Third, make sure you do something different but don’t distract others from their work. I love going for a quick walk (10 minutes), have a coffee or tea, daydream or check my smartphone for 5 minutes (this is pretty dangerous though!). > > What’s really important, be rigorous: On the one hand, make sure that you take your breaks; on the other hand, ensure that your break don’t last too long. I always set a timer so that my working sessions and breaks are not too long and not too short. > > Fourth, encourage your co-workers or learning buddies to do the same. This will help you to become less distracted while you work and will reduce the bad feeling when you take your well-deserved breaks. --- # Focus on things you can control, ignore the rest - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/focus-on-things-you-can-control-ignore-the-rest - Date: 2021-02-21 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *Don’t stress over what you can’t control* > > Summary: > > * In life, there’re various things you cannot control > * I take the full responsibility for all the things I can control and don’t care about things I cannot > * People with an internal locus of control tend to be better off > > Practical advice: > > * You have to accept everything as it is > * Determine what you can control and recognize what you can’t control > * Focus on the things you can control > > Dear friend, > > When I was in high school, I had this notorious teacher who never gave very good grades on principle. No matter how hard you tried, no matter how well you prepared, this teacher always found a way to reduce your score in an exam or a reason to lower your participation grade. > > I still wanted to achieve an A in the subjects taught by this teacher, but I failed. And I hated it. My emotions ranged from frustration and anger to despair and grief. > > Retrospectively, this issue taught me a vital lesson I’m very grateful for: I cannot control certain things in life; nevertheless, I’m fully responsible how I deal with them. > > In today’s blog article, I want to illustrate why I focus on things I can control and ignore the rest and how I concretely apply this concept to my life. > > ## How does it look like to stop caring > > In life, there’re various things you cannot control. Whether it’s your boss, your parents, your teacher, your friends, your partner, your DNA, your ethnicity, your scars, … Even though we’re aware of this truth, many of us don’t realize the implications of it. > > Having a teacher applying unjustified standards can be frustrating and demotivating. But why do we let this person or any other issue we cannot control do that our lives? And why do we blame them for our frustration, anger, and despair? > > I asked myself these questions and couldn’t find any rational or justified reason. > > We cannot simply change a person. An a\*\*hole boss won’t likely become a great leader overnight. And by blaming these factors, we won’t change anything. > > I decided for myself that I take the full responsibility for all the things I can control and stop caring about things I cannot. > > In school, I still gave my best and learned as much as I could, but I stopped focusing on the results that were out of my control. When my teacher thought up another reason why I cannot receive an A in oral participation, I asked for feedback and suggestions to further improve. Instead of being frustrated, I challenged myself to make the best out of this situation. I stopped caring about the grade and focused on my personal effort. I didn’t blame the teacher anymore, but I asked myself how I could do better. I set myself the goal to write the best grade in the final exam (Abitur), which was also marked by other teachers, to set a goal that’s more under my control and sustain my motivation. I limited the influence of the factors I cannot control to a minimum. Eventually, I knew that high school had an end-date. Hence, I wanted to make the limited time worthwhile and take as much as I could from it. > > Unfortunately, it’s not always easy like that. Sometimes, life is very bad to us. People diagnosed with cancer or victims of a serious car accident need to deal with issues of a totally different severity. Yet, it’s still the same problem: There’re factors we cannot control, such as a paraplegia, and ones we can control, such as still pursuing the career of your dreams (Stephen Hawking). > > ## Why should you stop caring > > First, it’s illogical to let things that you cannot control negatively affect you. Yes, there’re things you want to care for even though you cannot control them, such as the love of your life or your children. Yet, too many people let too many things take control of too many aspects of their life. > > Second, people with an *internal locus of control* tend to be happier, less anxious, make better decisions, and accomplish more of their goals. > > According to psychological research, people with an *internal locus of control* are those who tend to believe that they are responsible for most of what happens in their lives and focus on what they could do better or what they can influence in pursuing their goals. In contrast, people with an *external locus of control* tend to blame others for their problems and find excuses to not pursue their goals. > > Therefore, it’s empirically evident that people who focus on things they can control (and neglect those that they cannot) are in general better off. > > Third, it might be a long journey, but adopting an *internal locus of control* (focus on things you can control & ignoring the rest) is not very difficult. It’s not like a hard diet to lose a massive amount of body weight, but rather it’s the decision to take full accountability and the commitment to live life to the fullest. > > ## How to stop caring about things you can’t control > > Firstly, you have to accept everything. Accept that your boss is an a\*\*hole, your teacher is incompetent, you won’t have the height of a model, or your sister will never be as kind to you as you wish. > > I know this is a difficult decision to make, but it’s the only way to stop caring about things you cannot control. If you accept the things as they are, you free yourself from the burden to care. > > However, acceptance doesn’t mean that you have to give up! You still can work towards something that isn’t likely to change: Your boss, teacher, or whoever might change. The key, though, is to make yourself clear that it might never happen and it’s not in the realm of your responsibility once you accepted it. > > Secondly, determine what you can control and recognize what you can’t control. > > Next time when you find yourself worrying, take a minute to examine the issue. When your boss once again didn’t appreciate your hard work and extra hours, ask yourself: Why do you feel down, what are the driving forces, what were your expectations and why? > > You can’t prevent a storm from coming, but you can prepare for it. You can’t control how someone else behaves, but you can control how you react. > > You might not control whether your boss appreciates your work, but you can still make your impact on the organization visible. You might not change your current position in the next few months, but you can work towards another position, role, or even career in the next few years. > > Thirdly, focus on the things you can control. > > What are things you can do in the short-term, mid-term, and long-term? > > In the short-term, you might not have numerous possibilities, in the long-term, though, you can greatly change the things around you. > > By focusing on the aspects you can control, you gain enormous power. The things you can control most are your own behavior and reactions to external influences. --- # How to make stress your secret weapon - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-make-stress-your-secret-weapon - Date: 2021-02-14 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Well-Being > > *There is more to life than increasing its speed –* Mahatma Gandhi > > Summary: > > * Virtually everything that takes someone out of his / her comfort zone is a stressor > * A healthy amount of *manageable stress* leads to increased brain functioning, a boosted immune system and better preparation for future stressful situations > * Chronic stress comes down to three aspects: Health, rest, and psychological factors > > Practical advice: > > * You need to step out of your comfort zone and expose yourself to new challenges > * Load the stress on yourself and don’t let others do that. It has to be your choice > * Prevent chronic stress by: Eating healthily and drinking enough water; taking enough breaks; exercising regularly; having a strong why > > Dear friend, > > This morning, I woke up too late. I forgot to set an alarm so it didn’t go off. > > Now, when writing this blog, I feel stressed. I know that I *lost* about an hour and I’ve got a very tight schedule today. > > Even though I hate not being on time, procrastinating, or not getting my to-do list worked through, I love stress. Stress makes me feel alive. > > What’s clear, there are different levels of stress. And stress isn’t something generally good but rather bad. Yet, I’m a great fan of it. > > In today’s article, I’ll write about the different types of stress, argue why stress can be a great tool, point out the risk of chronic stress, and give you tips on how to make use of stress. > > ## Stress is a great booster > > First day at work and you’re freaking nervous? About to take a crucial exam and you’ve got shaky hands? That’s what we know as stress – our psychological and physical reactions to the physical and mental strain caused by specific external stimuli (stressors). Virtually everything that takes someone out of his / her comfort zone is a stressor. > > There’re also different types of stress: While a healthy amount of *manageable stress* leads to increased brain functioning, a boosted immune system and better preparation for future stressful situations, positively affecting emotional health, *chronic stress* that isn’t properly managed causes serious health effects including increased blood pressure, suppressed immune system, greater risk of heart attacks and strokes and an increased chance of experiencing some form of mental or emotional health issues. > > Manageable stress is what I love: Having a full-packed to-do list, trying new things out, learning new skills, push myself to achieve a new personal record in lifting or running, talking to new people in new situations, etc. At first, my body and brain clearly signal what a terrible idea it was to expose myself to these stressors. Yet, in the process, I slowly start to fall in love with it. And afterwards, that’s the best feeling: You know you left your comfort zone and grew personally – life just got better. > > Right now, regarding my full-packed to-do list I’m asking myself *why the hell I’m doing that to myself? Why can’t you just have an easy weekend?* In the same breath, though, I’m carried by the belief that everything will work out anyway. I know it’s going to be tight, but I can do it. > > Being stressed, I’m more focused, more accurate, more driven, more *in the moment.* I can produce quicker results and decide faster. I’m not only highly productive but happy once I got started. > > When I woke up today, I was literally freaking out. I hate oversleeping. I hate not getting my to-do list done. However, right now, I’m feeling great: I got started, and even though I still lack behind my schedule, I’ll get a good amount done. I better aim too high and stress myself than aim too low and have a relaxed time. > > ## Too much stress kills you > > It’s no secret that chronic stress is bad. But just how bad is it really? > > Chronically stressed people experience an inability to concentrate or complete tasks, get sick more often with colds, have body aches, headaches, changes in appetite and trouble falling sleeping or staying awake, are more angry or anxious than usual, suffer from depressions, … > > Moreover, the economic damage caused by chronic stress – related to work and production losses as well as expenditures in the health care system – is estimated at US$ 300 billion annually in the US alone. > > That’s severe, isn’t it? > > But when do we experience too much stress? > > It may be tough to tell when, but there are important ways that your body lets you know that you’re struggling with too much stress. I know that I’m too stressed for a too long period of time when I’m feeling tired all day long, having problems focusing, experiencing general unhappiness, eating too little, and becoming moody. > > I’ve already thought numerous times about potential reasons for chronic stress, and I concluded that it comes down to three aspects: Health, rest, and psychological factors. > > First, we need to take care of our health in order to cope with stressful situations. We can endure a heavy load of stress easily without getting into trouble if we take care of our health. I need to sleep and drink enough, eat healthily, and do sports. Only if these check boxes are marked, I can sustain high levels of stress over a long period of time. > > Second, rest is key. If I work three hours without taking a break, my performance will drop substantially. I work a max of 50 minutes without resting in between. Yes, you might work four hours without taking a break. And there might be people who can work even longer. What I can tell you, though, I couldn’t sustain effectively working 80 hours a week without having all these breaks. > > Lastly and most importantly in the long-run, I need to have a strong why and the right environment. I cannot work 10 hours on a Saturday without having an intrinsic motivator. It kinda sucks not being able to go outside despite the nice weather because I’m too busy and too involved in all my work. But as I know the purpose of doing that, I can sustain this stressor and be an even happier person. What’s more, I need the right environment. I cannot be surrounded with naysayers and too strong extrinsically motivated people inhibiting my drive. > > ## How to make stress your secret weapon > > First, we want to look at how to harness stress, secondly, we want to discuss ways to prevent chronic stress. > > What greatly helps me to make use of stressors: I load them on myself. By writing full-packed to-do lists, setting ambitious goals, and constantly demanding myself to do better, I stress myself. But because I do it by myself, I’m in charge. And this feeling of being fully responsible takes the fear of overwhelming myself since – after all – I can always step on the > > brake. > > Of course, you need to get in a stressful situation first in order to make use of the status of being stressed. You need to step out of your comfort zone and expose yourself to new challenges. Keep in mind: If you’re not a little afraid of your next step, it might be too small. > > Finally, how can we prevent chronic stress? > > 1. Eat healthily and drink enough water: Veggies and fruits with every meal and at least 8 glasses of water > 2. Take enough breaks: At least 20% of your working time should be dedicated to rest > 3. Exercise regularly: Walk 60 mins per day and do sports > 4. Have a strong why: You cannot work dozens of hours per week without having a clear purpose --- # Always determine the next step - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/always-determine-the-next-step - Date: 2021-02-07 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *You don’t actually do a project; you can only do action steps related to it –* David Allen > > Summary: > > * A lack of accountability for the pursuit of an idea leaves many of them to nowhere > * Every idea is a project consisting of multiple actions > * By determining the next action, you prevent ideas from getting lost > > Practical advice: > > * Always have in your mind to contemplate possible next actions > * After determining next actions, it’s crucial to assign a responsible person to them > * Lastly, you need to follow up by catching up and elaborating the following steps > > Dear friend, > > When was the last time you had a chat with someone and one of you came up with a great idea? For instance, you told your partner it’d be a great idea to take a trip to New Zealand for whatever good reason. Did you follow-up on this idea? > > What I’ve observed in the past years, we tend to have really great ideas but often don’t pursue them further. Not only in our private lives but also in our jobs. In my opinion, there’s nothing worse than a meeting with plenty of great ideas without following up on them. > > In today’s blog article, I want to explain how *determining the next action* prevents ideas from getting lost and how you can make sure that a next step is always determined. > > ## Why great ideas get lost > > We’ve all sat through meetings where a topic was discussed or chatted with friends about crazy endeavors, but we retroceded without really deciding anything. > > The lack of accountability for the pursuit of an idea leaves many of them to nowhere. When nobody feels responsible for planning it out or at least expedite it, the idea is forgotten faster than someone came up with it. > > ## Always determine the next action > > An effective remedy to prevent ideas from getting lost is to determine *the next action*. > > What do I mean by that? > > I learnt this concept from David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, and it works wonders for me. According to David, every endeavor that requires more than one action is a project, such as a trip to New Zealand or the conceptualization of a feedback system. > > Consequently, every idea is a project consisting of multiple actions. Following this logic, the implementation of an idea starts with one action, followed by multiple further actions until the idea becomes reality. > > Let’s come back to our example: You and your friends agreed that it’d be cool to undertake a trip to New Zealand. The *project* is the trip. And possible *next actions* are: “Make a list with 3 great accommodations”, “Search the Internet for the entry requirements for New Zealand”, or “Ask you boss when it’s possible to go on vacation for two weeks”. > > By determining one next action and assigning it to someone, you ensure that the idea is followed up. The next time you meet with your friends, you can talk about the current status, and determine the very next action(s) so that your idea is implemented and not forgotten. > > ## How to make sure you always determine a next step > > No matter what the project, it starts with a *first action*. Every implemented idea once began with a first step. Hence, it’s actually quite intuitive to determine a next action, we just often forget to do it. > > When I’m in a meeting or chat with a friend, I’ve always in my mind to contemplate possible next actions. It’s become natural to me to do that. Yet, little reminders, such as a sticky note on your not book, help to not forget to determine a next action. > > What’s great, though, most often I don’t have to come up with next actions, but the solely asking “guys, what do you think are the next steps” is enough to trigger a great conversation on next actions. Due to the interactive nature of this process, it hardly feels superficial. > > After determining next actions, it’s crucial to assign a responsible person to them. If no one proactively takes the lead and assumes responsibility for an action, I simply ask “who wants to do that?”. Usually, there’s then someone volunteering. > > Lastly, you need to follow up on the determined next actions by catching up with your friends or colleagues and elaborating the following next steps. Eventually, the once vague ideas become real projects and, in the best case, reality. --- # Why and how I always take notes - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-and-how-i-always-take-notes - Date: 2021-01-31 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *If you don’t write your ideas down, they could leave your head before you even leave the room –* Richard Branson > > Summary: > > * Just listening to a talk isn’t enough to retain the content > * We’re able to keep more knowledge when we take notes > * By simply bringing a notebook to a meeting and writing down your thoughts, you already make a significant contribution to your continuous learning > > Practical advice: > > * Always have your notebook with you > * Be meticulous with structure & write down the date and a headline > * Write down things that are unclear to you and questions > > Dear friend, > > You most likely know this issue: You attended a meeting or a lecture, read a book, or watched a video some time ago, and you can’t really remember the content of it. > > You spent a substantial amount of time consuming the information – yet, it’s lost not long after. > > When I was at conferences, listened to the keynote speech, and was offered highly valuable information, I still wasn’t able to retain the relevant details. > > Some day, I thought that has to change. And from this moment, I’ve always brought my notebook with me and took notes no matter what kind of meeting, presentation, or any other form of information exchange. > > In today’s blog article, I want to illustrate why note-taking is an underrated habit and give you my personal tips on effective note-taking. > > ## Stop wasting your time > > If we let our professor’s, colleague’s, or someone else’s presentation wash over us, we won’t be able to retain the content much longer than a day. Our brain needs to engage with information to create new synapsis and store it. Just listening to a talk isn’t enough to retain the content. We need to work with it: Summarize, question, link, structure, etc. > > Moreover, I often had the problem that I couldn’t keep up when I didn’t engage with the content. In lectures or meetings lasting 60 minutes and longer, it’s really difficult to stay focused all along. > > Further, the less I pay attention to a presenter, the more I became bored and felt unpleasant. In high school, I loved answering questions of the teacher, sharing my view, and taking part in discussions. It made the time run much faster. Today, in meetings, it’s pretty much the same. > > In my opinion, therefore, it is a waste of time not to engage with the information and just get through events such as a meeting or presentation. > > ## Note-taking is an underrated habit > > While in college, there’s a relatively strong emphasis on effective note-taking, in the professional environment and our private life, many of us don’t apply this valuable habit. > > Effective note-taking engages us with information. By summarizing, structuring, linking, or writing down questions, we’re able to keep more knowledge, have an easier time to keep up, and feel less unpleasant when we’ve to sit through something. Simply taking notes forces us to pay more attention, making our time more worthwhile. > > In my opinion, it’s quite unfortunate that we don’t make use of this great habit in our personal and professional life. Continuous learning is key to a happy, fulfilled, and successful life. If we don’t grow personally once we’re out of college, we won’t be able to live life to the fullest. > > By simply bringing a notebook to a meeting and writing down your thoughts, you already make a significant contribution to your learning. > > ## How to advance your note-taking > > The most important part of note-taking is to always have your notebook with you. It doesn’t matter what device you use – whether it’s an iPad, a laptop, a conventional paper-and-pen setup, or something else – as long as you feel comfortable with it. > > Second, it’s vital to write down the date and a headline in order to systematize your notes. You don’t want to experience this disgusting feeling when you cannot find an important record. > > Third, be meticulous with structure. By using arrows, bullet points, symbols, and underlining phrases, I organize my thoughts. By doing so, I not only save a lot of time writing down my thoughts but also retain more information since I need to engage more with the content. > > Forth, write down things that are unclear to you and questions. By doing this, you engage even more with the information and facilitate the later revision of the notes. > > Finally, find your very own note-taking technique. There’s plenty of methods how you can streamline and make your notes more effective. I’m not an expert on this subject. Yet, I can highly recommend you to try the *Cornell Method.* I’ve been trying out this technique for 3 weeks, and it’s been working out pretty well so far. > > ![](/images/essays/why-and-how-i-always-take-notes-1.png) > > It gives your notes a clear structure and the setup enables a more streamlined review. Using this technique, I feel like to retain more information and have a higher comprehension of the content. Trying it out was definitely worth it. --- # Say yes to great opportunities (how & why) - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/say-yes-to-great-opportunities-how-why - Date: 2021-01-17 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later! –* Richard Branson > > Summary: > > * If I’m not a little afraid of my next step, it’s most likely too small > * It’s natural to take risks > * We need to find out what’s really valuable to us so that we can decide what *to have* and what *not to have* > > Practical advice: > > * Ask yourself: What would you regret more in your 80s: Not doing it or doing it? > * Adopt the right mindset: If you say no, you already lost > * If you’re in doubt, say rather yes than no > > Dear friend, > > Recently, I faced a decision that will heavily affect my life: > > I just started my career in strategy consulting where it’s not uncommon to work 60 hours a week. Before starting this job, though, I hadn’t only put many hours into my Youtube channel, Instagram page, blog, and TikTok but also had gone my first steps as an entrepreneur. Four other people and I built the foundation of a business and made our first sales. > > At the beginning of this year, we sat down and discussed how far we want to go and how committed each of us was. Particularly, I needed to decide whether I want to sacrifice hours of the little free time that I had left to pursue this unpredictable journey. > > In today’s blog article, I want to encourage you to make use of this kind of chances, write about opportunity costs, and provide you with the necessary toolkit to make bold decisions. > > ## Why you should say yes > > If you know me, you’d know that I wouldn’t say *no* to a great opportunity. I’m this type of person who sees the opportunity and not the problem. I believe that if I’m not a little afraid of my next step, it’s most likely too small. But you don’t have to be like a naive optimist to make a bold move. > > It’s natural to take risks from early on: Life is about taking chances, and you begin taking chances from the time you are a baby. Taking the first steps can be scary, but then you learn that it helps you to walk and eventually run. > > Unfortunately, as we grow up and gather more and more experience, we also become more and more risk-averse. Our decision making is often biased due to this extra knowledge. In making risky decisions, we often emphasize the importance of the downside risk, leading to an underestimation of the upside potential. Additionally, as the Nobel-prize winning *Prospect Theory* shows, we tend to experience a loss more negatively than a gain of the same amount – losing 20 bucks decreases significantly more our happiness than winning 20 bucks increases it. > > Yet, risk-taking behavior allows you to feel a sense of independence, have a new experience, and establish yourself as an individual. While risks can be scary, they allow you to push past your perception of limitations and try something new. > > By deciding for the venture and continuing to create content for the various platforms, I opened many doors and created exciting and lucrative challenges for myself. Even if the venture failed or worse, I was laid off by my employer for my bad performance, I’ll have experienced crucial lessons and wouldn’t have succumbed to my anxiety but lived the life I want. > > Moreover, we need to remember that not taking risks is also a risk. When faced with a decision, realize that any road you take involves some risk. Even if that decision is to stay within your comfort zone or venture outside of it, there are risks associated with either outcome. When you stay within your comfort zone, you risk not experiencing happiness in different ways, not exploring more facets of who you are, and not growing in new ways. > > ## Obviously, you can’t have it all > > There’re articles all over the media debating whether it’s possible to *have it all –* whether it’s possible to be an all-star in your career and have a healthy family life and have cool and fun hobbies and be financially stable and have that sexy bikini body and …, all at the same time. > > In my case, I want to do sports six times a week, build a company, grow my social media channels and blog, work as a strategy consultant, be a great partner to my girlfriend, sleep eight hours per day, eat healthily, spend time with my best friends, care for my family, and have some time left to learn new stuff by reading. > > So far, it’s been working out pretty well, but there’ll be times when I won’t be able to *have it all.* Actually, nobody can always have it all. We all have to sacrifice something at some point. And that’s not bad at all but just right. > > When we attempt to do everything just because the media, celebrities, or whoever postulate it, we won’t be happy but overwhelmed. Essentially, we’re then attempting to live a valueless life. When everything is necessary and desired equally, then nothing is necessary or desired at all. > > Hence, we need to find out what’s really valuable to us so that we can decide what *to have* and what *not to have*. Even though risky decisions bring along uncertainty, clear values will help you to make good decisions. > > But what should you exactly do when life offers you a great opportunity and you don’t know whether you should grasp it and take the risk? > > ## How to decide > > What greatly helped me to make this risky decision was my guiding principle: Every time I need to decide whether I do something or not, I ask myself: What would you regret more in your 80s – not doing it or doing it? > > By taking the stance of my older self and thinking long-term, I minimize the number of regrets and make more profound decisions. When you think in decades rather than in years, taking risks is much easier. In 60 years, no one cares whether your startup failed, but you’ll definitely remember the day you said no to your co-founders and declined to grow that venture. > > Moreover, making a bold move requires the right mindset: If you say no, you’ve already lost. Unfortunately, we often reject a great opportunity because we focus too much on the downsides and consequently don’t dare to take the risk. What we forget that everything great starts with a small step. If you don’t take this first step, you cannot win. > > Finally, what should you do if you’re still not sure what to do? Since we all tend to underly biases amplifying the downsides and risks of an opportunity, I’d always say yes to something when I’m in doubt. From the day I clearly imagined the feeling of regretting something when I’m 80+ years old, the risk of regret clearly outweighs the risk of failure or overwhelming myself. Hence, if you want to minimize your regrets, always say yes when you’re in doubt. --- # How to determine what really matters to you - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-determine-what-really-matters-to-you - Date: 2021-01-03 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Only by losing something you can determine how much you value it* > > Summary: > > * Loss allows us to reconsider how much we actually need something to be happy individuals > * Regularly evaluating what matters enables us to spot new opportunities > * We’ve got only a limited time in this world and thus have to stop wasting precious hours on things that eventually won’t make us happy > > Practical advice: > > * The single best strategy for determining what truly matters to us is by cutting things out of our life > * Solely contemplating about a condition significantly supports you in identifying what matters most > * Be more aware of the things you’ve renounced in the last months, appreciate them, and stop taking them for granted > > Dear friend, > > 2020 was an unprecedented year. The COVID-19 pandemic had a massive impact on all our lives and taught us many lessons. > > For me, the most significant learning was to find out what is most valuable to me and what is from minor importance. > > In today’s article, I’ll write about how this global epidemic helped me determine what really matters, why it’s vital to regularly reflect on this question, and how you can find out what’s really important to your life. > > ## Losing is a great teacher > > In this ongoing pandemic, we’ve had to sacrifice various things – some of us more, some of us less. Yet, we all had to give up certain freedoms: We still have to social distance ourselves, cannot go to our favorite restaurants, aren’t allowed to workout in gyms, must not party in dancing clubs, etc. > > What’s great, though, this socioeconomic challenge forces us to renounce certain things, allowing us to reconsider how much we actually need them to be happy individuals. > > There’s this old saying: *Only by losing something you can determine how much you value it.* Not only I absolutely agree with it but also I think it goes in both directions: By losing something we can evaluate not only how much we need it but also how little something contributes to our lives. > > Before my girlfriend and I decided to become a couple, we’d had a dispute. This conflict made me sense what it felt like to lose her, triggering a set of feelings that were so strong and unexpected that I felt totally overwhelmed. Suddenly, I felt and understood how much this person mattered to me. As a result, only few weeks passed until we committed ourselves to each other. > > Contrarily, the pandemic taught me how little I value fancy food in restaurants, shopping trips in local retailers, drinking one or two drinks in a bar at night, … By forcing me to renounce, the measures to curb COVID-19 made me determine what’s really important to me. > > ## Why it’s vital to regularly reflect on what matters > > Unfortunately, we often don’t think about what really matters in our lives. On the one hand, we take too many things for granted; on the other hand, we resign ourselves to the daily grind and societal conditions. We all do things even though we don’t enjoy them: Staying up late, taking part in too large business meetings, binge drinking – to name a few. And the things that make our lives significantly better perish because of our sense of entitlement. > > We’ve got only a limited time in this world. We need to make every second count and thus have to stop wasting precious hours on things that eventually won’t make us happy. COVID-19 forced us to renounce certain things. We need to use this experience, continue to regularly reflect, stop doing things that don’t matter, and focus on things that do – in the post-corona world. > > Moreover, regularly evaluating what matters enables us to spot new opportunities. We shouldn’t need a global crisis like COVID-19 to question the norm. Things like digital education and virtual meetings were great and necessary alternatives before the pandemic as well. Yet, since most of us didn’t challenge the status quo, the digitization in many areas crept along until the pandemic triggered the vast application of new technology. > > ## Find out what’s really important to your life > > The single best strategy for determining what truly matters to us is by cutting things out of our life, then seeing what we miss and what we don’t. The pandemic harshly taught us this vital process, but it’s not necessary to suffer that much to find out what truly matters. > > It’s totally fine when you just use thought experiments: For instance, genuinely imagine how you would feel if you stopped going out. What were the consequences? Who and which parties were affected? Solely contemplating about a condition, questioning it significantly supports you in identifying what matters most. > > Carving out certain things, though, is still the most valid method. Our imagination often fools us to believe things that aren’t actually true or amplify certain aspects that aren’t as crucial as we think. By cutting things out of our life, we truly experience the “if scenario” and it’s consequences. > > I’ll draw my consequences from this pandemic. And I’ll definitely more often question the status quo. By cutting certain things out of my life from time to time, I’ll better understand my needs and desires. And once we regain our freedoms, I’ll be more aware of the things we’ve renounced in the last months, appreciate them, and stop taking them for granted. --- # How to convince people – never hesitate to admit a mistake - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-convince-people-never-hesitate-to-admit-a-mistake - Date: 2020-12-27 - Categories: Communication, Goal Achievement > > *One who makes no mistakes makes nothing* > > Summary: > > * Admitting one’s own mistakes is an essential requirement for building trust with other people > * We highly respect people for their audacity to take responsibility for them > * Failure and mistakes are natural and unavoidable > > Practical advice: > > * Track your mistakes and how you dealt with them in a mistake journal > * Admit your mistakes as fast as possible > * Adopt the right mindest: Owning one’s own mistakes is a real strength > > Dear friend, > > Currently, I read and learn a lot about sales. > > However, not in its traditional sense but in a broad context: Convincing someone to give us something (time, energy, money, etc) they’ve got in exchange for something we’ve got. > > In order to enhance this skill, one has to learn how human beings can be influenced. > > In today’s article, I’ll illustrate why admitting mistakes is a key strategy in influencing others, point out ways to overcome one’s own ego, and help you to become more confident in showing your weaknesses. > > ## Admitting being wrong is hard > > When we make a mistake affecting another person, proactively addressing this issue feels unpleasant and hurts our pride. For instance, imagine you’re passionate about health and nutrition, and boast of your detailed knowledge. While you try to convince your mother to stop using coconut oil, your sibling joins the conversation and reinforces the argument that this oil is most versatile and thus best because it has a high thermal resistance. You totally forgot about this aspect and why it could be important to your mother in your argumentation. Admitting this lack of knowledge, particularly regarding your passion for nutrition, will feel very inconvenient in this situation. > > Further, often we’re not able to differentiate our person from our actions. Every human makes mistakes; there’s no perfect creature. Most people know that and apply this certainty to other people making a mistake but not to themselves. Just because you made a wrong assumption, you’re not dumb. Stop equating your identity and your actions. > > Moreover, admitting being wrong makes us feel vulnerable and weak. For example, telling your boss that you’re responsible for messing up the last project may seem to hurt your career. However, as the two aforementioned reasons, this rationale is also paradoxical and a fallacy. > > ## Never hesitate to admit a mistake > > Yes, taking full responsibility for your mistakes is hard. Nevertheless, it is an essential requirement for building trust with other people. Ex-Navy Seal Commander and best-seller author Jock Willink writes in his book *Extreme Ownership* that admitting and owning mistakes is inalienable for a successful leader. It’s a skill anyone who wants to convince people sustainably has to be capable of. It’s our nature that we cannot trust people how cannot take responsibility for their wrongdoings. > > Moreover, admitting being wrong is not a weakness but rather a sign of strength. As every human being knows how hard exposing one’s own faults is, we highly respect people for their audacity to take responsibility for them. > > Eventually, failure and mistakes are natural and unavoidable. From a statistical and logical point of view, you cannot *not* do them. No matter how well prepared you are, how much work you put in, how much experience you gathered – once in a while you will make a mistake. And the best thing you can do is to have the right mindset, conquer your ego, and take responsibility for it. > > ## How to control your ego > > What greatly helped me to overcome my pride was a mistake journal in which I tracked my mistakes, whether I admitted them, and the consequence of my behavior. For instance, I noted down this incident: > > There’s a guy in our gym who literally threw a barbell with +100kg on the floor when he’s doing deadlifts, causing incredibly annoying, loud noise. I confronted this person, told him how annoying his *technique* was and how wrong he’s doing his exercise. He totally blocked and defended himself (as almost any human being would do in such a situation). I knew that he would respond in this manner, but I also understood that people love winning and being right. Hence, I went back to my exercise, waited 10 mins, and got back to him. I told him that I was sorry for being rude and so confrontational, and that I might just have a bad day. And you know what? He immediately empathized with me, changed his defensive stance to a more open one, told me that he can totally understand me, and will take care to make less noise in the future. I might have hurt my ego, admitted being wrong even though I wasn’t, and told someone sorry to whom I really disliked, though, I obtained what I wanted. > > Another simple but effective habit you can implement is to admit your mistakes as fast as possible. In the moment you find out that you’re wrong, you tell the affected person sorry and take responsibility for your mistake. Acting immediately greatly helps you to overcome cognitive paralysis caused by your ego and irrational thoughts. > > What’s most effective but also most difficult to overcome your ego and admit your wrongdoings easily: Adopting the right mindset. Once you believe that owning your mistakes is a sign of real strength, you won’t have any troubles to conquer your ego again. For example, my girlfriend is still not 100% used to how I react if she’s teasing me or trying to scratch my ego in an argument as I couldn’t care less. From the day I understood that taking responsibility, owning one’s own mistakes, and being true about one’s own flaws are signs of real power, I have never had any trouble to overcome my ego. --- # Set process goals – make your ambitions a reality - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/set-process-goals-make-your-ambitions-a-reality - Date: 2020-12-20 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *A goal properly set is halfway reached. –* Zig Ziglar > > Summary: > > * A process goal is an outcome that is based on specific actions & tasks that you complete > * Process goals are by definition controllable, *outcome independent* tasks > * They not only guarantee progress but also provide you with clear and simple to-dos > > Practical advice: > > * If we don’t know the *how,* the easiest and best way to find it is to emulate the actions of people > * Once you answered the *how,* you can derive process goals from them > * In the beginning, you want to focus on getting started: Aim low, start slow, and have little or no expectations > > Dear friend, > > Everyone likes goals, and everyone has a few ones. > > Unfortunately, too many great ambitions fail. That’s due to various reasons, such as a lack of > > motivation, too little clarity, improper goal setting, and inhibiting environments. > > What if there’s a methodology to circumvent these issues? If it’s so simple that everyone could apply it? Would you dare to try it out? > > In today’s article, I will write about process goals: What is this goal setting method all about? Why is it superior? And how can you apply it? > > ## Outcome vs process goals > > The most typical goal people pursue is an *outcome goal*: *I want to lose 10 pounds. I want to get an A in my next exam. I want to make 100k by 25. I want to buy a BMW in three years.* > > Everyone likes them: It’s glamorous and feels great to say *“I’m going to run a marathon next year”.* > > Contrarily, setting yourself procedural objectives to make this ambition a reality seems pretty boring and barely exciting: Going for a 60 min. run three times a week; eating 3000 kcal and 1 kg of vegetables per day; sleeping eight hours per day. > > Process goals are all about the process – the how: What you will actually have to do, step-by-step to achieve an ambition? A process goal is an outcome that is based on specific actions and tasks that you complete. Setting a process goal means you have to identify what you actually have to do and how you do it. Your focus is on the actions, not the outcome, but as a side effect, you will also achieve a desirable outcome. > > Which method sees better results? Which one provides more clarity, control, and a long-term outlook? > > ## The key advantages of process goals > > ### Control > > Continuing with the example ambition of weight loss, you might make a process goal *walking 15.000 steps every day*. That’s easily measurable and doable; you are totally in charge of whether or not you reach your process goal. > > Process goals are by definition controllable, *outcome independent* tasks. > > Whereas, outcome goals can be made up of many factors, some of which are completely out of your control, and they also don’t always come evenly and consistently: You don’t know how long it will take to lose 10 pounds of body weight, and you don’t know how much it will take until you’ll have losen the body fat. > > ### Motivation > > Process goals also help you to reduce your daunting ambitions into something easier for you to understand and implement. They’ll make you contemplate what you actually have to do in order to achieve your ambition, acting you in the right direction so you can be a lot more effective in reaching it. > > As you might have already experienced a lot of times: There’s nothing more deflating your motivation than not getting ahead. Progress, though, is the best fuel for motivation. Process goals not only guarantee progress but also provide you with clear and simple to-dos that’ll eventually make your ambition a reality. > > ### Long-lasting > > Outcome goals make us solely focus on the results we want and forget about the process that will get us there. The thing that initially motivated us to take action can end up putting us in the wrong mindset. > > Every day you work to get better is a successful day. Instead of waiting to celebrate until you achieved your results, process goals allow you to celebrate every time you follow the process. > > Moreover, they don’t tie your emotions to results. It doesn’t matter whether how fast or how slow your 60 minute run was, as long as you keep running multiple days per week. Slowly but surely you will progress. > > Ultimately, processes can go on for long after a particular outcome is reached, making them great goals for long-term life changes. As the process goals becomes habit, we can set additional process goals, making our ambition even more worthwhile. > > ## Typical process goals & application of this concept > > When looking at a big ambition, it can be overwhelming: *How am I going to accomplish all that?* > > But that’s the right question: how. The how is by breaking the big goal down into more easily tackled chunks. > > Often we know what we have to do to make an ambition a reality: > > * Lose weight and get in shape: > * Improve your performance as a sales associate: Have more customer interactions & improve your sales pitch > * Practice a new language: Learn vocabulary & grammar, consume media in foreign language & talk to native speakers. > > If we don’t know the *how,* the easiest and best way to find an answer to this question is to emulate the actions of people who’ve already achieved what you desire. In order to tap this knowledge: > > * Talk to them and simply ask > * Read books or articles of them > * Consult with people who’ve already faced the same issue > > Once you answered the *how,* you can derive process goals from it: > > * Eat healthy & do sports: Exercise 3 times a week; eat 5 portions of vegetables a day; eat candy & sweets once a week. > * Have more customer interactions & improve your sales pitch: Call 5 prospects every day before midday; gather feedback on your sales pitch from 3 colleagues every week. > * Learn vocabulary & grammar, consume media in foreign language & talk to native speakers: Learn 10 new words every week; study grammar 30 minutes 3 times a week; talk to a friend in the foreign language for 20 minutes once a week. > > In the beginning, you want to focus more on the effort you put in. Take it easy: Aim low, start slow, and have little or no expectations. Once you get started, you can built on your process goals, but at first, your only goal should be to get started. --- # Transform your life – make more conscious decisions - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/transform-your-life-make-more-conscious-decisions - Date: 2020-12-13 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Every decision is a seed planted for your future* > > Summary: > > * Only a few decisions are made with full awareness of their implications > * Habits have both an extremely beneficial and a disastrous potential > * It’s our daily decisions – the seeds we plant today – that decide how our future will look like > > Practical advice: > > * Realize the potential of every choice you make > * Think for the long-run > * Have clear values and stick to them > > Dear friend, > > Have you ever asked yourself how you ended in your current situation? What led to all your achievements and failures? Well, I’ve dealt with this question numerous times. > > In my view, life is a series of *choices* we make daily and that add up to a large outcome. > > *Good* decisions imply a good outcome. *Bad* decisions imply a bad outcome. > > The significance of most decisions is elusive though. They are like a seed of a tree: It takes years or even decades until the full potential of it manifests, but once sowed, the tree is set to grow from a tiny seed to a massive construct. > > I used to make many decisions unconsciously. Since I realized the significance of even minuscule decisions, however, I’ve strived to enhance my decision making by becoming more aware of the magnitude of decisions. And it transformed my life for the better. > > In today’s article, I write about why we should more often decide consciously, explicate the compound effect of decision making, and contemplate ways to make decision making more conscious. > > ## Become more conscious of your decision making > > Only a few decisions are made with full awareness of their implications. Rather, most of our decisions are based on habits and thus performed automatically with absence of our conscience. For instance, according to a Harvard study, 95% of our buying decisions are made unconsciously.[**¹**](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-advertising-research/article/abs/how-customers-think-essential-insights-into-the-mind-of-the-market-by-gerald-zaltman-harvard-business-school-press-february-2003-isbn-1578518261-2995-352-pp/45EE290D21A6A468483D1C093E16F94A) > > Even though habits are one of the best inventions of human nature, they bear a disastrous potential. No matter what, something you perform regularly and consistently becomes a habit, and what becomes a habit doesn’t require our attention – good or bad. Brushing our teeth – good. Drinking alcohol every night – bad. Reading before going to sleep – good. Checking social media the first thing in the morning – bad. Calling your parents every weekend – good. Responding right after you got a message from your ex – bad. > > I know and fully understand that habits are convenient. Not making a conscious effort to decide saves a lot of energy and time. Just imagine before you brushed your teeth, you had to think about whether it’s a good idea – every single time. That’d be horrible. > > Yet, there’re too many decisions we make without evaluating them even though we should. In addition, there’re even more decisions we have thought about but not sufficiently so that they became a bad habit because of the paucity of our effort. Remember the last time you told yourself that you’ll start to study earlier in the next exam period? Remember the last time you told yourself you won’t drink that much Tequila? Remember the last time you told yourself this year I will do sports regularly? > > If we’re not aware of all the bad habits we implemented in our lives, they will silently and slowly make our lives worse and worse. > > ## The seeds we plant today > > Confucius once said something like: > > > *If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.* > > I think this statement underlines the significance of long-term thinking and daily decisions. Enabling people to make educated decisions is among the strongest levers to advance and enrich a society. > > Since we discovered the potential of the Internet and made use of it, our world is developing at a rapid speed. This progress comes down to the substantially improved exchange of information. Information is key to make better decisions. > > Nevertheless, it’s our daily decisions – the seeds we plant today – that decide how our future will look like. Each decision contains its potential for the future, just as each seed carries within it the potential for the plant that it will become, the produce it will generate, and the seeds and potential for future generations – future iterations of itself. > > If we make a conscious decision and *entirely* thought through it, action will follow. However, when we don’t invest enough time and energy to decide consciously, our ambition will fail before it started. > > Making an informed choice today, not tomorrow, can change your life. It’s the action and decisions of the past that led to the life you live today. So, if you want to change your tomorrow, you have to start today. > > ## How to decide more consciously > > These suggestions will help you to make more conscious decisions daily: > > ### Realize the potential of every choice you make > > First of all, you need to become aware of the potential of a decision. > > That is by far the most difficult part. However, once you understand that every miniscule choice leads to an infinite series of events and hence can have an infinite large impact (in the long-run), you will make more conscious decisions automatically. > > Do you remember Rosa Parks? The woman who rejected bus driver James F. Blake’s order to vacate a row of four seats in the *colored section* in favor of a white passenger, once the *white section* was filled? That little decision led to the civil rights movement almost every Western kid has to study in school today. Do you think Parks knew that this little act of disobedience would lead to one of the largest movements of Earth’s history? Of course not – no one could have imagined the consequences of this *minor decision*. But every single decision bears this potential! > > ### Think for the long-run > > The most important value to me: Long-term decision making. > > Every single day, I ask myself *what happened if I did x for the rest of my life*. Taking supplements, drinking coffee, doing sports, saying hello to strangers on the street, compensating my flights, let the emotions of others make me angry, going to sleep too late, going to a party every weekend, eating meat, etc. > > A focus on the long-run allows me to make questioning my actions a habit. It creates awareness for the significance of my daily choices. > > ### Have clear values and stick to them > > Another great lever to make your decision making more conscious is to contemplate your most important values and use them consistently as the basis for your decisions. Once you get used to base your decisions on them, a conscious choice will take significantly less time. > > I devised the list of my most vital values by thinking through different situations and asked myself why I decided for something particular: Why did I rather work on a blog article than watching a Netflix series? Why did I rather go to a party rather than studying more for an upcoming exam? Why do I don’t spend much time with materialistic people? Why do I want to look in shape? Why do I want to live a happy and fulfilled life? … > > If you found your values and stick to them consistently, your decision making will be more conscious than can think of. --- # Become a top performer – fall in love with the process - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/become-a-top-performer-fall-in-love-with-the-process - Date: 2020-12-06 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *To fall in love with the process, is to fall in love with life* > > Summary: > > * You need to adopt a lifestyle in order to achieve and maintain your targets > * Top performers still find a way to show up, to work through the boredom, and to embrace the daily practice that is required to achieve their goals > * Finding purpose in the goals you set yourself boosts your motivation > > Practical advice: > > * Ask yourself why do you actually want to achieve your goal > * Make your objectives and their accompanying obstacles visible > * Once you found your why, you always need to remind yourself of it > > Dear friend, > > Everyone has goals. Goals are great: They give us direction, help us to advance, and make the time we’ve on this planet more meaningful. > > A too strong emphasis on the outcome, tough, has various downsides: A l[ack of execution when work isn’t easy](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/become-outstanding-learn-to-work-when-work-isn-t-easy), a sense of emptiness once the goal is achieved, or missing sight for better alternatives. > > Contrarily, *falling in love with the process* cures many of these flaws. > > In today’s article, I want to talk about high-achievers and their need to learn how to handle the boredom and how to achieve goals more successfully by embracing the process. > > ## Why you should chase a lifestyle > > Muhammad Ali once said: > > > *I hated every training, but I said: Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.* > > His obsession with becoming and being the best boxer allowed him to resolutely pursuit his goal and ultimately achieve it. > > Muhammad Ali didn’t just want to win a world champion title, he wanted to be a champion for the rest of his life. He chose this kind of lifestyle. Even though he hated every minute of his training, he was so passionate about the process of becoming the best boxer that he was motivated throughout. > > Indeed, if you put all your energy and focus just on the final results while ignoring the process, you will never walk away fulfilled because your happiness will only be based on the results and not the process. I don’t know whether Muhammad Ali was a happy and fulfilled person. What we can tell, however, he was one of the hardest working athletes, and definitely the best of his profession. > > Practicing the process will get you to where you want to be if you learn to embrace it. For instance, if you want to be in the best shape of your life, then losing 10 kilograms or building muscles might be necessary. But the only way to reach and *maintain* this result is to fall in love with the process of eating healthy and exercising consistently. > > You need to adopt a lifestyle in order to achieve and keep a great physique – the lifestyle of a physically active and healthily nourished person. > > Once you really unterstand this premise, you’ll approach your goals differently and achieve them more successfully and sustainably. > > ## Learn to handle the boredom > > What’s the difference between the best athletes like Ali and everyone else? > > What do the really successful professionals do that most people don’t? > > As far as I can judge these questions, it comes down to who can handle the boredom of exercising consistently. > > > *The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried* > > The broad society claims that high achievers are passionate, and, thus, working hard for their goals didn’t take them much. What’s really the case, though, the succeeding people feel the same boredom and the same lack of motivation that everyone else feels. They don’t have some magic pill that makes them feel ready and inspired every second of their life. > > Nonetheless, top performers still find a way to show up, to work through the boredom, and to embrace the daily practice that is required to achieve their goals. It’s their commitment to the process. They fall in love with the daily practice, not the individual event. > > ## How to *fall in love with the process* > > Now – enough talking, how can you increase your performance and achieve your goals more successfully by embracing the process? > > ### Have a very strong WHY > > First of all, ask yourself why do you actually want to achieve your goal, such as good grades, a high salary, learn to sing, or a sixpack. Find out what’s your ulterior motive, i. e. the underlying motivation. > > Finding purpose in the goals you set yourself boosts your motivation and consequently enhances ability to handle the boredom and work when work isn’t easy. > > For example, everything I do has to be aligned my purpose of life. If something doesn’t contribute to it, I won’t do it, and if it does, I exactly know *why* I do it. > > ### Visualize your goal > > Secondly, think about how it feels when you achieve your goal and what obstacles you will likely face. Draw a clear picture of goal achievement and all the things that might impede your success. Psychological research has shown that this technique can significantly increase the chances that you will achieve your goal. > > Moreover, you need to focus on progress rather than on results. A too strong emphasis on the outcome – particularly at the beginning of your *journey* – can significantly demotivate you and inhibits your potential by discouraging risk taking. > > ### Adopt the right mindset > > Once you found your *why*, you always need to remind yourself of it. If you encounter a period of low energy and rock-bottom motivation, contemplate why you started in the first place & how it feels like when you achieved your goal. > > There will be times of tedious and mundane or overwhelmingly challenging work, but as long you keep going, you will definitely succeed. > > Ultimately, it’s much more about the journey not the destination. You want to be outstanding? You want to be a top-achiever? Then embrace the process and fall in love with every single part of the journey. --- # Become outstanding – learn to work when work isn’t easy - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/become-outstanding-learn-to-work-when-work-isnt-easy - Date: 2020-11-29 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *What comes easy won’t last. What lasts won’t come easy* > > Summary: > > * Outstanding people deliberately progress & are as consistent as possible > * You cannot be great at something unless you love the process > * It’s about the journey, not the destination > > Practical advice: > > * Work in sprints & kill any distraction > * Properly satisfy basic needs: Hunger, thirst, rest, and sleep > * Create external motivators for yourself to sustain short-term lacks of motivation > > Dear friend, > > When I was in high school, I loved studying most for the subjects in which I achieved the best grades. > > When I run faster than usual, I’m thrilled and don’t want to wait for the next run. > > When I delivered great results, I was substantially more motivated to work. > > Getting good results propels us forward. But what about when we don’t achieve our targets? What about when work isn’t easy? Or when you lose motivation because of dullness? > > In today’s article, I want to contemplate the importance of self-motivation, discuss why it’s vital to fall in love with the process, and share my toolkit for pushing oneself forward when work isn’t easy. > > ## High-achieving professionals > > Some people **achieve outstanding** results for a simple reason: They’re great at something. And because they’re great at it, they do it better than anyone else. They stand out. It might be a skill, an approach, whatever, but **they stick to it and it pays off.** They **improved** their *special* skill and thus got better than most other people by **deliberately progressing and being as consistent as possible.** > > Motivation is elusive. Some days you feel it, and on other days you don’t – no matter how hard you try. **High-achievers**, though, **keep pushing onwards**, even when they don’t feel like it and their **motivation is at rock bottom**. The ability to **sustain deep levels of motivation** and retain consistency is what **distinguishes the winner from the loser**. > > ## Fall in love with the process > > Goals are great, but you cannot be great at something unless you love the process. Here are some examples that I read on James Clear’s blog and illustrate this notion: > > * *If you want to be a **great writer,** then having a best-selling book is wonderful. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of writing.* > * *If you want to become **significantly better at anything**, you have to fall in love with the process of doing it. You have to fall in love with building the identity of someone who does the work, rather than merely dreaming about the results that you want.* > * *If you want to be in the **best shape of your life**, then losing 20 pounds might be necessary. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of eating healthy and exercising consistently.* > * *If you want the world to **know about your business**, then it would be great to be featured in Forbes magazine. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of marketing.* > > The **easiest way** to deal with a lack of motivation and maintain consistency is to ***fall in love with the process.*** I will write an extensive blog article on this topic soon. Until then, here are crucial steps to consider and requirements to fulfill: > > * Have a strong *why*: You need to find purpose in the goal you set yourself > * Focus on progress and find the right metrics to measure success > * Adopt the right mindset: *It’s about the journey*, *not the destination* > > ## Little hacks to sustain a lack of motivation > > Those are some little tricks I make use of to push myself in times of poor motivation: > > ### Work in sprints > > I set a timer for 30-50 min. During this time, I do nothing else than focussing on work. 100%. No distractions. After this time frame, I treat myself. I do something completely different for a few minutes (5-10 minutes). And I get some physical activities involved (at least stand up and walk a few steps in my room). > > ### Kill distractions > > Productivity induces motivation. When you need to get something done and your motivation is at rock bottom, being unproductive makes the situation even worse. The most significant productivity killer is distractions. Thus, you need to kill any distraction: > > * Turn your smartphone off. Switch it on flight mode. Or at least, install a productivity app, such as *Forest* > * Stop multitasking. One task at a time. > * Reduce external distractions: Close your door when you have a flatmate; don’t have snacks laying around. Don’t listen to music when you have to choose the songs on your own from time to time > > ### Properly satisfy basic needs > > When you didn’t sleep, eat, drink, and rest enough, hard or tedious work becomes even worse. > > Hence, take care of your body and set the right priorities. You may think sleeping less than 7 hours, skipping that lunch break, or not drinking enough water won’t be that bad – but trust me (or at least the vast amount of empirical research on this topic) – you will suffer, you will be less productive, and your results will be worse. > > ### Treat yourself > > Creating external motivators for yourself over the short-to-medium term can help you to sustain onerous tasks. A crucial mistake you need to avoid when you treat yourself is to base your reward on the number of completed tasks or speed when you actually care about the quality of your performance. > > Treat yourself based on rather the time you worked on something (let’s say you worked 4 sprints of 40 mins each without letting something distract you) than the pages read in a book. This way allows you to optimize the outcome rather than the input. --- # You must learn to say no - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/you-must-learn-to-say-no - Date: 2020-11-22 - Categories: Communication, Well-Being > > *It’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on what’s important. –* Steve Jobs > > Summary: > > * We tend to have a desire to please everyone & maintain harmony > * Not saying *no* upfront raises wrong expectations & causes exhaustion, stress, & irritation > * Drawing the line on when to say yes allows you to make more room for the things that really matter to you > > Practical advice: > > * Keep your response simple – be firm & direct > * Don’t respond right away > * Offer an alternative – if you want to accept the offer but can’t > > Dear friend, > > How often were you asked to come to an event – let’s say a birthday party – you didn’t intend to go to in the first place, but instead of declining the invitation, you said *yes* to it? > > How often were you asked to help someone with something you didn’t want to do, but you still couldn’t say *no*? > > Almost every day we face these situations (invitations, offers, favors, requests, etc.) in which we are forced to provide a clear answer, say either *no* or *yes*. Too many times, though, we fail to give a *negative* response even though we really don’t want to invest our precious time into these occurrences. > > But why are we so reluctant to speak out loudly these two letters? > > In today’s article, I share my thoughts on why saying no feels so hard, why it’s so important to say no, and how we can do it more easily. > > ## Why saying *no* feels so hard > > There’re various reasons why we don’t want to reject invitations, offers, favors, etc. > > Most often, we don’t want to appear negative, upset, or offend another person, or worry about possible social or professional repercussions. Moreover, we tend to have a desire to please everyone and maintain harmony. > > The actual rationale underlying our resistance to giving others a negative response is quite paradoxical. On the one hand, we don’t want others to feel negative when we give them a *no.* On the other hand, we then create a very inconvenient situation for ourselves. > > ## Why being able to say *no* is vital > > ### Raise wrong expectations > > When we accept an invitation or grant our help for a project but then cancel it a few days before the event, we not only severely harm the relationship with the person whom we made the promise to but also take the trouble to give a negative response anyway. In these cases, it’s so much easier to decline the request upfront. Don’t be this person no one takes seriously. > > ### Exhaustion, stress, & irritation > > Just imagine, you got this invitation to the birthday party of a colleague whom you don’t really like. You would rather sit alone at home and clean your whole apartment than taking part in this event. > > Foolishly, though, you didn’t give a clear *no* to your colleague when he invited you to the party and let him convince you to come to the event. On top, you don’t want to appear rude; thus, spontaneously canceling and not going are not options for you. Simply thinking about the party, though, induces stress and unease in you. Being unable to say *no* can make you exhausted, stressed, and irritable. > > ### Priorities & opportunity costs > > Not being able to give a negative response to another person can be draining. Drawing the line on when to say *yes* allows you to make more room for the things that really matter to you. For instance, health, sports, and sleep are very important to me. Saying yes to each and every party would make me sacrifice these priorities. Moreover, saying yes to something you don’t like implies saying no to all the other things you like even more or that are much better for you. > > ## How to say *no* more easily > > Concluding, saying no doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It eliminates unrealistic expectations and avoids giving false hope or leading the other person on. It’s an essential skill to have because you need to set boundaries to really make time for meaningful activities. > > What can we do if we struggle to give a negative response to requests? > > ### Keep your response simple > > If you want to say no, be firm and direct. This will take practice and courage at first, but you will get used to it. > > Be kind but don’t over-apologize. Remember, you’re not asking permission to say no, and it’s just fine that you have other priorities. > > Avoid details. If you go into details, you run the risk of being talked out of your *no* into an insincere *yes*. > > ### Don’t respond right away > > You aren’t sure yet or don’t feel comfortable saying in the very moment? Use phrases like “I’ll get back to you”, “I don’t know yet, I’ll think about it”, or “Thank you, but I cannot give you a response right away”. Consider your options. Having thought it through, you’ll be able to say no with greater confidence. > > “Next week, I’ll have a house party, do you want to come, too?” →”Thank you for the kind invitation, but I cannot give you a no or yes right away. I’ll get back to you, all right?” > > ### Offer an alternative > > If you want to accept an offer but can’t, don’t be hesitant to suggest a future opportunity. For example: “I’m not able to join you at this time, but how about you text me in a week and we can regroup?” --- # Never give unsolicited advice & what to do instead - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/never-give-unsolicited-advice-what-to-do-instead - Date: 2020-11-15 - Categories: Communication, Relationships > > *Never give advice unless asked.* > > Summary: > > * Most people dislike being provided with unwanted solutions > * People often just want to be heard and understood, they want to process and feel supported > * People don’t want to be fixed, they want to be known > > Practical advice: > > * Listen carefully and empathically > * Ask: *What would help you most in this situation?* > * Before presenting to them your solution, assure that they are open to it > > Dear friend, > > Most likely, you’ve already faced the following situation: You talked to a friend and complained about someone/something (your parents, boss, colleagues, friends, weather, delayed busses, etc). But instead of receiving suggestions on how to cope with this issue, you just wanted to vent and someone who listens and cares. Your friend, though, was more about finding and suggesting solutions to your problem, providing *unsolicited advice.* > > I’ve already experienced this situation numerous times, though, as *the problem-solving friend*. Until I realized what I was doing to my friends, I had always thought I was helping, and I couldn’t understand why most people whom I advised felt worse than before they talked to me. > > In today’s article, I want to share with you substantive reasons to never give unsolicited advice and provide you with an alternative approach to share your advice and provide help. > > ## We don’t want to be advised > > Via an [internet poll](https://www.verywellmind.com/physical-exercise-for-panic-disorder-and-anxiety-2584094), researchers asked people whether they liked receiving unsolicited advice. The three answers were 1) *no* 2) *yes* and 3) *only if the right person gives it*. > > Out of approximately a thousand people, only 6% said yes and 38% answered *only if the right person gives it*. > > From a methodological perspective, this study might not be the best. The results, however, paint a crystal clear picture: Most people dislike being provided with unwanted solutions. > > ## What we want instead > > Have you ever asked yourself why people dump their problems on others in the first place? Why your partner complains about his/her coworker? Your colleague about the difficulty of losing weight? Your friend about his/her antisocial flatmate? > > Most often, people just want to be heard and understood, they want to process and feel supported, they don’t want to be told what to do. When they share a small, undesirable part of their life with you, it’s not so that you can ‘fix’ it, it’s so that you can stand in the space with them and witness it. Usually, they even know what to do and how they can solve the problem by themselves. They might just not have the energy and power to do it. People don’t want to be fixed, they want to be known. > > ## How a well-meant act can make the situation worse > > When my friends expressed their concerns to me, I took the initiative and voluntarily started counseling them on their problem, even though they never asked me for my guidance. And why? > > * I wanted to be helpful > * I was excited about a solution and wanted to share it > * I thought I had the right answers > * and that I did them a favor > > However… > > Responding to people who share their troubles by telling them how to solve their problems puts us in a *superior* role. It presents us as the person with the *higher rank* in the interaction and lowers the complainant into a subordinate role. They hear you saying: “I think you’re inadequate and incompetent, and you require my knowledge and wisdom to make progress here”. > > As a result, they feel like they are too inept to get their life on track and make decisions about how to live their lives. And instead of being supported, they have the burden of managing feedback they never asked for. > > ## Stop fixing, start listening > > Giving advice is natural to us as human beings. It’s an instinct to want to give advice. It feels good and like the right thing to do. Moreover, generally, there’s nothing wrong with advising your friends. Yet, 90% of the time, giving unsolicited solutions and recommendations makes the situation worse, leading to the contrary outcome. > > I apply the following framework to provide the best support for friends and make the most out of the situation: > > ### 1) Listen carefully and empathically > > Often, just listening is enough. Additionally, it’s the only way to find out what your friend, colleague, partner, etc. needs at the very moment. > > I’ve already written an article on how to [listen right](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/the-importance-of-right-listening). To put it in a nutshell, don’t interrupt the other person, listen attentively (eye contact, open mimic, etc), ask *good* questions, state impressions (“That must have been really difficult”), and relate (“That reminds me of the struggle I had last week”). > > Observe and notice how the complainant reacts. You will obtain a feeling of whether the person is about venting and just dumping his/her frustration or rather searching for advice. > > ### 2) It’s about them, not you > > If the well-being of the complainant is your main interest, you cannot simply force your solution on him/her, rather, you need to seek what s/he needs. > > **That’s actually pretty easy: Ask, what would help you most in this situation?** Make your conversation partners clear that you want to help them. > > Most of the time you’ll hear responses like: > > * *Just you listening is enough.* > * *Honestly, I don’t know, but it feels good to have someone to talk to about it.* > * *Your support means the world to me.* > > These responses are what I described in the beginning: *People just want to be heard and understood, they want to process and feel supported, and they don’t want to be told what to do.* Providing unsolicited advice in these situations will make the person feel worse. Hence, you have to prevent yourself from providing solutions and trying to fix the problem. Rather, you should continue to listen carefully and empathically. The other person will be unbelievably thankful afterward. > > In a few cases, though, they give you the uncommon response and show openness to or even ask for advice/help. > > Before presenting to them my solution, I make sure that they are open to it and say something like: > > * *I have some ideas about what might be helpful. Would you be interested in hearing them?* > * *Are you open to suggestions?* > * *Would it be most helpful for me to give you some advice or for me to listen?* > * *I’ve been through something similar. Can I tell you about what worked for me?* > > They’ll appreciate you’ve let them maintain choice in the conversation, which contributes to their own sense of power. > > What’s more, be empathetic and emotionally supportive of whether or not they accept your offer for advice. Simply being there, validating them, cheering them on, giving them virtually hugs means more than an instruction manual. > > Finally, if you’re in doubt, just listen. --- # How to really boost your happiness - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-really-boost-your-happiness - Date: 2020-11-08 - Categories: Well-Being > > *One kind word can change someone’s entire day* > > Summary: > > * Most people don’t really know how the concept of happiness works > * We miswant – too often and too much > * (Social) comparisons and getting used to stuff distort our decision making > > Practical advice: > > * Invest in experiences rather than in awesome stuff; trade money for more time and be kind > * Be conscious of the kinds of social comparisons you’re letting in > * Exercise regularly & take at least 8 hours to sleep > > Dear friend, > > During my enrollment in the popular Yale University course *The science of well being,* which is all about the psychological concept of happiness, I made the realization that I’ve many misconceptions. In one of my latest articles, I picked the most significant of them, re-evaluated them in the context of this happiness class, and wrote about them ([why we are less happy than we could be](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/why-you-are-less-happy-than-you-could-be)). > > Unfortunately, most people don’t really know how the concept of happiness *works* and how well-being can be maximized, i. e. how we can become happier individuals. > > Thus, and to celebrate my completion of this course, it’s time for part two: I’ll share with you the amazing insights from the Yale University course and contemplate vital changes I’ll make to become an (even) happier person. > > ## Recap: Why are we less happy than we could be > > First of all, a brief recap – *why we are less happy than we could be* ([read the full article if this short summary is too shallow for you](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/why-you-are-less-happy-than-you-could-be)). > > Various empirical studies show: We miswant – too often and too much. Miswanting is about being mistaken about what and how much we’re going to like in the future. For instance, we might think purchasing an expensive car will make us a much happier person, but no, it won’t. > > And why do we miswant things? (Social) comparisons, getting used to stuff (hedonic adaptation), and the impact bias play a huge role regarding why we desire things that actually won’t fulfill us. > > In the class, the professor spends a lot of time to illustrate our misunderstandings regarding things that seemingly make us happy (outstanding grades, fancy clothes, big houses, fast cars, etc) but actually don’t. In part two of the class, she gives plenty of empirical evidence to point out ways how we can really become happier individuals. Many of the tools and hacks are well-known and familiar to most of us. Hence, in the following, I want to focus on those that might be new to you and impact you most positively. > > ## What makes you really happier > > ### Experiences > > First, instead of investing in awesome stuff, we should spend our money on experiences. > > Empirical studies clearly show that people who use their money to buy *experiences* rather than *stuff* are significantly happier. The reason for this correlation is that experiences don’t stick around. Thus, we cannot get used to them and *hedonic adaptation* won’t kick in. > > Whereas you get used to driving in a Ferrari and your happiness will return to normal levels after a few months, you cannot get used to an awesome vacation with your fiance or friends. Yet, it will always remain in your memory, and you can always re-experience it by talking with people about it. > > Moreover, talking about a great experience will not only make you much happier than talking about awesome stuff but also engage people around you (people bragging/showing off aren’t really the people you love talking to, right?) since they may resonate with you (made/want to make a similar experience). > > ### Time affluence > > Second, if you have the choice, you should choose time over money. > > Meanwhile, it’s commonly known that our happiness won’t significantly increase – but rather may even decrease – once we achieve a certain income. Therefore, if you really want to maximize your happiness, you should rather work less, don’t stress yourself to climb the career ladder, and use more time for other vital areas of life, such as social connections, exercise, and sleep (we will talk about these factors later). > > If you invested your time rather in personal projects (e. g. building a side hustle) than in promotions and additional work hours, you could combine self-actualization and building financial security and independence with something that’s different from your main job. > > ### Increase your variety > > Third, increasing variety – not only in the area of career and generating income – has a significant positive effect on your happiness. The reason for that lies again in hedonic adaptation: Doing a broader variety of things will automatically curb the process of getting used to things. > > I’ve already written [an extensive article](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/how-to-add-more-variety-to-life) on how you can add more variety to your life. In summary, you can think of variety in three dimensions: People, places, and activities. Meet more people, see different places, or spend time on various activities. Having more of these types of variety will not only make your life more exciting but also boost your happiness. > > ### Stop social comparisons > > Among the factors that make us *miswant –* and thus less happy – most, social comparisons are particularly difficult to dampen. Social media, TV shows, magazines, the news – all these media constantly show us these seemingly perfect lives of other people. Today, we are almost everywhere confronted with them. Unsurprisingly, more and more people suffer because of these circumstances. > > A technique presented by the professor is in the real of cognitive-behavioral therapy: The *stop technique.* It’s very simple but effective. Once encounter a moment in which you notice you’re making a comparison, you just out loud literally say, *Stop!*. That might seem pretty silly, but I can tell from my experience that it’s very effective. > > Additionally, you should be conscious of the kinds of social comparisons you’re letting in. For example, if you’re worried about social comparisons for body-image, don’t look at the *Victoria’s Secret* catalogs but rather pay more attention to these Real Beauty campaigns. > > ### Kindness > > According to empirical research, another huge lever to make you happier is to be kind more often. There is a very strong significant effect that the money you spend on other people makes you happier than the money you spend on yourself. From a happiness perspective, somehow paradoxically, you should rather invest your money and time to make others happy to boost your own happiness. > > Since the day I worked through the lecture dealing with the impact of kindness on our happiness, I’ve sought out opportunities to act more kindly to other people, and my goal has been to do at least one kind deed per day. You cannot imagine how large and positive the impact of this new habit on my life has been so far. It’s enormous. > > Furthermore, it doesn’t make a significant difference whether you do a massive or a small kind deed – the boost of happiness is almost equal. Surprising your partner with a desert, giving an ear and listen carefully to a friend, helping your sibling out, or just holding the door open for a stranger. It’s much more about the act of kindness itself than about the magnitude. > > Please, try it by yourself, be more conscious about being kind to others, and I will promise you a great benefit. > > ### Physiological well-being > > Lastly, I want to point out two levers that will be no surprise to you but are massively effective. > > On the one hand, exercising regularly: Just exercising three times for 30 minutes a week can give you as much happiness as taking an SSRI (anti-depressant pill). What’s pretty cool: It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as you’re active and engaged. > > In my own experience, I can strongly confirm this scientific evidence. For instance, when I go for a run, listen to great music, and the sun is shining, I get a massive boost of serotonin. There very few things that give me such a great feeling. > > On the other hand, sleep: It is highly underrated. Sleep can not only prolong and qualitatively enhance your life, make you feel more confident, improve your look, make you a more attractive person, boost your immune system, increase fertility, reduce your risk to die from cardiovascular illnesses, or but also boosts your happiness. People deprived of sleep have a significantly worse mood and more physical and emotional complaints. > > Take at least on average 8 hours to sleep, which will result in about 7-7,5 hours of effective sleep time, in order to take advantage of this superpower. > > Unfortunately, too many people think that less sleep won’t worsen their lives. However, various clinical studies have shown that sleep-deprived people systematically underestimate their performance and well-being (and aren’t conscious about it – like a drunk person who claims not to be *that drunk).* --- # Want to really support your loved ones? Just do it - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/want-to-really-support-your-loved-ones-just-do-it - Date: 2020-11-01 - Categories: Goal Achievement, Relationships > > *Supporting another’s success won’t dampen yours.* > > Summary: > > * Being kind to others makes us significantly and sustainably happier > * Only a few people make use of the help you offered to them > * People don’t make use of help not because they don’t want or need it but because they either simply forget to ask or do not dare to accept it > > Practical advice: > > * Offer your help but focus on listening and don’t give unsolicited advice > * Understand in which areas the person might need help (pain points) > * Take action and just do it > > Dear friend, > > Have you ever been confronted with the following situation? > > Someone close to you (a friend, family member, etc.) complained about a problem s/he has. You – a helpful person – [listened to the person empathically](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/the-importance-of-right-listening) and instead of giving unsolicited advice (often misplaced), you solely offered your help. The other person, though, never made use of it and the problem still persisted. > > I’ve encountered this situation plenty of times. I love helping people and, thus, often offer my support. Yet, only a minority of people makes use of it. For instance, I often tell my friends to let me know when they want to get in touch with a person in my network who can help them. Only if I virtually forced them and initiated the connection by myself, they took advantage of it, and, most often, they experienced a real benefit from that. > > In today’s blog article, I talk about why supporting each other is essential, why we need more proactivity in helping others, and how I think we can support our loved ones best. > > ## Let’s support each other more > > Why do we actually need to support each other (more)? > > First, psychological research has shown that among the things that boost our happiness most, *kindness* is leading. No matter how rich or poor or our cultural and personal values, being kind to other people, e. g. doing someone a favor, makes us significantly happy. Moreover, we significantly underestimate how much happiness we gain from an act of kindness. > > Second, we need each other to make our world better. The power of community – helping each other flexibly – is what differentiates humans from other animals. Yuval Noah Harari, an Israel historian well-known for his publications, states that our capability to work in large numbers and in a flexible way is what has allowed us to dominate our plant. > > Nothing great has ever been achieved. So, if you aim high, have great ambitions, and want to leave a large footprint in our world, you need to acknowledge and harness the power of community. > > ## You just have to do it > > As written in the introduction, people often don’t take help even if explicitly offered. My past experience has shown that people don’t make use of it not because they don’t want or need it but because they either simply forget to ask or do not dare to accept it. I think that’s quite unfortunate. > > How can we overcome this conflict? > > I decided for myself that I don’t give unsolicited advice. Thus, helping *with words* is not an option. > > Moreover, I don’t want to convince people to accept my help by simply arguing. *Begging* people to *take YOUR help* not only seems pretty odd \*\*but also is still just a verbal commitment. > > After I had contemplated this issue a few months ago, I tried something new: Instead of waiting until the person reaches out and takes your help – a solely reactive approach, I took action by myself and provided help proactively and just did it. > > A few examples: > > * A friend of mine was searching for an internship. Instead of just offering help, I asked what kind of internship was interesting to him and proactively asked people in my network whether they needed a person like him. After I had received positive feedback, I approached my friend again and told him about it and told him to send me his CV. End of the story: He accepted the offer that was made to him and is now a happy intern. > * Some days ago, my girlfriend had a stressful day and wasn’t able to eat enough veggies and fruits (that is important to her). Instead of just asking whether I could bring her something (she responded something like “no thank you, I’m okay”), I proactively made her a smoothing containing all the veggies and fruits she likes. Her smile and joy were more than worth this 5-minute effort. > * At work, I want to support our Marketing Manager to make our brand more visible to millennials. I have already offered my help several times and reminded him to reach out to me. I know that he needs a new intern pretty soon and told him he just needs to send me the requirements this person has to fulfill for this position and I will use my network to support him. I still haven’t heard from him. In the meanwhile, though, I’m already proactively searching for potential candidates. Once I found some, I will present them to him even though he will most likely haven’t reached out to me and accepted my help yet. > > ## How you can support your friends best > > In my experience, there’s a fine line between helping someone proactively in his/her interest and forcing a certain outcome and making the person feel uncomfortable. In order to prevent unpleasant situations but still support my loved ones best, I apply the following approach when someone tells me about his/her problems: > > First, I offer my help. I tell them “just let me know when you want me to help you with xyz”. If they respond with something like “Thank you, I might take you up on your offer”, that’s a clear signal that they want your help but won’t make use of it later. > > Second, I focus on listening and don’t give unsolicited advice. I might have more experience in certain areas of life but unsolicited advice is often displaced and not taken seriously anyway. > > Third, I try to understand in which areas the person might need help (pain points) and ask clarifying questions: “In which areas do you want to make your internship?”, “Why haven’t you yet found a suitable internship?”, “What’s bothering you the most right now?” > > Fourth, be proactive, and just do it. Based on your assessment, you take proper action. > > You want to put a smile on your girl/boyfriend’s face by preparing breakfast for her/him? Just do it! S/he might respond “I’m good”, “It’s fine”, or “I’m okay” after you had asked her/him whether you could do her/him this favor, however, the most probable reason why you got this response is that s/he doesn’t want to bother you with that. > > The same applies to most other kinds of complaints: A friend… > > * cannot find a proper internship/job > * moves to a new apartment > * doesn’t know how to start working out or how to prepare healthy meals > * is too stressed out from work and has no clue how to finish a project > * … > > Finally, always keep in mind that if you only offer your help, most likely your proposal will remain just words that will never be implemented into real support. --- # How a definition can change your life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-a-definition-can-change-your-life - Date: 2020-10-25 - Categories: Well-Being > > *Success is understanding that you control your destiny* > > Summary: > > * Our social systems are built with harmful metrics of success > * It doesn’t matter how somebody else defines success; you need to develop your very own metrics for it > * By contemplating your own definition of success, you lay the foundation of a meaningful and happy life > > Practical advice: > > * Imagine a person whom you believe has achieved true success as well as one who hasn’t. Use these people as templates. > * Ask yourself: Why do you want to be successful? > * Never judge yourself based on the conventional definition of success again > > Dear friend, > > In a [recent article](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/grow-personally-by-measuring-your-life), I wrote about why you should measure your life, how that can increase your awareness of the things that really matter, and how that can improve your overall well-being. > > Many of us, though, already measure a few things in life. Particularly, almost all of us have a measure of *success.* > > But how do we actually define success? > > I’m strongly convinced that we have to define success individually and don’t let society spoil our very own perception of being successful (or not). Moreover, I believe we all have to make a meaningful effort to find a suitable individual definition. > > In today’s blog article, I want to share with you how you can become a significantly happier person by developing your own definition of success, provide you help to create that and implement it into your life, and give you my definition of success as inspiration. > > ## Defining success > > Society and, in particular, the media tell us that the rich, pretty, and intelligent people are whom we should aim for. Kim Kardashian, influencers, stars, athletes, business owners, etc. – these people are often associated with being successful. > > In my view, that’s not only total crap but poison for our society. Our social systems are built with these *harmful* metrics of success, which we are virtually forced to follow if we don’t want to be perceived as a *failure*. > > I stopped measuring success by means of monetary wealth, intelligence, or the way I look. Rather, I relate my actions to the social and global impact they have. > > In my view, I am successful when I set ambitious goals (no happy accidents), work hard for them (meaningful effort), and contribute positively to society (McDonald’s creates great shareholder value but indirectly ruins the life of Millions of people). > > Consequently, I wouldn’t perceive myself successful if I made tons of money by exploiting factory workers in Asia, got good grades and didn’t use them for creating societal welfare, or broadcasted a reality show and made billions by setting new beauty standards, making people get depressions, and selling cosmetics nobody needs. > > ## A definition that has the potential to change your life > > Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter how I or somebody else define success. If you want to enhance your well-being, you need to develop your very own metrics for success. > > Don’t let anybody tell you how you have to live your life. Life is too short to let others spoil your limited time on Earth. If you steer towards metrics someone else determined, you live the life others set for you. > > By contemplating your own definition of success, you lay the foundation of a meaningful and happy life. Social comparison is among the factors that make people the most unhappy. The conventional success definition is based on steady comparisons, whether it is money, aesthetics, achievements, or number of likes and followers. > > Moreover, the societal definition of success doesn’t provide an answer to *why.* Why should you strive for monetary wealth, beauty, etc? Spoiler alert: Empirical studies have shown – for years – that these materialistic awesome things won’t make you happy but rather tend to make people feel more miserable. > > If you incorporate a strong *why* in your success definition, you will have a metric that will support you throughout your life to be the happy person you want to be. > > ## Find your own metrics of success > > First, imagine a person whom you believe has achieved true success. Use this person as a template: > > What does this person exactly do and whom does s/he directly and indirectly affect? For example, Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft. His company affects, directly and indirectly, billions of people. What are the positive and negative effects of his actions? How did he achieve that? Why did he want to achieve it? Do you think he is a happy person? > > Second, imagine a person whom you believe has achieved NO success. Use this person as a template to find out how success doesn’t look like. I, for instance, have a strong bias against celebrities like the Kardashians. In order to explore this prejudice, I asked myself why I think these people aren’t good for our society and framed my own success definition around the answers. > > Third, ask yourself: Why do you want to be successful? Why should you strive for something that you define as success? As mentioned at the beginning, I use my success definition as a proxy for the global and social impact I want to have in this world. Being successful means contributing to a better world. And making this world at least a little better is what eventually makes me happy. Thus, being successful implies happiness. > > But you should ask yourself the same questions. Do you want to maximize your happiness? Do you want to be famous? Do you want to be influential, powerful, inspirational, well-known, … > > Use the outcomes of these three steps to devise your success definition. Then, from now on, you should never judge yourself based on the conventional definition of it again. Steer towards your metrics and advance towards a truly meaningful life. --- # Utilize the power of community - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/utilize-the-power-of-community - Date: 2020-10-18 - Categories: Relationships > > *Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much* – Helen Keller > > Summary: > > * You simply cannot do everything by yourself > * People love helping and doing favors > * Each and every problem has already been faced or even been solved by another person > > Practical advice: > > * Rewire your brain and implement a win-win mindset > * Ask yourself every time you face a problem: How can someone else help me? Who has most likely already faced this situation? > * Give without keeping score & become part of our community > > Dear friend, > > This week, together with my new flatmate, I moved to a new apartment. After we had purchased our new furniture at IKEA, needless to say, we needed to put it together. My flatmate asked a friend whether he wanted to help him, and his friend was almost eager to help him out; he was kinda thrilled to set up his desk for him. > > This anecdote reminded me of my past self contrarily: I used to never ask for help, either because of my ego or because of my belief that nobody likes helping. > > In today’s blog post, I will write about this misconception, the shift of my mindset, why we should never hesitate to ask for help, and how you can better achieve your goals with the power of community. > > ## People love solving problems & doing favors > > In my youth, I really disliked when people wanted to help me with something. I wanted to do everything by myself as I didn’t trust others, didn’t understand the power of community, and felt kinda disabled when others helped me. > > My mindset changed after I had read the book *Never eat alone,* had taken action, and had implemented the concepts. Today, I know that in my past days, I was an idiot: You simply cannot do everything by yourself. You’re not stupid, you’re not incapable of anything, and you can trust your friends and family when you let them help you. > > Additionally, I made a crucial realization: People love helping and doing favors. > > A factor that still inhibits me from asking for support is the notion that the task is unpleasant and I don’t want other to feel uncomfortable. It might be true that a problem you need to solve requires unpleasant work, such as carrying heavy furniture. However, you almost always experience a lot of joy when you do someone a favor. And still feeling alone most often far outweighs the discomfort the task *might* bring along. > > On top of that, when you ask the right people, they will most likely enjoy the task itself. For instance, I love helping others with maths. When I was in high school and someone asked me for help, I was eager to study with them. Another example: The friend of my flatmate really enjoyed setting up the new desk. If I had built up this desk, though, I wouldn’t have been pleased with it at all. > > ## Support from others is a massive lever > > Not only most people will like doing you a favor when you ask them for help, but also they will help you to achieve your goal more successfully. > > Each and every problem has already been faced or even been solved by another person. By asking for help, you can tap this experience and knowledge. For instance, without the help of his friend, my flatmate had taken so much more time to set up all the furniture. > > Moreover, solely asking for advice can prevent you from doing unnecessary mistakes. In most areas of life, every beginner does the same mistakes. Asking a more experienced person for help massively decreases the likelihood that you will do them as well. > > Without the support of the people around you, nothing great has ever been achieved. Every great accomplishment is the result of united people working towards a common goal. Yet, no matter how large or small your challenge is, never hesitate to ask a friend or your family for help. > > ## How to harness the power of community > > Now, how can you convince yourself to ask more often for help? How can you make use of the *power of community*? > > First, rewire your brain and implement a win-win mindset: Think about situations when you helped someone you like. In most cases, you had at least a decent but most often a great time. It feels great to do others a favor, in particular when they are appreciative. The same goes for everyone. Don’t be afraid to offer others an opportunity to do you a favor. > > Second, ask yourself every time you face a problem: How can someone else help me? Who has most likely already faced this situation? Once you make it a habit to question a challenge and contemplate people who can help you, asking for help will become easier and easier. > > Third, [give without keeping score](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/don-t-give-with-the-expectation-of-receiving-something-in-return). Another important step to utilize the power of the community is to become part of it. Most of you will already apply this mindset, however, some of you might struggle with the following issue as I used to: In my early days as a teenager, I only did something when I knew that I’ll receive something in return. > > Consequently, I only asked for help when I knew that I’ve already done a favor for this person. Today, I know that I must not keep score. As a result, I ask for a favor even though I don’t know whether I can give (enough) something in return. And that’s totally fine. There’re plenty of people who have much more resources than most of us will ever have and they’re just waiting for others to tap this pool since they know that sharing makes happy. > > For example, if you somehow personally knew Bill Gates and could ask him for a little investment in your social startup, he would most likely welcome this opportunity since he wants to contribute to a better world. Even though you can never give him something equivalent in return, you still should go for it. And the same goes for everything. > > Once you stop keeping score and start asking for help whenever the power of community can be made use of, you will progress significantly. --- # Grow personally by measuring your life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/grow-personally-by-measuring-your-life - Date: 2020-10-11 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *What We Measure, We Improve –* James Clear > > Summary: > > * When we start measuring things, we create vital awareness for things that matter to us > * What we measure, we improve > * A proxy is sufficient; a perfect measure not required > > Practical advice: > > * Find a simple metric that is strongly linked to the relevant area of life you want to improve > * Focus on consistency: It’s much more about the process than the results > * Start with no more than 3 metrics to measure > > Dear friend, > > Do you exercise regularly? > > When I go to the gym and look around me, I rarely find people who track their performance. Only a minority counts its reps or weight, and even fewer people track their resting time or time under tension. > > You can still build muscles, and you can still achieve a great physique. Yet, not tracking anything makes it very difficult to progress further once you reached an advanced level. > > You might not work out or exercise regularly, so, **why should you care?** Or maybe you’re satisfied with the level you achieved. Fine. But here’s the thing: There’re plenty of other areas in your life that are important to you, but you don’t measure them. Consequently, you won’t progress and stagnate. > > If you’re one of these people who are totally happy with their life, this article might not be a good fit for you. Otherwise, I invite you to read this short article in which I share my thoughts on measuring what matters in life to make the most out of it and give you practical advice on how you can measure and progress more easily. > > ## It’s not about the result, it’s about awareness > > When we start measuring things – for instance, how much money we spend on online shopping each month – we are often astonished about the difference between the *felt*/estimated and the *real*/objectively measured expenses. For example, I always *felt*/thought that I spend approx. 800 Euros a month. The *actual* figure, though, is 20% higher. > > Generally, the actual result of measuring something doesn’t really matter. In fact, what’s crucial: *The realization* that there’s a substantial gap between what one think/feel is real and what the actual reality is. > > Since I tracked my monthly spending, I have been significantly more aware of my expenditures and spend less on things that I don’t need. > > ## What we measure, we improve > > Keeping track of something works like a reminder. And often, that’s all we need: > > * Pushing myself to do one more rep each workout was enough to progress substantially > * Reading 10 pages a day has changed my youth and made me the happy person I am today > * Reflecting daily for 5 minutes has a huge positive impact on my well-being > * Keeping track of being kind to at least one person a day gives me so much in return > * Contemplating each month whether I’m still consistent with my core values aligns me with my vision and purpose of life, providing me with an essential boost of motivation > * … > > I’m greatly convinced that consistency is the key to a happy and successful life. Keeping track of something that matters to you will help you to stay consistent. > > There plenty of things you might think aren’t measurable. For instance, love, maturing, integrity, happiness, health, innovation, etc. How can one measure these things? > > As I’ve stated, it’s much more about awareness than the result. Consequently, you just need a [proxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_\(statistics\)) that allows becoming aware of the things that are important to you. > > Let’s take *love* as an example: > > Marian Keyes wrote: “Some think love can be measured by the amount of butterflies in their tummy. Others think love can be measured in bunches of flowers. But love can only truly be measured by actions. It can be a small thing, such as peeling an orange for a person you love because you know they don’t like doing it. Or it can be something bigger, where you stand up for someone and risk ridicule yourself.” > > Regarding this excerpt, a good proxy to love is the number of deeds that are meaningful to another person and one does for him/her. Measuring these actions to create more awareness can be pretty simple: How often do you surprise your partner with something meaningful? How often do you *really* listen to him/her? How often do you tell your partner that you love xyz about him/her? How often do you do something kind? Set yourself goals (for instance, write a cute good morning message 5 times a week), execute, and measure. Once you hold yourself accountable and create transparency for the things that matter to you, you will progress. > > ## How to measure your life > > When I started measuring more and more areas of my life, I tried several things and made plenty of mistakes (or at least did a lot of things that didn’t create enough awareness). In the following, I will point out the success factors you should consider and illustrate simple techniques that will have a meaningful impact on your life when implemented. > > First and foremost, it’s vital to find a simple metric that is strongly linked to the relevant area of life you want to improve. Measuring how many seconds one listened to her/his partner per week is definitely strongly linked to the quality of the relationship. Nevertheless, it’s virtually impracticable to implement. Rather, each day before going to bed, one could note down whether one was able to listen to his/her partner without interruption (i. e. until one was asked a question) *at least once*. > > → Much easier to implement and still creates huge awareness for this issue). > > Second, consistency is key. It’s much more about the process than the results. Focus on staying consistent, a) track your *performance* as consistent as possible and b) each and every progress is better than no progress at all. Thus, start small. You don’t need to bench 5kg more each work out to become big. Doing one more rep *each week* is totally enough. Later, 1 more rep *each month* might be sufficient. Consistency is key. > > Third, start with no more than 3 metrics to measure. Don’t waste your motivation by measuring everything you can and being overwhelmed by the amount of effort that it will take. I measure about 20 metrics (routines, running + lifting, spending, nutrition, sleep, YouTube, Instagram, etc) regularly. Measuring those has become an integral part of my life and many of them are automatically tracked, such as my sleep, running performance, or my personal branding metrics. It doesn’t take me much to do that, however, I started with very few, such as tracking the resting time between my workout sets, and accumulated more and more metrics. > > Finally, I want to give you some suggestions regarding what you can begin to measure: > > * Every day, write down 3 things what you are grateful for (regarding your own life, your partner, and/or your friends/family) > * Keep a sleep diary: The average person has to take 8 hours for sleep each day so as not to suffer from lack of sleep > * Track how many portions of vegetables and fruits you eat per day --- # Why you are less happy than you could be - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-you-are-less-happy-than-you-could-be - Date: 2020-10-04 - Categories: Well-Being > > *It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. –* Charles Spurgeon > > Summary: > > * We systematically *miswant* things; achieving goals won’t make us happy > * Our own reference points constantly adapt to our current situation, thus, we never get satisfied > * We constantly compare ourselves to others, heavily harming our happiness > > Practical advice: > > * Genuinely appreciate your current and past successes > * Focus on goals that will force you to pursue a path that will make you a happier person > * Compare yourself only to the best self you can be > > Dear friend, > > This week, I was once again reminded that life and happiness are all about the little things: > > Currently, I work for a startup company and, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, my colleagues and I can go to the office every day. On Wednesday, though, our management and subsequently the whole company were informed that one of our colleagues was in contact with a person who was tested positively for the coronavirus. > > With immediate effect, we all had to leave the office (in compliance with hygiene rules) and self-isolate until we found out whether our colleague was infected as well. > > Luckily, the person didn’t test positive; however, we first knew the result two days later on Friday. > > During these two days of uncertainty, I had to quit my trip to my family, couldn’t go to the gym, couldn’t buy groceries in spite of an almost empty fridge, etc. > > As you can imagine, I was unbelievably happy after I had received the relieving message. > > This little anecdote illustrates that we – or at least I – take too many things for granted and don’t really know what makes us truly happy. > > Since I’m doing the *Science of Well-Being* class of the Yale University, which is all about the science of happiness, and this incident helped me to apply the concepts of the course, I want to share with you very interesting insights of the class, talk about misconceptions regarding happiness, and why we have this wrong understanding. > > ## Things that don’t make us happy > > What really surprised me in this Yale class was that goals don’t make us happy. Using empirical studies, professor Laurie Santos illustrates various misconceptions about happiness: Getting good grades, achieving a high salary, buying a large house, having a cosmetical surgery or going on diet to achieve the perfect body, driving an expensive car, getting married, etc. – all these things seem to make us very happy, but in fact, research shows that the real gain in happiness when we achieve these *awesome things* is marginal, non-existent, or even negative. > > ## But why do we think that these things will make us happy? > > The answer to this question is *miswanting*, the act of being mistaken about what and how much you’re going to like certain things in the future. > > ### And why do we *miswant?* > > We are constantly judging relative to other stuff out there in the world, and it messes up our judgment of what we really care about. > > ### Our own reference point > > We compare things in the future with those of the past or the present. For instance, science shows that if you make 30k a year right now, you would think that 50k a year would make you truly happier. However, if you then would be asked, how much money you would need to be happier, you’d say even more money. Since our own reference points constantly adapt to our current situation, **we kind of never get satisfied.** And this is applicable to all kinds of *awesome stuff*: Bigger house, more aesthetic body, more fortune, better grades, etc. > > ### Social comparisons > > Second, even worse: social comparisons, the act of evaluating yourself – be it whatever it is (salary, possessions, abilities, beauty, and grades, whatever) – relative to other people. Research shows that we’re constantly comparing ourselves to others. Unsurprisingly, people who tend to watch more TV and more YouTube videos or are more frequently using Instagram and other social media platforms (beautiful and rich celebrities, fashion shows, expensive cars, etc.) are significantly unhappier than others who limit their consumption. Another study showed that the majority of people would rather earn $50k, but everyone else in their firm at their same level is only earning $25K than earning $100k, but everyone else around them in their similar pay grade is actually earning $250k. > > ### Getting used to things > > Third, we don’t realize how fast we get used to awesome stuff. Our minds are built to adapt, and this is the reason why getting something awesome or getting more of it won’t make you really happy. > > The problem with all awesome things is that once we get them, usually they tend to stick around, or if we get a new job, we’re going to be in that job for a while. No matter whether you buy awesome stuff, a new car, a house; you meet the person of your dreams; you achieve perfect grades – these things stick around, you get used to them, and they become the new normal. They stop bringing you the happiness that you expect and reset your reference point for the future. The main reason why lottery winners don’t become happier people. > > ## What you can do to become happier > > In my next article about happiness, I’ll dive deeper into this topic and give you more detailed answers to the question of how you can become a happier person. Yet, in this blog post, I want to portray you ways how you can reduce the likelihood of miswanting and how you can set goals that make you a happier person. > > ### Practice appreciation > > You can become significantly happier by genuinely appreciate your current and past successes. Think about your achievements in the past few months and praise yourself for how far you’ve come, what challenges and obstacles you needed to overcome, and how much discipline and effort you invested. > > I tell myself to be never satisfied, to strive for more and better results. Yet, I’m a very happy person. And why? Because I’m grateful for every little opportunity life has offered me. I appreciate every second of life. Every night, before I go to sleep, I ask myself *What were my biggest successes today?* and *What I’m looking forward to tomorrow?*. These little exercises help me to practice appreciation daily and make me a much happier person. > > ### It’s much more about the challenge than the goal > > Since now you know that goals and *awesome stuff* won’t make you a happy person, you may think goals are generally a bad idea and throw all your goals overboard. That’d be too short-sighted though. > > What I’d suggest you to do is to focus on goals that will force you to pursue a path that will make you a happier person. For instance, having the perfect body won’t make you a happier person; however, eating healthier, doing regular workouts, and exercising something will definitely make you a happier person. Another example: Working 100 hours a week in investment banking to get hundreds of thousands of bucks a year although you don’t love the job won’t make you a happy person (actually you will kill your immune system, social circle, and you might abuse drugs). Yet, working hard for something that gives you purpose and ultimately achieving it, such as building a school in Uganda, will definitely make you a happier person. Not because you achieved something but because you created something for people you care about. > > ### Stop comparing > > Lastly, what’s most important or the most significant lever to become a happier person: stop comparing yourself to others. > > Particularly, our generation (Gen Y) and the following generations will be significantly (statistically spoken) unhappier because of *the Media*. Social media – Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc. – have an unbelievable potential and can create enormous wealth (enabling communication and broadcasting across the globe, initiating and developing great communities, and creating meaningful content much more easily to name a few achievements). Yet, all these great influencers showing off their seemingly perfect lives poison our happiness. All these social media platforms encourage users to constantly compare themselves with each other and the people apparently most successful in showing off and presenting their *perfect* life gain the most attention (likes, engagement, reach). > > An overwhelming multitude of studies shows that comparisons with others make us unhappy. In my opinion, this issue is not only empirically evident but logically plausible. It just cannot be sensible to compare yourself to others. We all have a different starting point. It would not only be unfair to compare yourself to others but dumb. Nevertheless, most people don’t spend time and effort in order to change their minds and concentrate on their very own. > > From now on, you should compare yourself only to the best self you can be. Think about the person you would love to be and ask yourself how it’d be to achieve this state of life (and keep our tendency to miswant things in mind!). --- # How reading has changed my life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-reading-has-changed-my-life - Date: 2020-09-28 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *The world belongs to those who read –* Rick Holland > > Summary: > > * Books are a super cheap, highly underrated gateway to the knowledge of the best experts > * Too many people believe that reading alone will change their life > * Knowledge can only be harnessed if it’s used > > Practical advice: > > * Start slowly and stay consistent > * Read books that can help you to solve a problem you would like to be solved > * Write down three to-dos once you finished a book > > Dear friend, > > If you asked me what is the habit that’s had the most impact on my life, I’d give you a quick and clear answer: reading. > > Consuming non-fictional books and processing their information has changed my whole life – for the better: I’m happier, more self-confident, have more fun, can live life more to the fullest, experience more freedom, set and achieve ambitious goals, became more resilient… > > In today’s blog article, I want to share with you all the great benefits of this habit, illustrate how you can develop this habit too, and talk about the importance of practical implementation. > > ## Tap a pool of unlimited wisdom > > When I happened to read my first non-fictional book, I didn’t know what was coming afterward. I purchased it because I received a book voucher and didn’t want to waste the money. I hated reading in school, so it was quite challenging to get started. Since I deliberately selected a book that promised me to “make my life more successful”, I gave it a try. Even though the insights were superficial, they stuck in my mind and I could implement them (for instance, always make a decision and make it fast and be consistent). > > Today, dozens of books later, I made progress in various areas of life: health, sports, psychology, personal development, entrepreneurship, dating, goal achievement, motivation, and many more. > > Books are a super cheap, highly underrated gateway to the knowledge and experience of experts in almost every subject. For only 10 bucks, you can get the manual to achieve a level of self-confidence you’ve ever dreamed of, a summary of the most important principles of the most successful entrepreneurs, the blueprint to build your very own personal brand, etc. > > There’re people spending (hundreds/tens of) thousands of euros for education, workshops, seminars, and other teaching formats. I’d guess that 99% of this knowledge is also stored in books, which you can find and buy in the library around the corner or on the internet. > > Unfortunately, too many people – as I used to – don’t understand the enormous potential of this pool of wisdom. > > ## Just because you read it doesn’t mean you learned it > > What many people fail at and the main reason why many quickly give up this habit is the learning curve: Too many people believe that reading alone will change their life. It might be true that you sometimes (unconsciously) apply the knowledge from the books you read and advance in the respective field; however, without a deliberate effort and practical implementation of the newly acquired knowledge, nothing will really change. > > This pool of experts’ knowledge can only be harnessed if it’ll be used; otherwise, you’ll forget the knowledge faster than you can read. > > For example, I read a fascinating book about geography two years ago. Since I didn’t take notes or write a summary after finishing it, I forgot 99% of the content. When I subsequently read a philosophy book about the freedom of will, I took notes and build on that knowledge by researching. Today, I’m still able to talk about the key insights and have a discussion about whether we have free will on the basis of this book. > > That was an abstract example. A more interesting one is the following: Before I flew to the USA, I had contemplated what I could do that greatly challenges me. I decided to build my own personal brand. So, I bought a book dealing with this topic. After reading it, I built my own website + blog, started a YouTube channel, expanded my personal brand on Instagram, and the next platform is about to follow. > > The same goes for my *personal development journey*. In Tony Robbin’s *Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement*, he points out the importance of defining one’s own most important values. After reading this chapter, I took pen and paper and followed his manual to discover my personal values. You probably cannot imagine the impact of this little time investment, but I can tell you it’s had an enormously positive one on my life so far. > > ## How to develop this habit > > If you’re still reading this article or jumped right to this paragraph, you should definitely retain one information: Start slowly and stay consistent. > > When I got started, I read 10 min max. My main goal, though, was to read every single day. No matter the circumstances. I read right before I went to sleep. And even when I was drunk from a party, I told myself I had to read. I was all about consistency. > > As you can read in *The power of habit* (great book though), you’ll need a lot of discipline at the beginning of the development of a new habit. Once you accomplished a streak of about 2 weeks, you’ll need less and less discipline to stay consistent. After about 2 months, you probably won’t need any discipline anymore. Eventually, you’ll reach a state in which you have an inner desire to perform your habit. Not reading after you’ve done it consistently over a period of years will feel like going to school/work without brushing your teeth. > > Thus, you need to stay 100% consistent when you get started. No excuses. > > Moreover, you should optimize the circumstances so that you can maintain your streak as easy as possible: > > * Don’t force yourself to read more than feels good (10 minutes is totally fine when you get started) > * Read a book that can help you to solve a problem you would like to be solved (for instance, you want to learn dealing better with verbal confrontations, so you buy a book teaching you argumentation techniques) > * Have a clear *habit trigger* and stick to it: For instance, you always read before you go to bed → Going to bed is your *trigger* > * Use customer reviews to find a good book so that you don’t waste time with one that won’t help you > > In order to make the most out of your reading time, you should take notes and/or use a marker to highlight passages you want to remember later. Moreover, I summarize each and every book I read. That allows me to rethink, remember, and grasp the most important parts. > > Ultimately, you need to force yourself to take action and implement the theoretical concepts. Most of the personal development books have clear *assignments* which the authors incorporated in their works. However, if you read a biography, for instance, there won’t be any practical advice. Thus, you need to create your own *action plan*. > > A year ago, I started to write down three to-dos once I finished a book in order to put into practice the content of it. For instance, after I had finished *The ride of a lifetime* from Robert Igor, one of my to-dos was to write a blog article about *Integrity* (it was one of the key values he attributed great leaders) and to develop a habit that allows me to implement his concept of *the relentless pursuit of perfection* (as part of my weekly reflection, I ask myself *What should I’ve done better this week?* > > You can use my strategy or find your own way. What’s crucial, though, you need to put your readings into practice. Then, you’ll clearly experience progress, no matter what you’re trying to advance. --- # Harness clarity — achieve your goals and become more productive - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/harness-clarity-achieve-your-goals-become-more-productive - Date: 2020-09-20 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *A lack of clarity could put the brakes on any journey to success. –* Steve Maraboli > > Summary: > > * We’re repeatedly procrastinating from doing something often because we don’t have enough clarity about it > * A lack of clarity implies having no clue about what to do and how much time is needed > > Practical advice: > > * How you devise your daily to-do list can have a significant impact on whether you accomplish all your tasks > * Differentiate between *tasks* and *projects* > * Your daily to-dos are tasks, which you should write down clearly and broken down into small pieces and are derived from your projects > > Dear friend, > > I’m quite sure that you’ve already experienced the following situation: You constructed a fully loaded to-do list, and you have no idea how you can accomplish this workload. Then unsurprisingly, at the end of the day, more than half of the tasks are still unfinished. > > When I started to use a bullet journal to structure my workload and create daily to-do lists, I encountered this situation almost every day. It felt very dissatisfying. > > Today, I’m able to create to-do lists that I can fully accomplish and help me to be highly productive. > > In today’s blog post, I want to talk about the power of clarity, why we often fail to get started and accomplish our daily task lists, and how you can harness clarity to become more productive and effective in achieving your goals. > > ## Why we fail to get started > > Often, when we’re repeatedly procrastinating from doing something, it’s because we don’t have enough clarity about the thing. > > What do I mean by that? > > I used to write down my to-dos very vaguely: “Study math” or “Research topic xyz”. Using these unclear descriptions, you cannot really grasp the size of your endeavor: You don’t know how much time you’ll need today, how much time the project/task will take in total, and what you actually need to do today to get closer to your goal. > > Since we consequently don’t really know what we have to do and how much time is actually left, we procrastinate and are unmotivated until the workload manifests, our stress level surges, and the deadline is imminent. In this case, we still don’t know how much time we’ll need to accomplish the task and what we need to do in order to meet the deadline; however, since it’s already too late, we panic and do as much as we can to deliver an > > acceptable result. > > Even though we love solving problems, accomplishing tasks, and achieving our goals, a lack of clarity – clarity about what we have to do, how much, and when – keeps us from getting things done. > > ## The power of clarity > > Instead of listing vaguely described tasks, we should write down our everyday tasks very clearly and broken down into small pieces. > > We might write *Anatomy revision* or *Instagram bio redesign* on our to-do list. But when it comes to sitting down to work, we see the list, and our brain says *nope*! > > It’s saying *nope* because there’s just not enough clarity. What the hell does ‘Anatomy revision’ mean? We’re unlikely to revise the entirety of the field in one sitting, but we write it on our to-do lists as if we’re going to. > > And when we see things such as ‘YouTube Channel Strategy’, our brain conjures up the mountain of work that would involve, and we continue to procrastinate from it. > > To overcome this issue, we need more clarity in devising our work plans. > > ## How to harness clarity > > Think about things you want to achieve this week/this month. Those are your projects. For instance, prepare for an exam, organize a party, go on diet, etc. > > When you contemplate your daily tasks, you should use these monthly and weekly to-dos (your projects) and write down clearly what you need to do today to accomplish them. For example, in order to prepare for an exam, you shouldn’t write down *revisite anatomy*, but rather you should write down *read pages xy-zx, summarize chapter 6, write introduction for essay*. Don’t write down *study xyz* but concisely and clearly describe what you want to today to achieve your project. > > More examples: *Clean household* is too vague. *Doing the laundry, clean the floor,* and *take out the garbage* are better descriptions. The same goes for *produce video, organize party, buy Christmas gifts, prepare presentation,* etc. > > You should aim to break down your daily task in very small pieces so that you immediately know what you have to do. This will allow your brain to understand that the tasks are easily achievable, and the feeling of checking these to-dos off is a very rewarding experience. --- # How to set priorities & get more out of your time - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-set-priorities-get-more-out-of-your-time - Date: 2020-09-13 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Action expresses priorities. –* Mahatma Gandhi > > Summary: > > * We underestimate what we can really accomplish in every day’s 24 hours > * It’s not that you don’t have the time to do something, but you don’t prioritize properly > * There are so many things that steal our time; often, we aren’t aware of them > > Practical advice: > > * Be honest and don’t tell yourself: “I don’t have time for that.” Instead say: “That is not a priority for me at the moment.” > * Decide what is really important to you; think about the long-term value of it > * If you really don’t want to do something, say no right from the beginning > > Dear friend, > > How often do you tell others that you don’t have the time to do something? > > For instance, you’re asked why you don’t sleep more since you’re appearing very tired; you’re asked why you always eat out or order food delivery; you’re asked why you don’t read the news or books; you’re asked whether you’d like to come to a party or join a pub crawl, etc. > > We often use the excuse of not having enough time. Actually, though, it’s never a matter of time but priorities. > > In today’s blog post, I’ll illustrate why you’re lying to yourself and others when use the *I don’t have time for that* – excuse, why you need to prioritize better, and how you make more out of your time setting the right priorities. > > ## Don’t lie to yourself – you’ve more time than you think > > When I was in high school and did my *Abitur* (A-levels), it felt like I was busy all day long. Later though, when I needed to prepare for the first exams in my bachelor’s, I made a realization: “Wow, I have to study at least double the amount compared to high school and I’m still able to do sports, read, meet friends, and do everything else I was doing during high school.” > > 12 months later, the very same realization: I was mainly responsible for a student organization with almost 100 active members, had at least 2 meetings per week, went to conferences to meet potential sponsors and talk to speakers to get them for our organization, was a working student and worked 16 hours a week, did even more sports, went out even more often, and somehow I managed to not only have the best finals in my whole bachelor’s but also accomplish the most credits (study workload) in one semester. > > This anecdote isn’t intended to *show off* my time-management skills, but rather I want to expose my/our failure to adequately estimate what we can accomplish in every day’s 24 hours. If you told me in my early years as a high school student that I was able to accomplish so much work in so little time, I wouldn’t have believed you. > > I’m sure that you’ve already made similar realizations. Once we start working or going to college, we need to learn to use our time more efficiently and cut out things that prevent us from accomplishing our endeavor. > > In today’s world, there are so many things that steal our time, and often, we aren’t aware of them: Social Media (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc.), coffee chats, watching TV & Netflix, … > > I don’t want to persuade you that these things are generally bad (I love coffee chats!); however, I want you to think about that it’s not that you don’t have the time to do something, but you don’t prioritize adequately and waste a lot of time. > > ## Prioritize properly > > Just imagine a very good friend is calling you and tells you that s/he is about to die, needs your help to take him/her to a hospital, and it needs to happen very fast. No matter what you’re doing in this exact moment, there’s a 99% probability that you’d drop everything and drive to your friend. > > Another mental game: Your doctor tells you that you’re going to die in two weeks unless you go for a 30-min-run every day from now on. Would you still tell yourself that you don’t have the time to do sports? > > When we manage our time, we often use “urgency” as a key metric to decide whether we do something. The higher the urgency, the higher the priority: Work is urgent; studying two days before an exam is urgent; eating when you’re starving is urgent. > > Various crucial things in our life, though, don’t seem to be urgent: Cooking healthy meals, doing sports, meeting friends, going to sleep early, etc. They only become urgent when it’s already too late: For instance, people not doing regular sports have a substantially higher chance of dying early because of cardiovascular illnesses or sleeping shortage kills your immune system, hormone levels, affects your psychological, and physical well-being adversely. > > When you make a conscious decision whether you have to time to do something, don’t only evaluate the obvious short-term value/urgency of something but also contemplate the long-term consequences of (not) doing something. This is easier said than done. Thus, I’ll give you a few ideas to get more out of your time and better set priorities in the following. > > ## How to set priorities & get more out of your time > > From now on, you shouldn’t tell yourself or anyone else: “I don’t have time for that” but “That has a too low/is not a priority for me at the moment.” Learn to be honest with yourself and clear to others. > > Moreover, decide what is *really* important to you and be more disciplined about getting the most vital things done first, especially if it involves family and friends. Work or university will always be there but children grow up and friends will find other people to spend time with. > > When deciding whether you do something, think about the long-term value of it and the concept of momentum. Getting something started might take a lot of effort and feels inconvenient (doing sports regularly for instance), but the long-run value of healthy habits will often outweigh this initial inconvenience by far. Vice versa, you should keep in mind that *bad* habits that don’t seem too damaging at first might have a substantial impact on your life in the long-run. Drinking a glass of wine from time to time has almost no negative consequences on your physical well-being. Drinking a bottle of wine on a daily basis, though, can have severe effects on your body. > > Set yourself clear boundaries. If you really don’t want to do something – for whatever reason – say no right from the beginning. And if realize that you using the “I don’t have time for that” excuse too often, identify the factors in your life stealing you the most time and set clear limits (no Netflix during the workweek, no social media past 9 pm, etc.). --- # Give without expecting something in return - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/give-without-expecting-something-in-return - Date: 2020-09-06 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *When you can give without expecting anything in return, you have mastered the art of living. –* Jon Mead > > Summary: > > * You cannot control whether a person will return the favor. But when you expect, you give them control over your well-being. > * The higher your expectations, the higher the possibility of great disappointment > * When you don’t expect anything, even a little positive emotion can make you happy > > Practical advice: > > * Draw a line between the things you can give unlimitedly and the things you cannot > * Make it a habit to give freely > * Ask yourself every week who deserves a big thank you > > Dear friend, > > When you do someone a favor, do you expect something in return? Or do you give freely, without even thinking about it? > > In my early days as a teenager, I only did/gave something when I knew that I’ll receive something in return: For example, I only helped one of my siblings when s/he helped me, too, and I only gave someone my homework so that s/he can copy it when this person could help me someday as well. > > A few years ago, I read the book “Never Eat Alone”, in which the author Keith Ferrazzi states that you should never keep score and elaborates the reasoning behind this notion. Since then, I’ve shifted from a *quid-pro-quo*\-mindset to this *abundance/never-expect-return-*mindset. > > In today’s article, I want to talk about why it’s better to give without expecting something in return, what you should give and when you shouldn’t give, as well as how you can change your quid pro quo mindset. > > ## Why having no expectations is better > > First, when you give without keeping score, you’ll have more peace of mind. It’s a quite simple equation explaining why that is the case: no expectations = no disappointment. > > Once you expect something in return, there’s always the possibility that the other person will let you down. The higher your expectations, the higher the possibility of great disappointment. People who always expect something in return when they give often experience disappointment and become bitter and resentful. That can be very damaging to them. > > Particularly, that’s the case when you give a lot and don’t get anything in return, for instance, you planned and threw a surprise party for a friend, you invested a lot of time into this endeavor, and your friend would never really give you something similar back. > > Having no expectations of others frees your mind. You can give as much as you want and you’ll never be frustrated because another person didn’t reciprocate. > > You just cannot control whether a person will return the favor. But when you expect, you give them control over your well-being. > > Second, it’s a great pleasure to give freely. Having no expectations implies that you’ll always feel a sense of pleasure and joy when another person returns your favor. When you don’t expect anything, even a little positive emotion can make you happy. We love seeing people’s reactions and emotions; emotions and feelings are what makes life so beautiful. > > Third, not keeping score is a much easier way of living: Once you stop expecting something in return, you don’t have to contemplate whom you want to give and whom not. From the moment you start giving freely, you can solely focus on yourself and the intrinsic motivation to give. Do you have the time to give? Do you have the money to give? Do you think it’s adequate to give? You don’t have to think about the “potential return” anymore. For me, as a very rational person, that has saved a lot of precious time. > > ## When you should give and when not > > If you start giving freely, you might give more than you actually can or should. Adopting an *abundance* mindset, though, doesn’t mean that you need to give everything you have. Once you switch the focus on “expected return” to yourself, your resources, and your capacity, you can decide how much and what you want to give. > > I draw a line between the things I can give unlimitedly and the things I cannot or don’t want > > to always give. > > Things that are abundant to me and I want to give as much as I can are emotions, advice, connecting people, kindness, smiling, being a good model, appreciation, fun, and constructive feedback. > > What I provide limitedly are attention (time) and money. For instance, my time, my goals, and my purpose of life always have top priority in my decisions. I don’t give someone attention when I need to concentrate on a task that is important to my goals; I strictly manage my time. Additionally, I don’t give money to anyone for no reason (donations, treating others to something, etc.). > > I love giving time and money to others, but I need to manage these scarce resources with a high degree of appreciation of their value. There’s nothing more precious than time; no one can obtain more time and everyone has about the same amount. Thus, I spend it wisely. > > Money, though, isn’t that precious, but I treat it cautiously as well since it’s a vehicle to make this world an even better place. I would rather invest 200€ a month in a project to advance education in developing countries than going out for dinner every night. > > However, those are my priorities and I drew my very own line between these things. You need to find your own limits. > > ## From quid pro quo to abundance > > When you want to make the switch, you should first ask yourself what you want to and can give limitlessly. Write down these things, make a list out of it. This list is dynamic and should be adapted from time to time. Your goal should be to give these things as much as you can, every day, 24/7. > > In addition, you should contemplate things you cannot give unboundedly. Most often, this process comes down to things like money, time, attention, or support. These limited resources you should only give if you have the necessary capacity and if they don’t conflict with your life goals. For instance, you should do someone a favor and help him to move out of his apartment even though you have to finish a crucial project. However, even if you think about the process of giving and evaluate whether you help or give someone, you should still give without expectations. Either you have no expectations at all, or you need to make clear that you only help out if the other person helps you with something else. > > Now, after you found out what you can give to which degree, it’s time to actually give. First and foremost, you should focus on emotions not materialistic things. Be kind, smile, appreciate, be grateful, acknowledge, etc. as much and often as you can. > > Make it a habit to give freely. I ask myself every week (as part of my weekly reflection routine) whom I can help next week and whom I need to say thank you. > > Moreover, I strive to be a good role model. Thus, I regularly ask myself how I would act if my future children observe me: Would I help this person in this particular situation? Why would I not do it? Did I behave in an exemplary manner in this situation? > > These *hacks* help me to practice giving and make my life and the lives of others a little better. --- # Why integrity is crucial — and how to build it - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-integrity-is-crucial-4-tips-to-become-more-integer - Date: 2020-08-30 - Categories: Goal Achievement Summary: * Integrity = the way you do anything is the way you do everything * Integrity is a vital trait for successful leaders * Acting with integrity can reduce a lot of unnecessary stress in your life, making you happier, healthier, and more productive Practical advice: * Find out what you value, what is right or wrong to you * Be consistently true to your personal standards * Act and speak honestly & treat everyone the same (morally) Dear friend, Do you treat people differently based on their “social status”? Are you doing the right thing even in difficult situations? How often do you lie to others? Since I’ve a very strong sense for justice and fairness, it’s no surprise that integrity is among my most important values. However, holding true to your own moral standards has plenty of additional benefits. In today’s article, I want to talk about what integrity actually means, why it’s vital, and how you can achieve a high level of integrity. ## What is integrity? According to Oxford Dictionary, integrity is basically the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. Since this definition is quite vague and unpractical, I want to give you another expression of this term. I love the more vivid definition of Disney CEO, Robert Iger: “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.” Integrity implies applying the same moral standards no matter in which situation you’re, doing the right thing even in difficult situation (e. g. unethical ones), and treat people with respects no matter their status. Integrity requires that you have a clear sense of knowing who you are, be guided by your own clear sense of right and wrong, speak up for what is right, and make decisions and acts as if your personal reputation was at stake (for instance if you work a company). People with a great sense of integrity trust in their own instincts, are the same person in all scenarios whether they’re talking to the boss or to the janitor, and don’t present different faces or stories to different people. ## Why integrity is crucial First, displaying a high degree of integrity means that others can trust you. The people with whom you deal know that they can rely on you to act honestly and to do what you say you will do. When people know that you believe in doing the right thing, and that your behavior is consistent with that belief, they trust you. Trust is one of the key characteristics of a successful leader. Individuals who are successful in business understand the benefits of acting with integrity. You can only be a “good” role model if you’ve a sense of integrity. People only want to follow you if they can trust you. Additionally, people who believe in and trust you become loyal, i. e., it becomes easier to trust them too. Our world is based on our ability to trust each other. It’s no surprise that more and more employers prefer to hire graduates whom they believe to have high personal integrity (often tested through personality tests). They would rather invest in developing the human capital of someone who will be a positive influence on the organization and on someone whom they can trust to carry out the company’s mission. Do you trust someone who lies to you on a frequent basis? Do you want to work for a company that has no ethical standards, for instance Nestle, which (has) sourced cacao from suppliers exploiting children as labor? Do you think someone is a great role model for your (future) children if s/he treatS the janitor (morally) worse than his/her business partner? Finally, having integrity is important because it can offer you peace of mind knowing that you believe in doing the right thing, and always try to act consistently with those beliefs. Acting with integrity can reduce a lot of unnecessary stress in your life, making you happier, healthier, and more productive. ## Add more integrity into your life First of all, you need to find out what you value, what is right or wrong to you. Ask yourself, what’s important to you? What principles do you want to live by? What does integrity mean to you? Further, clarify what are your most important values and prioritize them. I clearly know my values, which are the basis for all my decisions. Secondly, when you know your personal standards, you need to be true to them consistently. Thirdly, be honest but don’t exaggerate. You don’t have to unleash every private thought and opinion, especially when doing so would hurt other people. How you deliver the truth is also important. When giving difficult feedback to someone, be sensitive to how that person will receive it, and try to balance criticism with acknowledgement of the person’s achievements. Finally, treat everyone with the same moral standards. It‘s obvious that you need/want to be more friendly to your employees and customers than to your competitors and strangers. But don’t treat a janitor in your company worse than your boss/peers. --- # For every setback there is a comeback - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/for-every-setback-there-is-a-comeback - Date: 2020-08-23 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > Failure isn’t falling down but refusing to get up again > > Summary: > > * A setback is just temporary > * Developing a positive mindset is key > * You can only fail if you don’t get up again > > Practical advice: > > * Give yourself time after you failed > * Make clear what you really want & seek alternative ways > * Take massive action & ask friends for help > > Dear friend, > > We all have to deal with failure at some point in our lives. Failure is virtually inevitable. Recently, because of the COVID-19 pandemic even more people need to cope with major challenges and face setbacks. > > Many of the people who we call successful are great examples of why failure is an inherent part of the game and cannot be bypassed. Their success stories teach us that we only fail when we don’t get up again. For every little setback, there’s a major comeback. > > In today’s blog article, I want to share with how I’ve dealt with setbacks in the past, why it’s vital to maintain a positive mindset in the light of failure and how to create an opportunity out of it. > > ## For every setback there’s a comeback > > After the first year of university, I wanted to do an internship in management consulting. I applied for seven small consultancies and was very optimistic that I’d receive at least a few invitations since I’ve already accomplished my first internship in a strategic marketing position. However, I didn’t receive any invitation for an interview. Moreover, it took many weeks until I received all rejections. > > Of course, this was a major setback for me. I worked hard to get very good grades and land the preceding internship to have the necessary prior work experience. > > Even though my plan didn’t work out, I wasn’t desperate. I knew that I could still do an internship in management consulting and that I have the opportunity to do something else in my summer break now. > > So, I activated my personal network, asked friends whether they knew someone or an interesting open position. Eventually, everything worked out better than I expected: I convinced a finance manager of the German software company SAP and, thus, could work for a company that I had wanted to see from the inside since my youth. > > This lesson – among many other personal experiences – taught me that failure is just temporary. Once you get up again, reconsider what you really want, devise a new plan to achieve your goal, and take massive action, you can make it. Maybe it will take a little longer or you have to do something that you don’t like that much for a little amount of time, but eventually, you’ll come back even better. > > ## A positive mindset always wins > > As you might know, I’m a big fan of optimism. Not only positively minded people have more fun, but also they’re more successful, have higher chances of goal achievement, and develop better relationships. > > With regard to dealing with failure, though, optimists have a decisive advantage. In a crisis, they tend to see the opportunity instead of misery. > > When I fail at something, I know that suddenly plenty of new opportunities are created. When I don’t get the offer for the position I’m aiming for, I know that suddenly I have the chance to aim for several other positions that I abandoned because of my first priority. > > Moreover, failure allows you to reevaluate your situation and learn from mistakes, accelerating your long-term progress. Additionally, a setback shows that you aren’t ready yet or that you didn’t give enough. Hence, you know that either you’re living life to the fullest and reach your personal limit that you need to expand further to achieve your goals, or you haven’t reached your potential yet and need to invest more time and effort to make it. > > ## Transform failure into opportunity > > ### Give yourself time > > After you failed at something, give yourself time to be disappointed and rest (for at least a few hours or until the next day). No matter how positively minded or optimistic you are, you need some time to let the setback sit. > > ### Make clear what you really want > > Once you’ve digested the setback, you should make clear what you actually failed at. In order to evaluate your situation, you need to clarify what you really want. For instance, two years ago, I wanted to work for a management consultancy in my summer break, but what I really wanted was to gain work experience that helped me to come closer to my goal to land a full-time offer at a major consultancy. So, actually, there’re plenty of other possibilities to achieve my real goal. > > ### Seek alternatives > > After contemplating what you want, you need to search for alternatives to obtain that. When doing so, you should aim even higher since if you failed again, your learning curve would be steeper and your situation would be better despite the setback. > > There’re various ways that will bring you closer to your ultimate goal, you just need to be creative. For example, if your grades aren’t sufficient to land an interview at a company, you might find other ways to bypass the standard recruiting procedure, such as working for another company or another boss who can help you to get into the desired position through his/her network. > > ### Take massive action > > Once you have devised your plan, take immediate and large-scale action. Not only you will achieve your goal (faster), but also you will feel highly motivated and relieved after the first steps taken. > > Be creative in your approach. Ask friends and family for help. Activate your network. Use Google and harness community-forums. Every problem has already been solved by another person. You just need to find the right person who can help you. Additionally, always think win-win, and don’t hesitate to ask for a favor. Everything great in this world hasn’t been achieved by a single person. We need each other to make our world a better place, so please, don’t be shy and ask for help. Most people love helping others. > > Ultimately, always keep in mind that you can only fail if you don’t get up again. --- # Interdependence in Relationships – a Success Factor - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/interdependence-in-relationships-a-success-factor - Date: 2020-08-16 - Categories: Relationships Summary: * Functioning and prosperous relationship requires two people that are happy as independent individuals but prefer to live together in a relationship * When partners feel cherished and valued, the relationship becomes a safe haven and a place where the couple can be interdependent Practical advice: * First you need to assess where you are right now * Find out what you like and what matters to you. You need to make clear what you value, what are your boundaries, what you’re passionate about, what you expect from life, and what you want in a relationship * Talk about your boundaries, values, and passions Dear friend, When you think about romantic relationships, what do you consider an indicator for a successful relationship? In my opinion, a functioning and prosperous relationship requires two people that are happy as independent individuals but prefer to live together in a relationship since adding the respective partner to their life makes it even better. There’re a lot of people who live in unbalanced relationships for a lifetime. Often, they don’t see that by making some simple realizations and changes about the way they relate to their partner, they can change their entire life for the better. In today’s blog article, I want to share my thoughts on why co-dependency is poison for a happy relationship, contemplate the difference between interdependent and co-dependent relationships, and write about how one can make the transition from a co-dependent to an interdependent relationship (partner). ## The evil of codependency A co-dependent relationship is a relationship where both sides aren’t complete enough by themselves so they need to find someone else out there (a family member, friend or a boyfriend/girlfriend) to fill a hole in them and make them whole. People in this relationship tend to rely heavily on others for their sense of self and well-being. There is no ability for that person to distinguish where they end and their partner begins. Moreover, they put aside their own well-being to maintain a relationship with another. Typical traits of a co-dependent relationship (according to therapist Darlene Lancer, JD; [click here](https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-build-a-relationship-based-on-interdependence-4161249) for further info): * Poor/no boundaries * People-pleasing behaviors * Unhealthy, ineffective communication * Manipulation * Difficulty with emotional intimacy * Controlling behaviors * Blaming each other * Low self-esteem of one or both partners * No personal interests or goals outside the relationship Codependent people are not self-sufficient, they usually live in a state of 0 control of their lives, they have a deep victim mentality (someone else is responsible for my life), and complain quite a lot. This means that all of our needs are to be met by someone else because we, as individuals, are not capable of doing that by ourselves. ## Interdependence vs Codependence – recognize the difference To get an idea, what’s the difference between inter- and co-dependent relationships, we should clarify the term independent relationship first. An independent relationship is a relationship where both sides are fully independent and can cover all of their needs almost by themselves. They have the deepest respect and love for themselves and are self-sufficient. Independent relationships are what happens when two people who work and grow themselves meet up and form a relationship. Independent people, though, think they can do everything by themselves whereas interdependent people know that they can’t and carefully choose people who could have a synergistic effect on their lives. An interdependent relationship is a relationship where both sides are self-sufficient, love, and respect themselves but decide to share their lives with someone else to create a synergistic effect which is bigger than the sum of their parts. Interdependence, however, is not the same thing as being co-dependent either. Traits of interdependent relationships are: * Healthy boundaries * Active listening * Time for personal interests * Clear communication * Taking personal responsibility for behaviors * Creating safety for each other to be vulnerable Engaging and responding to each other * Healthy self-esteem * Being open and approachable with each other When partners feel cherished and valued, the relationship becomes a safe haven and a place where the couple can be interdependent. This is where two people, both strong individuals, are involved with each other, but without sacrificing themselves or compromising their values. They also value a sense of self that allows them and their partner to be themselves without any need to compromise who they are or their values system. ## How to make the transition First you need to assess where you are right now. If there is too much neediness or you feel that your partner is way too independent and doesn’t want to be with you, rebalancing how you relate is very important. Without it, both of you will always feel out of sync, and that isn’t a great formula for a harmonious adult connection. You need to be happy as an individual first before you can create a prosperous relationship. On the other hand, if you’re a very independent person who wants to do everything by his/her own (and want to enhance your relationship/life), you should reconsider how you view interpersonal connections. Nothing great in this world has been achieved by a single person. When you think you can live a happy life on your own (without any commitment to and trust and dependence on another person), you might be right. Yet, research shows that a healthy relationship is what makes a human being’s life really joyful.[\*](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/emotional-) ### Build an Interdependent Relationship[\*](https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-build-a-relationship-based-on-) After assessing your current situation, you need to find out what you like and what matters to you. You need to make clear what you value, what are your boundaries, what you’re passionate about, what you expect from life, and what you want in a relationship. Communication is key. Talk about your boundaries, values, and passions. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. But don’t forget to be empathic and force anything. Change will take time. Give yourself and your partner time to adjust. And don’t forget to compromise while having clear boundaries and staying within your limits. Once you enter a relationship, don’t stop pursuing your personal goals. Make time for your hobbies and interests. Be and retain that person who your partner fell in love. Moreover, allow your partner room and opportunity to do these same things will be the key to establishing a healthy, interdependent relationship. --- # Self-control — and how to improve it - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/self-control-importance-3-tips-to-improve-it - Date: 2020-08-09 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.* > > Summary: > > * Self-control plays a major role in anything important to your life > * Higher self-control increases happiness > * Succumbing to temptation and enjoying life are not the same things > > Practical advice: > > * Develop habits for important tasks > * Aim for 100%, not for 99% or less > * Take it easy at the beginning > > Dear friend, > > Do you rather indulge now and pay the price later? Or wait for a little and reap bigger rewards in the future? Many of life’s biggest challenges come down to a simple trade-off. > > In today’s world, we can receive instant gratification everywhere, for instance in social media or online shopping, and hence we get used to it more easily. As a result, it’s becoming more and more difficult to decide against instant rewards. > > However, if we want to make the best decisions (for our health, happiness, etc), we often have to chose to wait and sacrifice instant rewards. This requires self-control – the ability to resolve conflicts between your short-term desires and your long-term goals. > > In today’s blog, I want to share my thoughts on the importance of self-control and what has helped me to improve this capability. > > ## Why self-control is crucial > > ### Goal achievement > > Name anything important to your life and self-control plays a major role. In an extensive longitudinal study spanning across three decades, researchers from Duke University followed 1,000 children. In the beginning, they assessed their self-control skills, intelligence and social class, and examined what impact these characteristics had on their life success. > > Unsurprisingly, children who were born to richer parents and who were more intelligent enjoyed greater physical health and a higher income. What’s striking though is that self-control had an equally powerful effect on success in life as intelligence and social class. The more the children improved their self-control skills during adolescence, the more successful they became 30 years later.[²](https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/09/30/self-control/#05%C3%B6) > > ### Happiness > > You may be thinking that sacrificing a bit of long-term health and wealth is sometimes worth it. After all, indulging in a bit of chocolate cake makes us happy and helps us enjoy our lives to the fullest. If we became too strict and never indulged in anything, we might deprive ourselves of life’s greatest delights. > > Yet, short-term rewards are often only a short boost of happiness and don’t really add any long-term value to our lives, but they often make us feel worse later (think about unhealthy food, drugs, alcohol, etc). > > ![](/images/essays/self-control-importance-3-tips-to-improve-it-1.jpeg) > > People who have high self-control aren’t missing out on enjoyment. Succumbing to temptation and enjoying life are not the same things. The key to happiness is balance. Additionally, many activities with long-term rewards are also enjoyable: eating fruits, playing sports, finishing a book. > > It’s actually people with poor self-control who suffer. After giving in to temptations, they tend to feel guilt and regret about their decision, which spoils the pleasure. In contrast, those who successfully avoid temptations receive a boost to their self-esteem on top of their long-term rewards, such as better health and self-actualization. > > ## Strategies to develop stronger self-control > > ### Habits > > Do you remember your first commute to work? You probably had to pay a lot of attention on the way not to get lost. After taking the same route many times, however, the commute became automatic. Now you can listen to music, speak on the phone, rehearse your speech, or plan your day, all while driving and navigating automatically. > > The same goes for anything that requires a lot of self-control: In the beginning, it takes a huge amount of will-power and concentration to do it/get started. Once you did it several times, though, it becomes easier and easier, and eventually, you don’t even have to think about it anymore. > > You can develop habits for everything you can imagine. For instance, I didn’t like to read, do cardiovascular sports, clean the dishes, or learn English vocabulary. After I had developed habits around these inconvenient tasks, however, I didn’t need any discipline to perform them. > > ### 100% > 99% or less > > It’s a lot easier to do something right 100% than 98% of the time. Once you allow yourself some exceptions, it becomes much more difficult to be disciplined. Why should you don’t eat this donut when you ate one yesterday? How can you draw the line? > > Aiming for 100% has several additional benefits: You cannot lie to yourself or argue to make an exception since you agreed to give 100%. Once you hit the 100% a few times, you don’t want to break your streak. Moreover, performing 100% not only accelerates your progress but also helps you to develop a routine faster. > > ### Take it easy at the beginning > > When people want to make running a habit or new hobby, they often fail because they overstrain themselves at the beginning: They run too fast, rest too little, and have too high expectations. > > When I started doing cardiovascular sports, my goal was to run for 30 minutes no matter how slow I need to run that long. The first time, I was so slow that someone going for a fast walk could have easily kept up with me. I got so bored. However, once I developed a routine, learned the basic running skills, and got closer to my personal running speed, it became more and more fun. And today, I love running and rather need to stop myself not to run too fast and too often. > > When you go on a diet, don’t reduce your energy intake too low. When you want to start studying for your exams earlier, aim for 1 week earlier rather than for 4 weeks earlier. Or when you want to reduce your alcohol consumption, try to halve your consumption instead of binge-drinking a few times a year. --- # Stop needing to be right - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/stop-needing-to-be-right - Date: 2020-08-02 - Categories: Communication > > *Sometimes it is better to be kind than right. We do not need an intelligent mind that speaks, but a patient heart that listens* > > Summary: > > * Stop needing to be right all the time if you want to be happier > * Conceding feels great > * There is nothing gained but only damage caused when you insist on being right > > Practical advice: > > * Identify situations that aren’t worth a discussion > * Ask yourself: Would you rather be happy or right? > * Shift the focus to aspects you like talking about, and you both consent. > > Dear friend, > > I’m sure this situation is familiar to you: You’re talking with your friends about a polarizing topic, such as “Who is the best soccer player in the world?”. As there is no clear answer to such a question, discussing it can cause fierce arguments. Often these discussions can be entertaining and fun. However, sometimes they are emotionally charged and won’t come to a good end since both parties won’t make concessions. > > There are plenty of these situations in which both parties want to be right, causing frustration and dissatisfaction, for instance, two people arguing who was first in line, stranger people fighting for a parking spot, or liberals and conservatives talking about who president was the worst. > > In today’s blog article, I want to give you reasons why you should stop needing to be right, tips on how you can withstand this need, and point out situations in which you should take a clear stance. > > ## Why you should stop needing to be right > > There’re plenty of reasons why you should stop always insisting on being right. In the teachings of Buddha, for example, the abandonment of this need is a fundamental element. In this blog post, though, I want to focus on the three most significant reasons that make me withstand the desire to be always right. > > ### Would you rather be right or happy? > > Firstly, being right all the time, winning arguments one after another, and educating others about one’s beliefs might trigger a very satisfying feeling. However, a verbal confrontation is still a bilateral event. Most often, an emotionally charged argument won’t end peacefully if the two parties resist making concessions. Hence, the “winner” of such a verbal fight is actually not right, but just more reluctant. So, even if you feel like that you won the argument and convinced the other person from your opinion, the other person usually just doesn’t feel like debating with you anymore. Thus, there is actually nothing really gained but only damage caused. In turn, if you concede and resist the temptation to argue to the bitter end, you make the other person feel good, can keep your inner peace, and can focus on topics you agree on. Additionally, most often, several people are witnessing these situations as well and the person insisting on one’s right is often perceived as a douchebag and immature person. Concluding, if you want to live a happier life, stop needing to be right all the time. > > ### Conceding feels great > > From my past experience, I can tell you that making concessions is a great feeling once you get used to it. If you’re able to identify arguments that aren’t worth discussing and quickly abandon these disputes, you will experience a great sense of superiority, maturity, inner peace, and contentment. In my view, it feels much better to resist the temptation of being right and concede than to argue until the other person surrenders. > > You know that you’re right. Telling the other person that s/he might be right as well won’t make your view “less right”. For instance, if your friend thinks the soccer player Messi is better than Ronaldo, you can concede that you understand why s/he thinks Messi is the better player because of reason x, y, and z. And use this as a transition to another topic, such as why soccer players are so expensive and whether the price tags are justified. You don’t have to admit that Messi is better, you should just admit that the other person’s opinion is valid, too. > > ### You won’t make a real difference > > If you really want to convince or persuade someone, solely arguing won’t help you to succeed. > > Making someone wrong doesn’t shut down the problem or conflict, it just applies a temporary silence and drives the issue underground. The person who was made wrong either carries a quiet resentment or his/her anger will rear up somewhere else. As previously noted: There is actually nothing really gained but only damage caused when you insist on being right. > > Even if your motivation to be right is to make a difference and have a (positive) impact on another person, you’re most likely to fail if you just argue until the other person surrenders. We don’t like being wrong and we don’t like being criticized or educated, particularly if we’re strongly convinced of something. > > Therefore, you need to approach people differently if you really want to persuade them. I wrote a whole article on this topic. Click [here](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/influencing-others-how-to-better-persuade) to read the summary or the whole article ([7 min read](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/influencing-others-how-to-better-persuade)). > > ## How to withstand the need to be right > > I really hope you got my points and now want to know how can achieve a level of sovereignty so that you can resist the desire to be always right. > > First of all, and that’s the most difficult part, in my opinion, you have to identify situations that aren’t worth a discussion and remind yourself to stop arguing. > > Once you recognize that the other person has a different stance on a subject than you, you should contemplate whether you should raise your voice and debate. > > To find out whether something is worth discussing, you should first understand the other person’s view. Why does this person have this opinion? Does this have an impact on you? Do you want to convince the other person of something? Or do you have a need to share your opinion and take a clear stance on his/her comments (for instance, your friend is racist or homophobic)? > > If you’re not sure that the argument is worthwhile or you’re sure that it isn’t worth it, you shouldn’t argue and try to switch the topic as smoothly as possible. Let the person say whatever s/he wants to, agree on the points you truly can agree on but shift the focus to aspects of the subject you like talking about, and you both consent. > > ## When you shouldn’t stand down > > In case something is really important to you and you think you have to make your point and share your view, you shouldn’t concede. However, you should be careful with regard to how you approach this kind of confrontations. > > These disputes have to take place on a rather objective and rational basis, not on an emotional one. > > To manage these situations successfully, I would recommend you to consider a few important steps: First of all, stay calm. If you lose your temper, you’ll lose the argument. You might still make the person surrender if you lose your nerves, however, you won’t convince him/her of anything. Secondly, ask questions to understand the other person and clearly clarify the points you disagree on. Thirdly, use logic and facts as evidence for your position. If you’re not sure about something, don’t use it as part of your arguments or admit this insecurity. Fourthly, listen carefully, understand the argument from the other person’s perspective, and don’t interrupt him/her. Fifthly, concede the good points and look for a win-win, meaning that you should be open-minded and compromise. Lastly, switch the conversation once it becomes too emotional. Tell the other person that you appreciate the conversation, but you would like to postpone it to another day. --- # The happiness equation – keep joy, fun, and pleasure in balance - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/the-happiness-equation-keep-joy-fun-and-pleasure-in-balance - Date: 2020-07-26 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Joy lies in the fight, in the attempt, in the suffering involved, not in the victory itself . –* Mahatma Gandhi > > Summary: > > * Happiness = Joy x Pleasure x Fun > * These three words aren’t interchangeable > * Balance is the key to happiness > > Practical advice: > > * Find an income-source that fulfills you > * Treat yourself as long as the gain from pleasure compensates the loss in joy > * Try out a lot of activities & find your hobby/hobbies > > Dear friend, > > I often think about factors in my life that make me a happy person. > > From my point of view, happiness is a simple equation that comprises the emotions joy, pleasure, and fun: *Happiness* = *Joy* x *Pleasure* x *Fun* > > You might think these three words have the same meaning. In essence, you are right; people usually use these words interchangeably. However, there is a small but crucial difference between them. I define them as follows: > > Pleasure is the feeling that one has when one (or another person) indulges oneself. It is temporary, and it is only felt when you’re consuming something. For instance, it is pleasing to go out and party, eat out, stay in a great hotel, drive a sports car, sit in a jacuzzi, etc. 24/7. Pleasure is the kind of happiness that can be bought and for which you don’t have to put in the effort. > > Fun is when you’re doing something that makes you feel happy. While you have to have fun if you want to feel pleasure, you don’t have to be pleased to have fun. You can even have fun in activities that aren’t pleasing at all. For instance, people have fun when they fight with each other, climb a mountain, work out intensely, give a keynote speech etc. > > Joy is the emotion evoked by well-being or achievement of what one desires. While fun and pleasure is short-lived and experienced momentarily, joy is rather long-lasting. Joy is the feeling when you are in good health, have great friends around you, or have set goals and achieved them. It’s a sense of ease, lust for life, and light-heartedness. It cannot be bought, but it can only be achieved by taking care of yourself and the people around you, living life consciously, and being grateful and appreciative. > > ## Pleasure and joy aren’t mutually exclusive > > Both pleasure and joy can be experienced simultaneously: You can indulge yourself while you take care of your health. You can drive a Ferrari while you don’t take it for granted, are grateful, and appreciate this experience. You can have a fancy vacation while you have earned the money with a job that you enjoy at least as much as the vacation itself. There is nothing wrong with pleasing oneself if it’s done deliberately and in balance with activities that provide you with joy. > > ## Joy cannot be bought but has to be earned > > Unfortunately, people often think these pleasant things are what make them feel joy (and thus long-lasting happiness), but it’s the process of appreciation, sharing, and caring that makes you feel this emotion. To feel joy, you don’t have to be rich. You can share, care, appreciate, and practice gratefulness without a large fortune. > > Moreover, just spending money on others won’t make you feel joy, but it’s the act of continuously caring for others. It’s literally a pleasure to treat others, but you won’t feel joy unless you do it with intrinsic motivation. > > To maximize the joy in your life, you have to find a source of income that fulfills you, take care of your health, maintain great friendships, and exercise gratefulness. You have to limit things that society, friends, and family make you think are good for you but are actually bad for your well-being, such as a well-paid but nonfulfilling job, too much alcohol and other drugs, superficial values, lots of money, fame, etc. > > ## Balance is the key to happiness > > I’m strongly convinced that joy, pleasure, and fun have to be in balance so that you can have a truly fulfilling, happy life. > > You cannot be happy if you solely experience pleasure. Theoretically, you could party, hang out with friends, have the most excellent food every day, or do other pleasurable things 24/7. However, in reality, we humans become used to these dopamine (happiness hormone) sources quite quickly. Once you drove a Ferrari, the next ride won’t be as pleasing as the first ride, and the more often you drive a Ferrari, the less exiting this experience will become. The same goes for most other pleasing activities. There are numerous studies, such as this multiple decades lasting [Harvard study](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/), showing that pleasure – particularly that obtained through money or fame – is not as important as joy to keep us people happy throughout our lives. > > Nevertheless, pleasure and fun are essential for a happy life. Even if you live the most joyful life, you won’t be truly happy. In my opinion, a life without pleasure and fun is a very boring life that offers no real excitement. You need to take risks, sacrifice a little of your health, make bold decisions, and treat yourself from time to time to live life to the fullest. We all are going to die someday; therefore, working till midnight, eating bullshit, taking drugs, making bold decisions, and doing other things that might harm yourself or social circle are okay from time to time as long as the gain from pleasure and fun compensates the loss in joy and well-being. > > To have a lot of fun (and as we concluded at the beginning, fun implies pleasure) without sacrificing too much of your health and other factors harming your level of joy, you have to try out a lot of activities and find your hobby/hobbies. Finding the right hobby might take time, but having hobbies is a game-changer when it comes to happiness. Many hobbies come at little economic expense. Additionally, hobbies help you to build strong relationships, give you a great sense of accomplishment, and often foster a healthy life. > > In conclusion, you have to work for a happy life. You have to find an income-source that fulfills you, maintain and foster great relationships, find a fun hobby, take care of your health, practice gratefulness, treat yourself from time to time and find joy in sharing. --- # Reduce distractions, increase productivity - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/reduce-distractions-3-tips-to-increase-productivity - Date: 2020-07-19 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > Starve your distractions, feed your focus > > Summary: > > * Less productivity implies less time left for things that you like more > * Distraction is a major productivity killer > * Once distracted it takes multiple minutes to be focused again > > Practical advice: > > * Download a “focus app” or locate your smartphone away from you > * Identify external factors distracting you and develop strategies to reduce their influence > * Multitask as little as possible > > Dear friend, > > In the past few days, I was thinking about how I could be less distracted in what I was doing. Despite my high level of motivation, I still feel less productive than I could. > > I know being productive all the time doesn’t make one happy, and you don’t need to work like a machine to get things done. Yet, less productivity implies more time needed to accomplish a task and less time left for things that you like more. > > I wondered how I can become more efficient and contemplated what kills most of my time. I came to the conclusion that the most significant productivity killer is a distraction. You can adopt the best productivity methods, implement super effective routines and systems, and create a well-balanced schedule; this won’t make you productive if you’re constantly distracted. > > In today’s blog post, I write about the things that distract me most and what helped me to prevent those to steal my time. > > ## Smartphones as the productivity killer number 1 > > I didn’t have to think long to identify my smartphone as the primary distraction. Once I touch it, no matter which app I access, it takes me at least five minutes to get my concentration back. > > Five minutes doesn’t seem that long. However, these little distractions can add up to a substantial amount of time spent. > > Since I’ve been facing this issue for at least two years, I’ve already thought many times about ways to curtail this distraction. What works best for me are the following measures: > > 1. Put the smartphone at least a few meters away (or better: in another room) > 2. Turn it on airplane mode > 3. Use a focus app that blocks certain apps > 4. Rearrange your apps/home screen so that you cannot access distracting apps unconsciously > > Currently, I’m using an app that only works on OnePlus smartphones (it’s simply called “focus”). It blocks any notifications and limits your access to apps (the selection can be easily adjusted). This app helps me a lot to stay more focused. > > Another benefit of these focus apps is that you can use them too when you’re hanging out with friends so that you’re tempted to use your smartphone. > > ## (Too much) multitasking is distracting > > I think that multitasking can make sense in a lot of settings. For instance, when you’re commuting to work and listen to a podcast, or when you’re cooking your lunch and call a friend. > > Nevertheless, there’re many situations in which multitasking hurts our productivity severely. For example, you switch tasks back and forth, check your mails while you’re studying, write a report while you’re in a virtual meeting, research on a topic while you’re taking part in a webinar. > > It’s very important that you know how much (cognitive) attention a task requires. Most often, we underestimate the amount needed to accomplished a task most effectively. Additionally, we often complete a task not only slower but also worse; quality is usually negatively affected as well. > > Thus, I decided to multitask as little as possible. Whenever possible I schedule the tasks that require the most attention at the beginning of the day and the tasks that require the least attention at the end of the (work) day so that I don’t have the feeling of being unproductive when I’m doing simple tasks individually. > > Hence, I needed to learn to prioritize better more effectively to reduce the amount of distraction through multitasking. Mails and messages aren’t answered as the first thing in the morning, videos are watched in the evening, I don’t listen to podcasts while writing this blog, and I don’t listen to music when I need to work on complex tasks. > > ## Restrict the influence of external distractions > > External distractions – such as a colleague who wants to chat with you, a friend who calls you, the parcel carrier who rings your doorbell, or random ideas coming to your mind – are out of your control. You cannot prevent them from stealing your attention. However, if you identify the different factors distracting you, you can develop strategies to reduce their influence. > > When I get a call while I’m focusing on a task, I usually don’t pick up the phone unless the call seems to be “unusual” (for instance, a person who I know well and who usually doesn’t call me) and very urgent (they’ve already tried to message me). Of course, I call back once I take a break or done with the task, but I protect my time from “usual” calls as much as I can since the can completely destroy my workflow. > > When a colleague wants to chat, I try to respond as friendly as possible and propose to have a coffee chat once I’ve got a break, but I try to get back the task as fast as possible. > > In order to manage a prolific flow of thoughts, I make use of a simple list or Google Keep note. If my smartphone is banned from the task at hand, I write down ideas on paper and save them later digitally; if it’s not completely banned, I use the Google Keep app to write my thoughts down really quick and get back to the task. --- # Create the life you dream of – harness a five-year plan - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/create-the-life-you-dream-of-harness-a-five-year-plan - Date: 2020-07-12 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have. > > Summary: > > * Happiness cannot be planned > * You can plan, though, to reduce factors that make you unhappy and enhance/enlarge factors that make you happy > * A five-year plan can massively help you to come closer to your dreams > > Practical advice: > > * Find out how you want to live in about 20 years > * Then, think more concretely & in a time frame of 5 years > * Refine your 5-year-plan regularly > > Dear friend, > > Among the things that have had the most significant impact on my life, goal setting is definitely in the top 3. > > Even though my mid-/long-term goals are at stake (attending my dream business school & getting my dream entry-level job) and my “five-year plan” may be thwarted (if I fail my next GMAT and the 2nd round interviews), I am still strongly convinced that setting goals, and in particular developing a mid-/long-term plan, is incredibly important so that I can live my life to the fullest. > > In today’s blog post, I want to explain to you why I think developing a mid-/long-term plan is a massively beneficial investment, how you can get started too, and how you can achieve and should pursue your long-term goals. > > ## Develop a plan for the life you dream of > > My overriding decision-making principle is maximizing happiness: Every decision I make has to contribute to my overall happiness. A long-term plan is a great tool to help me to achieve this goal. > > Admittedly, happiness cannot be planned. You cannot plan to be happy in three years, that won’t work out. You can plan, though, to reduce factors that make you unhappy and enhance/enlarge factors that make you happy. For instance, if you’re dissatisfied with your body, you can set the goal to work out and create the body of your dreams. Or if you love traveling, you can set the goal to visit at least two different continents per year. > > We all have dreams. Most of us, however, aren’t really aware of them, ignore them, or just cannot believe that they could become reality. A five-year plan can massively help you to come closer to your dreams. We highly *overestimate* what’s possible in a few weeks and highly *underestimate* what’s possible in a few years. Don’t be that person that doesn’t want to believe in himself/herself. > > I want to become an entrepreneur, build and grow organizations that are loved by the people who work for them, and contribute to the technological progress of our world. I know that this isn’t a very clear goal, and it isn’t easy either. Yet, I know how I can get there. Incorporating many little milestones (getting in touch with the right people, obtaining the necessary experience, create a strong network, develop soft-skills, specialize in a particular field, …) in my five-year plan and working towards them will help me to get closer and closer to my dream. > > As a person that strives for happiness, I know that health is an essential prerequisite for it and that it takes a long time until (irreparable) damage to our health looms up. Thus, I also set myself goals that don’t seem very important right now but become crucial in the future. For instance, I planned to begin with cardiovascular sports (running) last summer since this will allow me to live in my 70s as someone in his/her 40s/50s. > > The final reason why you should set up your medium-/long-term plan is that you’re very likely to earn more money in your job, have more intense and happy relationships, and may live a longer and happier life. There’s plenty of research on the benefits of goal setting out there. > > ## How can you develop a long-term plan? > > First of all, you should find out how you want to live in about 20 years. Think about the things you want to have at this point in time. What are the first three things that come to your mind? Children? A nice house? Lot’s of parties? Athletic competitions? Got the job of your dreams? Where do you live? Do you have a partner? How does he/she look like? > > The next step would be to think more concretely and in a time frame of 5 years. Where do you want to live in 5 years? What profession do you want to pursue then? What hobbies do you want to have? How much time do you want to spend time with your friends and family? How important is health and well-being to you? How much fun (parties, traveling, adventures, etc) do you want to have in your life? … > > Once you brainstormed for a few minutes, you should think about dimensions for your goals. For instance, I use the three dimensions career, health, and spirituality. In each dimension, I have additional categories to group my goals. In case of career, I use the groups: conventional career (becoming a management consultant or getting an MBA), politics, entrepreneurship, and personal branding (YouTube, this blog, Instagram, etc). Further categories of the other dimensions are nutrition, sports, aesthetics, languages (I want to speak), habits, family/friends, and traveling (as you can see in the picture of my first sketch below). > > ![](/images/essays/create-the-life-you-dream-of-harness-a-five-year-plan-1.jpeg) > > If you are done with your first draft, you should come back to it frequently. When I do my monthly reflection, I take a look at my 5-year plan, compare my current situation with it, evaluate my goal progression, and revise it if necessary. > > The goal is to refine your 5-year-plan regularly, and every two years, you create a new one. > > Once you have developed your first draft, it becomes a fun activity. If feels great to look back at the time when you devised your first version and see how far you’ve come. > > ## How can you achieve & your long-term goals > > Just setting goals delivers a few nice benefits: You think about things you want in your life; you know what makes you happy and what doesn’t; you realize what’s important to you etc. > > But solely setting goals won’t make them come true [#CaptainObvious](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/blog/hashtags/CaptainObvious). > > In order to achieve your goals, come your dreams closer, and reduce the likelihood of failure due to a lack of motivation, I would recommend setting small short-term goals and huge long-term goals. > > As already stated, we highly overestimate what’s possible in a few weeks and highly underestimate what’s possible in a few years. Therefore, we should aim for short-term goals that we can easily achieve and long-term goals that we might fail to reach. > > For instance, if you would love to have the body of an athlete or fitness model, you shouldn’t set the goal to look like this person in a year. Take your time to achieve it. Let’s say three years is a realistic time frame. Think about what you need to change in order to accomplish this goal: sports, nutrition, and a change in lifestyle. Start small: your goals in the first few months should be to find a sport you like, identify factors in your diet that prevent you from achieving your goal (too much alcohol for instance), and think about habits you need to introduce into your lifestyle. Once you found your sport, don’t have too high expectations, just try to be as consistent as possible. After doing it for at least a year, you will see the first results. At this time, you need to reevaluate your strategy and plan the next steps towards your goal. > > The same goes for every other goal: Start small and simple, be consistent, reevaluate your goal achievement strategy, and adjust it. > > When I will fail to land a job in management consulting, I won’t change my goal to become an entrepreneur, but I need to find another way to achieve it or find a way to land the job at a later point in time. I know, eventually, I will achieve my goal as long as I’m willing to stay consistent and don’t give up. --- # Uncertainty – how to deal with it - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/uncertainty-how-to-deal-with-it - Date: 2020-07-05 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *When nothing is sure, everything is possible* > > Summary: > > * We live in a world in which nothing is certain > * Uncertainty isn’t real, it’s just a feeling > * Uncertainty cannot only impair your life negatively but can also be a source of energy and motivation > > Practical advice: > > * Adopt the right mindset: Build tolerance, accept it, and use its energy > * Imagine the worst-case scenario > * Use the experience of others > > Dear friend, > > With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have felt an unprecedented large-scale uncertainty that is more than difficult to handle. > > However, we live in a world in which nothing is certain. In every phase of our lives, we face situations that don’t have a definite outlook: Whether we start into a new job, move to a new city, fall in love, found a startup, or wait for the results of an exam. > > Research shows that uncertainty can be appealing during certain activities like gambling or reading a mystery novel, but usually, it is associated with negative consequences. Uncertainty is a major cause of stress and can affect our mental and physical health. > > Not surprisingly, we have a fundamental need for an orderly and secure world. We want control over our lives, especially in threatening situations. Our perception of personal control, however, is quite different. > > In today’s blog post, I want to share with you my experience regarding my current situation and past learnings on how to deal with uncertainty. > > ## The right mindset > > Uncertainty is a consciously *perceived* lack of security, whereas an *actual* lack of security is known as danger. Uncertainty isn’t real. It’s just a feeling, and, as with most feelings, we can cope with it by controlling our mind and adopting the right mindset. Thus, the first step in dealing with uncertainty is to change the thoughts that cause a perceived lack of security. > > Build tolerance. We navigate uncertainty every day, like driving to work when we might not make it there safely. Acknowledging these everyday uncertainties that we usually gloss over and focusing on the fact that you still went about your life can build your tolerance for more significant uncertainties. > > Accept it. Part of practicing acceptance of uncertainty is being okay with your feelings about it. Do you feel worried? Stressed? Fearful? Acknowledge what you’re feeling and give yourself permission to feel and express these difficult feelings. > > Counter-attack. Uncertainty cannot only impair your life negatively but can also be a source of energy and motivation. When nothing is certain, everything is possible – as long as the outcome of something isn’t definite, there is still a positive outlook. Often, you can have a positive impact on the outcome of a situation. For instance, you don’t know whether you can land a job because of the COVID-19 pandemic and feel anxiety. Yet, even though the job market is relatively weak right now, you can still write applications and prepare for interviews to receive one of the few jobs available at the moment. > > ## What is the worst-case? > > A method helping me a lot is to imagine the worst-case scenario of the uncertain situation: What will happen if the most negative outcome becomes reality? Most often, the worst-case isn’t that bad at all. Particularly, if we compare our situation with that of people in a much worse situation. For example, most graduates this year face the challenge to find a job. The worst-case is to be unemployed for a few months until the job market has recovered. This situation compared to the life of the billions of people in developing countries, clearly doesn’t look that bad at all. You might need to borrow money, ask your friends and parents for help, sleep on a couch for a few months, eat sh\*t, or make other unpleasant experiences. But that’s the worst-case. And your worst-case is often the best-case of plenty of other people. Just imagine being born in one of the poorest countries in the world: no perspective, no education, no security, no freedom… > > And even if the worst-case is very bad, it’s still the worst-case, an outcome that is rather unlikely. > > ## Use the experience of others > > Another great “tool” to deal with uncertainty is to use the knowledge of others who have already been in a similar situation as you. > > It’s always a great idea to ask others for help if you don’t really know what you can do to make the most out of the situation. In case of uncertainty, though, this might be the best approach available. > > For example, you move to a new city and don’t know anyone there. Ask in your circle of friends what they did when they moved to a new city, how they dealt with being new there, and what helped them to overcome this challenging situation. > > The same goes, for instance, you fall in love with someone. Ask a good friend about how you can address this challenge. In this particular case, you should tap the experience of both gender, men and women. Women often think differently compared to men. > > Every problem you will face in your life has most likely already been faced by a lot of people. Why should one duplicate work? Simply ask others for advice and use the experience of them. --- # Envy – how to deal with it - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/envy-how-to-deal-with-it - Date: 2020-06-28 - Categories: Relationships > > *True confidence has no room for envy. When you know you are great, you have no reason to hate.* > > Summary: > > * Envy is the desire to obtain a desirable thing that belongs to another person > * We don’t want more than others have, but we are often disturbed by obtaining less than them > * All of us feel envy: this sense of inferiority to another person is unavoidable > > Practical advice: > > * Examine your envy > * Ask yourself: Are you willing to pay the price? > * Go & get it or accept it! > > Dear friend, > > Do you know that feeling when someone has/does something that you want to have/do as well? > > In the past, I often felt envy for a lot of people and things. I envied them not because I didn’t want them to obtain or achieve something but because I didn’t have it by myself. The realization that someone has something desirable that I could obtain as well immediately triggered a great sense of inferiority towards this person. I felt really bad then. > > Today, I have mastered my emotions. You cannot really get rid of envy completely, but you can reduce its negative influence on your life to a minimum. In today’s blog post, I write about my experiences in coping with this emotion, how I usually deal with it, and how you can reduce the effect of envy, too. > > ## What is envy & why do we feel envy? > > To put it simply, envy is the desire to have a quality, a possession, or another desirable thing that belongs to another person. For instance, you envy your friend’s well-shaped body or your sister who is about to go on an awesome trip. > > Typically, we feel envy not because we don’t want others to have something but because we cannot have it by ourselves. We don’t want more than others have, but we are often disturbed by obtaining less than them. > > All of us feel envy. This sense of inferiority to another person is unavoidable. From an evolutionary perspective, this is reasonable. Envy motivates us to strive to take what another person possesses, achieve it for ourselves, or better it. All these impulses seem pretty good ones when it comes to guaranteeing the survival and evolution of early humans fighting for resources. > > ## How to deal with envy > > First and foremost, there is no way to get rid of envy entirely. As we mature, gain wisdom from our experiences, and work on ourselves, though, we can develop ways of coping with its inevitable presence and letting it play its role in our lives without disturbing us. > > Ultimately, we are all responsible for our feelings and need to discover how best to regulate them. The first step to manage envy (or any other emotion) is to recognize that you’re responsible for it. From the moment you read this sentence, you need to accept that you’ve full responsibility for your feelings and to stop blaming others for your well-being. > > The person who is responsible and accountable has the power to change. Be that person and take responsibility. > > ### Examine your emotions > > Whenever I feel envy, I immediately ask myself: Why do I feel envy? I try to explore the origin of this emotion as thoroughly as possible: What do I envy? What exactly is it? And why? > > For instance, I was always feeling envy when I was a teenager and saw people on the internet, in magazines, or on TV that had a muscular, well-shaped body. However, I didn’t really know why I envied them: Was it their aesthetics? Was it the attention and looks they received? Was it their self-confidence they radiated? > > It’s vital to investigate the underlying reasons of your emotions to be able to influence them. A great way to dive deep into your inner feelings is to use your imagination. Think about how it feels when you obtain whatever you desire at this very moment. What emotions does it trigger in you? Are you happier now? Do you feel the same? Is it really that great? > > In my case, it really felt great and I exactly knew why: I didn’t care about the attention or looks of others, but I wanted to live in such an athletic body, too. I loved the imagination to have larger muscles and a lean body. > > ### Are you willing to pay the price? > > Applying the aforementioned method helps us to fathom the reasons why we desire something. However, nothing in life comes without a catch. It might seem awesome to have a muscular body, but no one really wants to acknowledge all the hours spent in the gym, the amount of food eaten, and the sacrifices brought to maintain it. The same goes for the majority of things we crave: perfect grades in school, a high level of confidence, great humor, amazing drawing skills, a strong singing voice, attractive styles, etc. > > Many things that we desire come at a price. Thus, you should always ask yourself what it took the person you envy to obtain whatever you desire. Most often, you’ll find out that you aren’t willing to experience the drawbacks of something even though the positive aspects seem great at first. Then, accept the things as they are: If you really want to have something, you need to be willing to work hard for it. And if you don’t want to put in the work, you need to accept the situation as it is. > > ### Go and get it or accept it! > > But what if there’re no downsides of something you desire but you cannot obtain or achieve it? Or what if you can achieve something and are willing to pay the price for it? > > The former is quite bad. You cannot do anything about it. The only way to cope with this is to accept it the way it is. > > You think you’re too small and want to be taller? Sorry, but there’re things in life we just have to accept. There is no real remedy to this. But that’s life. A great way to handle such a situation is to exercise gratitude: Focus on the things you’ve and you’re grateful for. In this world, there’re infinite things you cannot obtain, but there’re also infinite things you can be grateful for. Focus on the brighter side of life and accept the things you cannot change. > > However, if you can achieve something and you’re willing to work to obtain it, you need to take action. Whenever I envy something or someone and I decided for myself that I want to obtain it as well, I immediately devise a plan and take the first steps. > > The only way to get rid of envy, in this case, is to obtain whatever you crave. Unless you take action, you’ll always feel envy once you encounter a situation triggering your desire. > > Find out what you really want, devise a strategy on how you can obtain it, and take immediate action. --- # The importance of listening well - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/the-importance-of-right-listening - Date: 2020-06-21 - Categories: Communication > > *Listening is an art that requires attention over talent, spirit over ego, and others over self.* – Dean Jackson > > Summary: > > * Listening skills are among the most important skills for a happy and successful life > * People will be willing to listen to you more attentively > * Many of the troubles result from someone not hearing something or getting it in a distorted way > > Practical advice: > > * Don’t interrupt the other person > * Be curious and attentive > * Don’t judge and be emphatic > > Dear friend, > > Do you know this feeling when you talk to someone and you felt really understood? > > When we talk to other people, it’s a wonderful feeling if we’re given full attention. And it’s rather what the person doesn’t say than what s/he says that will eventually decide how we’ll remember a conversation. > > It’s not surprising that in many relationships partners complain about their partner not listening right. Many of us have never really learned to listen. As soon as we get to school, we are rewarded for opening our mouths and not for listening carefully. Even later in the job, it’s not the person who analyses the situation first and then gives his/her opinion on it but rather the person who first takes the initiative and raises his/her voice that will earn the recognition of others. > > In today’s article, I will talk about the importance of listening and how we can become better listeners. > > ## The importance of proper listening > > Why you should acquire strong listening skills? > > ### Develop great and improve relationships > > When you give your best attention to people, expressing thoughts and experiences that are important to them, those individuals are likely to see you as someone who cares about their well-being. They will feel much better understood and appreciate your time so much more. Moreover, people will be willing to listen to you more attentively, too. > > In our world, people listening well become scarce and scarce. If you want to impress someone, with great listening skills you can definitely make an impression on many people. When you listen well to others, you reveal yourself as being curious and interested in people and events. People love others that care for them and their opinions. > > ### Become a better leader and manager > > As a Harvard Business Review article found out, top executives that started to think of listening as an important subject by itself understand that the majority of their work highly depends on listening to someone or on someone else listening to them. When they thought back about things that went wrong the past years, most realized that many of the troubles resulted from someone not hearing something or getting it in a distorted way. They were surprised when they found out that listening is the most important link in a company’s communications, and that listening is often the least developed communication skill in their company. > > ## How to become a better listener > > Listening is purposeful and focused rather than accidental. It requires motivation and effort. Listening, at its best, is active, focused, and concentrated attention for the purpose of understanding the meanings expressed by another person. > > There’s so much information out there about how you can improve your listening skills. Hence, for the sake of simplicity and efficiency, I want to focus on the three most crucial aspects of proper listening. > > ### Don’t interrupt the other person > > Great listeners don’t interrupt the flow of the dialogue. You need to embrace the two-way communication and be aware that with every interruption comes disengagement. > > How do you feel when you are interrupted numerous times when you speak? Feels bad, right? > > Try to wait at least two to three seconds after someone finished talking before you say something. > > ### Be curious and attentive > > Good listening is much more than being silent while the other person talks. On the contrary, people perceive the best listeners to be those who periodically ask questions that promote discovery and insight. These questions gently challenge old assumptions, but do so in a constructive way. Sitting there silently nodding does not provide sure evidence that a person is listening, but asking a good question tells the other person that you haven’t only heard what was said, but that you comprehended it well enough to want additional information. > > ### Don’t judge and be emphatic > > When someone talks about their perspective on a given issue, that’s their experience and by definition, all experiences are valid. Might you disagree with their conclusion or their perception? Absolutely. But great listeners treat all perspectives worthy of consideration. > > Many times, we provide criticisms about things we disagree with. This is important, however, not in the middle of the conversation. > > A great listener makes the conversation a positive experience for the other party, which doesn’t happen when the listener is passive (or, for that matter, critical). You need to make the other person feel supported and convey confidence in her/him. Good listening is characterized by the creation of a safe environment in which issues and differences could be discussed openly. --- # The Surprising Benefits of Journaling - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/the-surprising-benefits-of-journaling - Date: 2020-06-14 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > Journaling is like whispering to one’s self and listening at the same time > > Summary: > > * Journaling is simply the act of thinking about your life & writing it down > * Gain more great ideas, learn from past experiences, & obtain a new perspective > * Increase your motivation & achieve more of your goals > > Practical advice: > > * There’s no one right way to journal > * Two minutes of journaling is the perfect start > * Do it as consistently as you can > > Dear friend, > > When I think about the routines that had the most positive impact on my life, I’d definitely put journaling in the top 3. In the fast few years, this habit created numerous opportunities for me. But despite its huge potential and a key role not only in my life but also in the careers of many prolific people, it’s such a simple task. > > In this article, I want to share with you the reasons why I journal and how you can get started, too. > > ## What is journaling? > > Journaling is simply the act of thinking about your life and writing it down. That’s it. Nothing more is needed. > > Most often, though, the journaling process is guided by one or several questions. I’ve got a set of questions for my different types of journals. Nevertheless, you can also just simply aim to write, for instance, ten sentences or five minutes about whatever you want. > > Journaling is much more about the process than about the results. > > ## Why you should journal > > ### Great ideas > > Among the greatest benefits of journaling that I’ve experienced in the last years, gaining a different perspective of life and looking at it from a bird’s eye view provided me with numerous massive opportunities. The act of journaling allowed me to write down ideas (protect them from getting lost), rethink and reevaluate them (refine and nourish a once simply thought), and eventually take practical action (make these ideas happen). > > Journaling is the origin of most of my achievements, many of which once started with a simple notion: all my personal branding activities (YouTube, Instagram, this blog, my newsletter, and more to come), my academic and professional accomplishments, the improvement of personal relationships, my high self-confidence and self-esteem, etc. > > ### Critical stance on one’s own life > > Journaling provides the opportunity to learn new lessons from old experiences. When looking back on my journal entries a year ago, I can quickly put myself in the situation I was in at the time but with the knowledge and experience that I have today. Mostly, this reflection process feels quite strange and rather uncomfortable than positive. Yet, the insights you can gain are precious. > > For instance, last year around this time I had a conversation with my mum about nutrition and how important parents are in developing healthy eating habits in their children (in this case my younger siblings). Last year, I thought I did a good job and made my point clear. From today’s perspective, though, I could’ve approached this situation more gently and more empathetically and prevented an emotional overload of the situation. > > Reading your old journal entries is like reading a great book for a second time. You pick up on new sentences and see the past in a different way. Only this time, you are re-reading the story of your life. This alone makes journaling worth the little effort it takes. > > ### Higher chances of goal achievement > > For me, it’s no surprise that journaling has been utilized by brilliant thinkers and inventors: Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein. Similarly, leaders, entrepreneurs, Olympians, and politicians throughout history have kept journals in one form or another. > > ### Journaling motivates you to make the most of each day > > When you have a bad day, it can be easy to forget how much progress you have made. But with a journal, it’s easier to keep a sense of perspective. One glance at your previous entries and you have proof of how much you have grown over the months and years. Writing down one sentence about what went well today gives you something powerful to look at when you’re feeling down. > > Moreover, there is something about knowing that your day will be recorded that makes you want to make at least one good choice before going to bed. These little achievements can add up to a huge success. Don’t underestimate the power of marginal gains. > > ## How to get started with journaling > > There’s no one “right” way to journal. > > When I started journaling, I asked myself one question before going to sleep: what were my greatest achievements today? > > This question enabled me a soft entry into the realm of journaling. At first, it wasn’t that easy to find an achievement every day, but that’s actually the whole point: to recalibrate our thinking and perception. Once I started with this routine, I’ve become much more positively minded. > > Two years ago, I added another question: what’s something to look forward to tomorrow? Knowing that tomorrow offers you at least one great thing makes you sleep so much better. > > Last year, my journaling routine was massively extended: I added another two questions that I answer after night. “What are the three most important goals of tomorrow?” and “In which area of life I can improve by 1% tomorrow?”. Additionally, I started to reflect on my life on a weekly and monthly basis, too. > > The questions I ask myself every week: > > * What was a highlight moment of the Week? > * Did I achieve my goals? Why, or Why Not? > * What’s a a life lesson that I learned this week? > * What are my 3 main goals for next week? > * How will I achieve them? > * Who deserves a big ‘thank you’? > * How can I help someone else this coming week? > > The questions I ask myself every month: > > * What did I achieve this month? > * What did I fail at this month? > * How happy do I feel, why? > * Who am I grateful for, why? > * Who/what does harm to me? > * Am I still consistent with my core values and mission statement? > * Compare the current situation with my 5-year plan > * What was I doing this time last year? Do I progress? Why/why not? > > I’d highly recommend you to start small and do it as consistently as you can. It takes a lot of time until you can experience the first benefits. Make it a habit to journal for 2 minutes every night on a topic that makes you feel passionate or find something else you want to reflect on consistently. Make it a fun activity. Most people have one of these journals: > > * What happened today? (Daily journal) > * What am I grateful for today? (Gratitude journal) > * What is my most important task today? (Productivity journal) > * How did I sleep last night? (Sleep journal) > * How do I feel today? (Mood journal) --- # Focus on quality instead of quantity - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/focus-on-quality-instead-of-quantity - Date: 2020-06-07 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.* – John Ruskin > > Summary: > > * Quantity won’t make you sustainably happy > * Focusing on quality leads to better results > * When you want to get started with something new, you shouldn’t care too much about the quality > > Practical advice: > > * Adopt a critical mindset > * Reduce things/people that aren’t contributing positively to your life > * Appreciate even the smallest gains in life > > Dear friend, > > This week, I once again thought a lot about what makes me happy. I concluded it’s not only the little things that make life so great but also quality and not quantity: I would rather live 40 great years than 200 shitty years. I would rather have a great party once a month than have a shitty party once a week. I would rather have one great friend than 100 superficial fake friends. > > In this article, I want to share with you how I define the terms quality and quantity, why I focus on quality instead of quantity, discuss exceptions to this rule, and how we can introduce more quality into our lives. > > ## What is quality, what is quantity? > > To put it simply, quality is a measure of excellence or of a state of being. It is a feature or a characteristic that someone or something has. Quality can be good or bad. It is more subjective. It is not easily measured. > > Quantity, on the other hand, is the extent, size, or sum of something. It can be expressed as a numerical value and can easily be measured. > > For example, if you focus on quantity in your relationships, you will have numerous friends independent of the quality of these relationships, whereas if you focus on quality, you will only have “high quality” (“best”) friends regardless of whether you have only one or plenty friend(s). > > ## Why should we focus on quality over quantity? > > *Quality over quantity* is a common phrase you hear these days. Essentially, this expression states that quantity will never make you happy: friends, clothes, gadgets, food, drugs, pleasure – nothing in large quantities won’t truly make you feel fulfilled. It doesn’t matter how much of something you have; what matters is the quality of what you have. Only quality can give you true, sustainable happiness. > > In the long-term, a focus on quality leads to better results. You might know the 10000 hours rule that states you need at least 10000 hours to master a skill. However, just practicing something won’t make you a grandmaster in chess. Even something that’s so little complex as tennis or chess requires that you not only practice a lot but focus on your weak spots, adjust best practices to your playing style, and consistently reflect what’s working (i. e. concentrate on the quality of your training). > > Most things in life are substantially more complex than chess or tennis. Just putting in the hours won’t bring you the desired results: You won’t become a good husband/wife just because you had dozens of shitty relationships. You won’t be happy if you’ve 1000 superficial friendships. You won’t become a famous Instagrammer just because you upload three crappy, “worthless” pictures per day. > > On the contrary, if you focus on one high-quality relationship or on only a few friendships, you’ll obtain more physical and emotional benefits than focusing on mediocre relationships (shown by a massive amount of studies). > > Why’s Apple so successful? Steve Jobs has planted a key notion into the company’s DNA after his return in 1997: Apple shouldn’t just sell computers, they should sell the promise of a better world. He was never more focussed on the profits than on the positive impact Apple’s products have on the lives of the customers. Hence, it’s no surprise that Apple makes most of its profits with only a handful of products. Those few products, though, are perfect in every detail. Apple is the best example of why quality is so much more important than quantity for achieving better results. > > ## When should we concentrate on quantity? > > I hope I could convince you that if you want to improve something, you should focus on quality, not quantity. Yet, there are times and situations in which you should rather concentrate on quantity than on quality. > > Particularly, when you want to get started with something new, you shouldn’t care too much about quality. In the beginning, we suck at everything. Even the easiest task will be very difficult. For instance, in lifting it takes so much time until you master the right technique for very simple exercises to really hit your muscle. Yet, after lifting for several months you will have automatically mastered 90% of the technical aspects. Then, if you want to improve your lifting technique, you have to focus on quality again. > > When I started with YouTube and writing blog posts, I concentrated on putting out content on a consistent basis. No matter how bad my video creating and writing skills were (or still are haha), I always put out my content. Today, I focus so much more on quality. I would never publish a video or blog post just to have posted something. > > Therefore, focus on quantity if you just get started with something new and once your learning curve flattens, focus on quality to achieve great results. > > ## How can we have more quality in life > > If you want to introduce more quality into your life, you should first ask yourself where you want to start. A focus on quality is less convenient than a focus on quantity as you need to adopt a critical mindset. This takes time and effort. Thus, start with one area of life you want to improve qualitatively. > > Next, a great routine is to critically assess whatever you want to improve right after you are finished doing it, for example after a workout, meeting, romantic date, presentation, exam, self-cooked dinner, video, concert, etc. you ask yourself “what are the three things I can improve?”, “if there is one thing that would substantially improve my ‘performance’, what’d be?” or “how can I improve 1% until the next time?” > > While a critical assessment and 100% honesty with yourself are essential to enhance the quality of your life, it is also very important to remove things that aren’t contributing positively to your life. I don’t want to say that you should break up friendships with people and only become friends with people who help you to achieve a better life or shouldn’t eat sweets or burgers anymore. Rather, I want to say that you should reduce the quantity of the things that harm you in your life. Critically assess if you really need to be friends with this guy who is a real asshole but could help you to get promoted, if you really need to go out with your drinking buddies every Saturday night although you could have a nice BBQ evening or hiking weekend with them too, or if you really want that high-paying job and work 60 hours a week, although you get sick, are unhappy with your life, and would rather work in a creative less-paying job at a marketing agency. > > Finally, I want to address a very sad fact about us humans. Humans cannot be happy all the time. Once we achieve something, consume something, spent time with someone/ something great, we get used to it very fast. For instance, if you purchase your first car this might be a 10/10 and you are the happiest man alive. However, after a few months, you won’t feel this happiness anymore. So, you need an even better car to achieve that 10/10 again but even if you purchase a Ferrari (or whatever luxurious car), the same effect will arise again. And this phenomenon can be observed in every area of life. Our unlimited desire for even greater things can never be satisfied. You can buy pleasure but not happiness. That’s the reason why so many lottery winners are a year after winning the jackpot less happy than before they won. > > Thus, never take the things that happen to you for granted. Appreciate even the smallest gains in life. It’s the little things in life that make it great. Moreover, you shouldn’t maximize for extremes (getting freaking rich or famous for instance) but have a lot of variety in your life and allow yourself to be sad and unhappy from time to time. We need those downs to feel great again. --- # Why showing vulnerability is a real strength - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-showing-vulnerability-is-a-real-strength - Date: 2020-06-01 - Categories: Communication > > We are never so vulnerable as when we love > > Summary: > > * Vulnerability means putting yourself in a position where you can expect negative reactions > * Showing vulnerability is about stopping trying to be perfect and exposing our true selves > * You’ll find new depth in your relationships and people will look up to you > > Practical advice: > > * Be 100% honest to yourself and others > * Always try to relate when someone is sharing negative experiences > * Tell others what you appreciate, admire, respect, or love > > Dear friend, > > When was the last time you genuinely expressed your true thoughts? For instance, a friend of yours asked how you are doing, and instead of saying “everything is fine”, you told him/her that you’re not good right now and life isn’t going great at the moment, but you don’t want to overwhelm her/him with a lengthy emotional conversation and just wanted to be honest. > > If we reveal our authentic selves, there is the great possibility that we will be misunderstood, labeled, or worst of all, rejected. The fear of these negative reactions can be so powerful that many of us created a thick armor around us that makes us feel less vulnerable. > > Yet, after all, vulnerability is the first thing we look for in people. We want them to be honest to us, don’t fake their emotions, be authentic, and show their real thoughts. When they show vulnerability, we perceive it as courage and daring. > > Indeed. Being real takes courage. Exposing our weaknesses to friends, family, and colleagues might seem an impossible endeavor for many of us. Yet, feeling comfortable with opening up and showing vulnerability can be learned. > > In this article, I want to share my experiences and explain to you why acknowledging your weaknesses is vital for a happy life and how you can show vulnerability to create better relationships. > > ## What vulnerability really looks like > > Vulnerability can be seen as the conscious decision to not hide your emotions or desires from others, enabling others to react negatively or in an unwanted way. > > This can be as simple as complimenting someone on how good they look, approaching an attractive stranger you don’t know, establishing clear and strong boundaries (telling someone a clear no), or expressing your love to someone. > > It can mean putting yourself in a position where you can be rejected, saying a joke that might not be funny, asserting an opinion that may offend others, joining a table of people you don’t know, telling someone you’re attracted to him/her, etc. > > Showing vulnerability is about stopping trying to be perfect, exposing our true selves, and sharing ourselves without inhibition. The point is that you’re not trying to be something that you’re not. > > However, even though it might genuinely vulnerable, suddenly unloading an inappropriate amount of emotions and personal history onto a conversation is insensitive and repulsive. So, this is how vulnerability *shouldn’t* look like. > > ## Why it is a real strength > > I can assure you, if you put in the work, express yourself honestly even when it’s risky to do so, have the difficult conversations, and tell the world “this is who I am and I refuse to be anything else”, you’ll find new depth in your relationships. All of your relationships. > > We are attracted to people that show vulnerability. We are inspired and look up to people who are able to set free themselves, break the thick armor that prevents us to get hurt, and escape the mental prison. > > Showing that you’re a human being with emotions and imperfect edges will take courage, endurance, and persistence. Once you get started and show vulnerability more often, however, it will feel increasingly easier and better; and after not too long, you will enjoy it and help others to expose their true selves too. > > Are you tired of having superficial fake friends? You’d be surprised how accepting all of your weaknesses and sharing your genuine thoughts with another can help you to connect to real people who aren’t interested in superficial relationships either. > > As you may already found out by yourself, probably in your latest romantic relationship: those who protect themselves to avoid getting hurt, fail to create intimate and close relationships. We can only have healthy and happy relationships if we can show vulnerability to our partner. So, if your last relationship failed, you might contemplate whether you were too afraid to be as you are and show your true inner beauty to your ex-partner. And if you want to enhance your current relationship, you might think about whether you’re really 100% honest to yourself and show your weaknesses to your partner. > > ## How can you show more vulnerability > > Being able to express vulnerability is an essential part of an authentic personality. Like authenticity, vulnerability requires you to be sincerely honest with yourself and others. When you’re asked something, you need to tell the truth. For instance, when I was asked what I think about soccer, I answered that I suck at it and, thus, I’m not interested in it. > > The most important step to show more vulnerability, though, is to open yourself up and express your genuine thoughts. For example, someone is telling you about his/her job and how nervous s/he was when s/he presented the project results to his/her boss. If you’re feeling very uncomfortable in speaking in front of others, relate to his/her story, tell him/her why you don’t like it as well, what you need to improve and learn, and how afraid of the next presentation you are. > > Be proactive and disclose your weaknesses and failures first. Most of the time, others will share their feelings too. > > Train yourself to become more comfortable with your emotions, with your faults, and with expressing yourself. Indeed, this process takes time and courage. And you won’t feel super comfortable in these situations at the beginning, but once you obtain a compliment for opening up and being so authentic, you’ll know that taking this risk is worth it. > > You don’t have to immediately share weaknesses, true emotions, and thoughts like dreams, passion, and desires with every new person you got to know. This will take the time or you won’t ever feel comfortable enough to expose yourself that much to strangers. Yet, telling someone what you appreciate, admire, respect, or love – positive emotions – is also a form of vulnerability we all have to practice more. > > When you get to know a new person, let’s say a colleague, you might ask him/her what they do in their free time (hobbies). Let them know what you think about it. Do you like it? Why do you like it? Have you ever tried it too? Why? Why not? Then, try to relate. Talk about your hobbies. Expose your thoughts and true feelings about it. Share your passion for the things that excite you. People will feel like they’ve gained a real insight into your world, and you’ll realize that sharing things with them really isn’t that scary after all! --- # Influencing others – how to better persuade and convince people - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/influencing-others-how-to-better-persuade-and-convince-people - Date: 2020-05-25 - Categories: Communication > > *One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears – by listening to them* – Dean Rusk > > Summary: > > * There’s no one-size-fits-all technique for influencing people > * You can influence people in three different ways that don’t exclude each other: Logically, emotionally, and collaboratively > * Just learning some techniques isn’t enough. You need to prepare properly > * The most persuasive person is the one who is willing to keep going > > Practical advice: > > * Learn to empathize and take the view of other people > * Develop a strategy and identify which technique(s) might work best > * Be persistent, but don’t just apply the same improper strategy again and again > > Dear friend, > > Every day we exert influence on others: when we’re asked for our opinion, when we agree or disagree with something, when we lead by example, when we argue with someone, when we ask a (critical) question, etc. > > Influence is something we learn in childhood. It takes place in families, among friends, in communities, at the workplace, at school, and in society more broadly. > > However, most of the time we’re influencing indirectly and doing it more “by accident” than intentionally. Additionally, in many situations, we even don’t want to influence others. > > But then again, there are situations in which we’d love to find an easy way to convince or persuade a person. > > BTW: The difference between persuading and convincing is that convincing is about making somebody or yourself to *believe* that something is true and persuading is about making somebody *doing* something. > > Just remember the last time you had to work in a team. > > When it comes to team-work, there’s always someone doing something in a way you don’t want her/him to do it. Maybe this person doesn’t meet deadlines, works sloppily, doesn’t contribute enough, is over-engineering, etc. If you want this person to be on time or work cleaner, you or someone else have to persuade her/him. That might be annoying and that’s the reason why many people don’t like to work in a group and feel like working alone is more efficient and convenient. > > But there’re many more situations in which you convince or persuade someone, for instance, your parents when you wanted to stay longer at a party, your siblings when you wanted them to do you a favor, your boss when you applied for a job, your friend when you wanted her/him to join you for a party, etc. > > Influencing is a skill that can be learned just like any other, and it’s a key part of being able to achieve your goals and objectives. > > In this article, I want to share with you my experiences and advice I collected over the past few years after applying the recommendations of Dale Carnegie’s *How to win friends and influence people* and many other great authors writing about this topic. However, I won’t give you the perfect formula for influencing every person out there and this is more about the general approach of exerting influence than a detailed technique manual. > > ## 3 Influencing Tactics: The Head, The Heart, The Hands[¹](https://www.ccl.org/articles/white-papers/learn-persuasion-skills/) > > First of all, a basic theoretical framework. People are all different but similar. > > You can influence people in three different ways that don’t exclude each other and work best in combination: > > 1. Through facts and logic ⇒ logical (Head) > 2. Through appeals to values and beliefs ⇒ emotional (Heart) > 3. Through support ⇒ cooperative (Hands) > > **The Head**: Logical influencing tactics address people in a rational or intellectual way. Arguments and information such as facts and figures are brought forward in the best interest of the person. This is pretty much self-explanatory. > > **The Heart**: Emotional influencing tactics connect the communication or decision to a person’s feelings of well-being or sense of belonging. The leader’s persuasion skill appeals to attitudes, values, a common purpose, ideals, and beliefs through inspiration or enthusiasm. > > For instance, your mom or dad smokes and you want her/him to stop. You know that your parents always wanted to be great grandparents. So, you tell them that they might be a bad role model for your kids, that they might die early because of cancer, that you feel worried about their health. It’s not about the facts, but the feelings. It’s very likely that they will live till your kids are grown up. But the feeling of not being able to care for their grandchildren might be a factor so strong that they’d consider stopping smoking. > > **The Hands**: Cooperative influencing tactics involve seeking advice and offering assistance. The goal is to reinforce the connection that you have with the others through focussing on a mutually important goal. > > For instance, you want your roommate to do the dishes. Find a common goal that is related to that chore. You both might want to live in harmony, respect each other’s freedom and space, and have a good time living together. So, you ask her/him first, if there is something you can do to make the co-living better. Most likely the answer will be “everything is fine”, and you’ll be asked if you feel so too. Then you start by pointing out some very good things you like about living with this person together and why you like it so much (live in harmony, have a good time). Ask him/her if s/he agrees with what you said and if s/he can relate. And eventually, you raise your concern, explain to her/him that there is one little thing that you’d really appreciate if it’d be done differently: the dishes. Most likely this person justifies why the dishes weren’t done and explains some reasons and that from now on this will change. Tell her/him that you’d greatly value it. Most likely, this person won’t still do the dishes all the time the way you want it. Yet, you shouldn’t criticize from now on, but every time this person does the job right genuinely praise him/her. And slowly but surely your problem will be solved. > > Each person has a preference for how they would like to be influenced. Selecting the best influence tactic is important to achieve the desired outcome with a person or group. You need to understand the way others want to be influenced and apply the right tactics to influence them. > > ## Preparation is key > > Now we know some basics about influencing others. Just learning some techniques, though, won’t really help you to achieve your goal. If you really want to persuade or convince someone, you need to prepare properly: get to know the other person, know what s/he wants, understand and empathize with them, and find a common ground. > > The more you know about a person, the more you will know what s/he cares about, what goals s/he wants has, and how badly s/he wants to reach those. This means that you first need to listen. Most often people are really easy to influence because they actually want it too, but there is an obstacle (their ego, pride, ignorant beliefs, bad experience, etc) hindering them to do/believe something. > > For instance, ask your teammate why s/he is always late to meetings and misses deadlines (of course in an emphatic manner). Try to view the situation from her/his perspective. In school, people most often told me that they felt too dumb or that they couldn’t contribute as much as others or that no matter how much they’d contribute, it wouldn’t change something in the outcome of the group work. And that’s pretty much everything I needed to know. From this moment, I saw my duty in encouraging this person to share and commit, value her/his opinion, and let her/him take responsibility, accountability, and credit. Of course, they didn’t change their mind/behavior immediately, but slowly and surely they did it. > > If you know why a person behaves and feels the way s/he does, you often intuitively know exactly what influencing tactic you can use to change his mind/behavior. Most people are born with this ability, you just need to harness this skill and exercise. > > Think about what tactic(s) you can apply. Can you influence through logic (head), through emotions (heart), or through collaboration (hands)? Which combination would work best? > > Prepare arguments and facts in case of a logical person. Listen carefully, empathize, relate, and identify the underlying emotions of the beliefs and behavior if you assume influencing by heart would work best. And search for common goals, ways you can help a person and how s/he can help you, and think about great agreements that benefit both of you if you think you can influence the other person the best through collaboration. > > ## Persistence and consistency > > Human beings are imperfect creatures. We all make mistakes. We all think and behave irrationally from time to time. We all have weaknesses. And we all don’t want to feel attacked and stupid. > > When you aim at convincing/persuading a person, you should expect the two following things: > > 1. People have an inherent resistance to change (status quo bias). Although people might benefit from changing their beliefs, decisions, or behavior, they are often reluctant to change. Thus, don’t expect others to change their mind/behavior after trying to influence them the first time. > 2. People often don’t even act according to their own beliefs. No matter how strongly you instill a belief in someone, there’s no guarantee that s/he will act according to it. > > *Persist, Persist and Persist Some More* > > If you’re unsuccessful, don’t resort to arguing. Instead, let the situation go, recollect yourself, refine your strategy, and try again at a later time. > > The most persuasive person is the one who is willing to keep asking for what they want, even when they keep getting turned down. No world leader would have gotten anything accomplished if s/he would’ve given up at his first rejection. Persistence often leads to a win if you time it correctly and take the right approach. > > Circumstances often change, so regularly reaching out to people who have previously been reluctant can mean a change of heart. > > Being persistent, though, doesn’t mean to just apply the same improper strategy again and again. You need to refine it, alter things that do not work, stay low-key, and don’t force but encourage. > > ## Dale Carnegie’s principles on how to influence people > > Last but not least, I want to give you a list of the principles that had the most impact on my life and my ability to influence others: > > * Persuade a person awakening in her/him the desire to do it herself/himself > * Admit that you can be wrong and respect the opinion of others > * Talk to someone first about issues you agree on > * Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view > * Praise every success, even the smallest. Give sincere, heartfelt recognition and be generous with praise > * Challenge others to compete > * Make the other person only indirectly aware of her/his mistakes > * Talk about your mistakes before you criticize someone --- # Forget about perfection! Focus on progression and compound improvements - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/forget-about-perfection-focus-on-progression-and-compound-improvements - Date: 2020-05-17 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement > > Summary: > > * We’ve to focus on consistency rather than on the goal itself > * 1% daily improvements lead to significant aggregated increases in performance > > Practical advice: > > * Ask yourself every time before you go to sleep in which area you want to improve 1% the next day > * Maintain a habit tracker. Every time you perform your habit, you mark it as small but vital achievement > * Focus on consistency and progress, not on short-term lows and highs > > Dear friend, > > Would you call yourself a perfectionist, a person who wants to get every detail exactly right? And have you ever felt limited because of this trait? For instance, you wanted to try something new but since you’re afraid you’ll never be really good at it, you wouldn’t give it a chance? > > I know this feeling all too well. When I was a teenager, I wanted to try so many things: dancing, playing an instrument, drawing, coding, singing, martial arts, … > > Today I’m strongly convinced that perfectionism can be a great attitude to achieve superior performance, but when I want to start something new, I’ve to radically exclude this way of thinking from the starting process. > > ## Focus on consistency rather than on the goal itself > > When we try something new, we’ve to focus on consistency rather than on the goal itself. It’s hard to be consistent because we usually do it the other way around: we focus more on the outcome than the process. And that’s the reason why most of us quit during the process before we can experience the rewards of staying the course. > > Perfection is an ideal, a state that is not achievable. You will never achieve perfection. There will always be a better performance. Either you or another person will achieve a better result at a later point in time. No world record will ever be unbroken as long as people can try to break it. > > It’s totally fine to aim for perfection. I do it every day. But rather than concentrating on the outcome, the goal itself, I aim at being a little better every day. > > Actually, I strive to improve in every area of life, not only the new things I give a try. No matter what I’m doing, I’m never satisfied. I always want to get it a little better. Once we reach a certain level of proficiency it becomes difficult to improve. Yet, what guarantees improvement and is the essential ingredient for great achievement is consistency. > > ## 1 percent daily improvements lead to significant aggregated increases in performance > > *When Sir Dave Brailsford became head of British Cycling in 2002, the team had almost no record of success: British cycling had only won a single gold medal in its 76-year history. That quickly changed under Sir Dave’s leadership. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his squad won seven out of 10 gold medals available in track cycling, and they matched the achievement at the London Olympics four years later. Sir Dave now leads Britain’s first-ever professional cycling team, which has won three of the last four Tour de France events*[¹](https://hbr.org/2015/10/how-1-performance-improvements-led-to-olympic-gold). > > Sir Dave, a former professional cycler who holds an MBA, applied the *theory of marginal gains* to cycling – he speculated that if the team broke down everything they could think of that goes into competing on a bike, and then improved each element by 1%, they would achieve a significant aggregated increase in performance. For instance, they brought their own mattresses and pillows to the hotels at the competition location so their athletes could sleep in the same posture every night. They searched for small improvements everywhere and found countless opportunities. Taken together, they gave them a competitive advantage leading to seemingly unbelievable success. > > The one percent rule states that over time the majority of the rewards in a given field will accumulate to the people, teams, and organizations that maintain a 1 percent advantage over the alternatives. You don’t need to be twice as good to get twice the results. You just need to improve 1% every day over a certain amount of time. > > Try to improve 1% a day at whatever it is you are trying to learn. This seems like a small number. But 1% a day, compounded, is 3800% per year. > > ## Habits are the key to consistency > > As James Clear, author of the best-seller “Atomic Habits”, says, habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. Habits seem to make no big difference on a given day, but the impact over months or years can be enormous. Improvements are not linear, but exponential. At the beginning super slow, but the longer we perform a habit and the more we exercise, the faster we improve. > > You have to identify the critical success factors of whatever you want to master and ensure they are in place, and then focus your improvements around them. > > For instance, you want to become more self-confident. Success factors are that you take small little risks every day, get out of the comfort zone, try new things out you are uncomfortable with, talk to strangers, speak up in discussions, raise your voice, make a clear point etc. Then, challenge yourself every day. > > Start small, not big, and adopt a philosophy of continuous improvement through the aggregation of marginal gains. Forget about perfection; focus on progression, and compound the improvements. > > When I was younger, I was very shy, not able to speak to people I didn’t know. Today, I can talk to every person I want to talk with. I started small by trying to smile and look people in the eye when I walked around, gave a warm hello to olders, initiated a conversation with people who I got to know once but no real relationship was established. Later, I approached random people in the gym, always raised my hand in the class when the teacher needed a volunteer, shared my view and opinions whenever possible, was the first person to present, etc. > > Today, I have successfully implemented a habit forcing me to make continuous improvement in this area although I feel like my self-confidence is at a very high level. Whenever I feel afraid to do something, I force myself to do it. For instance, when I was really afraid to speak to girls, I always forced myself to approach them once I feel anxious when I thought about talking to them. I ignored all the random excuses my mind made up at this very moment and then, I just did it. > > If I told this my 16-year-old self, he would laugh his ass off and would never believe me. But what started with minor daily challenges, became a seemingly unshakable level of self-confidence. --- # Empathy — its importance and power - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/empathy-its-importance-and-power-practical-advice - Date: 2020-05-10 - Categories: Communication > > *We must all try to empathize before we criticize. Ask someone what’s wrong before telling them they are wrong.* – Simon Sinek > > Summary: > > * Empathy is the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person > * Empathy is a skill everyone can enhance like every other skill > * If you want to be a great friend, lover, leader, teacher, mother, dad, … you have to practice empathy > > Practical advice: > > * Ask how people are feeling and really listen to what they say > * Pay attention to the people you care about > * Take the time to care > * Imagine what it’s like for them > > Dear friend, > > People often argue with each other because one part is not able to be there for the other one. People turn to us because we can listen to them and they can share their worries. And, you probably feel particularly well understood by others when you are listened to properly. > > When was the last time you had an argument with someone? When was the last time someone came to you and told you about her/his negative feelings or experiences? When was the last time you felt really understood by another person? Empathy might be the reason why you experienced these situations. > > Although I “understand” the importance of this trait and skill, it’s sometimes difficult for me to empathize with the people closest to me. Due to my inherent personality, I’ve created a kind of protective shell around my feelings. This allows me to cope better with upsetting situations, unfortunately, though, this makes me less sensitive to others’ feelings, too. Consequently, I have a hard time showing empathy. Maybe you can relate? > > As empathy is an incredibly important quality, I’ve been working to enhance it for a quite amount of time. In this article, I will explain to you, what empathy actually is, why it is so important, and how you can enhance it. > > ## What is empathy? > > Simply put, empathy is the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person, getting into another person’s world and connecting with them emotionally. It’s about understanding and being aware of the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of her/him. > > Most of us have a good understanding of how empathy looks like, though, many of us don’t really know how the harmful opposite manifests: we don’t listen carefully, misunderstand, judge, propose solutions, and criticize. > > You don’t have to hurt, blame, or insult someone to appear non-empathic. It takes much less. For instance, your friend tells you that her/his boss was really rude to her/him as your friend made a small mistake at work. Once you stop listening, trying to connect, and being aware of her/his feelings, and instead suggest solutions, criticize, or (even worse) empathize with the boss, you stop empathizing with your friend, and the emotional connection is damaged. > > Empathy is a skill everyone can enhance like every other skill. Yes, there are people who are naturally gifted with a lot of empathy (some even with too much tough), and there are people who are naturally cold as ice, yet we all can do something to improve. So far so good, but… > > ## Why is empathy so important? > > Empathy is one of the most important drivers for harmonious relationships, reducing stress, and enhancing emotional awareness. Without empathy, we go about life without considering how other people feel or what they may be thinking. We all have dissimilar perspectives; thus we are significantly limited when we only see our own perspective. Without taking a moment to assess another, it is easy to make assumptions and jump to conclusions. This often leads to misunderstandings, bad feelings, conflict, poor morale, and even break-ups and divorce. > > Great, healthy, and happy relationships require empathy. Whether we’re talking about romantic relationships or friendships, we cannot build trust, create mutual understanding, communicate effectively, grow and improve jointly, and show respect unless both parties show empathy. It’s no surprise that people felt loved most when they felt heard – openly and impartially. > > Moreover, if you want to climb the corporate ladder, found your own startup, or become a leader in any other area of life, you have to master the skill of empathy. Simon Sinek ([listen to this speech if you aren’t familiar with him](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi86Nr9Mdms)) states that leaders of this century have to be capable of empathy as its the only way to achieve superior results in the future. Company leaders that aren’t empathic and don’t exercise empathy won’t be able to create an environment in which employees strive. More than ever before it’s the people in a business who make the difference whether it will be successful or not. > > In surveys with employees on what makes a good manager, people answered they want their manager to listen to them. When leaders and parents and teachers listen, really listen, using empathy to understand what the person is thinking or feeling without trying to change them or fix them or solve their problem, the person feels valued as a human being. And when people feel valued, they feel safe. They feel that they matter. And this means they are free to be themselves and to perform their work. In other words, employees are more productive when they feel valued. > > So, if you want to be a great friend, lover, leader, teacher, mother, dad, … you have to practice empathy. > > ## How to become more empathic? > > Ask how people are feeling and really listen to what they say. One of the best ways we can express empathy towards others is through our curiosity and listening. When people feel heard, seen, and emotionally understood, they often relax, open up, and feel supported. Asking people how they truly feel, what’s really going on in their world, AND listening to how they respond (without judgment) are some of the best things we can do to express our empathy for the people around us. > > It requires us to pay attention to the people we care about. Too often we are in our own heads; we have our own agenda. We are busy. So we don’t pay attention to what others are thinking or feeling. In order to improve, we need to be more self-aware and more aware of others. For example, the next time you ask someone how they are doing, listen to their response. Do you believe them? Are they really okay? Ask yourself if you care to learn more. If so, then ask them a question or share your observation. > > It takes time. In our fast-paced world, people just keep moving. Empathy requires that we stop and take the time to care. “What is going on for you; you look like you have something on your mind?” > > Imagine what it’s like for them. While it can sometimes be difficult for us to “understand” another person’s perspective or situation (because we may not agree with them, haven’t been through what they’ve been through, or don’t really want to see it through their eyes), being able to imagine what it must be like for them is an essential aspect of empathy. This is not about condoning inappropriate behavior or justifying other people’s actions, however, I do believe deep in my heart that no one does or says things that are hurtful to us if they aren’t already feeling a real sense of pain themselves and/or haven’t been hurt in many ways in their own life. Whatever the situation is, the more willing we are to imagine what it’s like for them, the more compassion, understanding, and empathy we’ll be able to experience. --- # Failure – how to deal with it? - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/failure-how-to-deal-with-it - Date: 2020-05-03 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts* > > Summary: > > * Embrace your feelings > * Develop a winner mindset > * Heed the lessons of failure > > Practical advice: > > * Search for successful people who failed many times before succeeding and achieving goals that are similar to yours > * Tell yourself every day that failure is part of the process and that if you didn’t fail at any point in my life, you weren’t aiming high enough. > * Maintain a failure journal and note lessons learned > > Dear friend, > > Have you ever failed at something? You set yourself a goal, tried, and didn’t succeed? > > This week I failed. I’d been preparing for an admission test (GMAT) for more than 4 months. I thought I was ready. So, I made an appointment and took the exam. On the test day, I felt very well prepared and the exam itself seemed very fair. Yet, a few days later I received the disappointing test report. Unfortunately, I completely messed up the second part of the exam and, thus, didn’t reach my target score. > > > High achievement takes place in the framework of high expectation > > I knew it’s going to be rough, particularly, because the test had a new format even professional test takers (people earning money tutoring test-takers) struggled with. Nevertheless, a multitude of negative feelings came over me. > > After acknowledging my nonsuccess, however, one thing instantaneously came to my mind: I’ll not let this sit on me. I’m going to make the most out of this failure. In today’s blog post, I’ll talk about this process: how I deal with failure and what you should do in order to cope successfully with it. > > ### **Embrace your feelings** > > Failure is often accompanied by a variety of emotions: embarrassment, anxiety, anger, sadness, despair, and shame to name a few. Those feelings are very uncomfortable and, thus, we will do anything we can to escape feeling this emotional discomfort. > > Holding in our painful feelings, though, can have negative effects on our health, our relationships, and our future success. It will be harder to move forward if you blame yourself or others, or pretend that what happened didn’t matter or didn’t happen. > > The first step to cope with failure is to embrace your feelings. Notice each emotion as it comes to you. Take time to name each of it, be it anger, sadness, fear, or shame. This will enable you to work through it without turning it on yourself or others. Take time to process your feelings and classify them. > > After the first shock of disappointment wears off, whether it takes minutes or hours, work on accepting what happened. Write down or reflect on everything that happened, what lead to it, and what the consequences were. State only the facts, without blame, judgment, or justification. > > It’s doing wonders for me to write down my thoughts. When I received my score report, I asked myself three questions: 1) How am I feeling right now? 2) How can my emotions be described? 3) What’s the worst thing that could happen because of this nonsuccess? This process is outcome independent, this means that it’s much more about the process than about the result. > > ### **Develop a winner mindset** > > Then, after you slept on it your first night, it’s time to replace your negative emotions with positive energy. No matter how self-confident you are, no matter how often you’ve already succeeded, the first few hours after acknowledging failure are going to be rough. It’s completely normal to feel down. However, what differentiates winners from losers is their mindset and how they cope with failure once the overload of negative is gone. > > If you want to deal sovereignly with failure, you have to adopt a winning mindset. If you lack this attitude, you need to reframe your thoughts. Remind yourself of more realistic thoughts about failure such as “I can handle failure”, “I can learn from my failures”, “failure is a sign that I’m challenging myself to do something difficult”, “there’s no failure only lessons”, “if you don’t risk something, you’ve already lost”. > > I always tell myself: If I didn’t fail at any point in my life, I wasn’t aiming high enough. > > > It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default. – J. K. Rowling > > Moreover, you need patience in life because not everything will work out instantly. Things take time to work out. People with a winning mindset will always outwork those people who don’t have patience in life. When things don’t happen instantly, just remember that Thomas Edison made over 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. > > ### **Heed the lessons of failure** > > The real payoff from failure comes when you take the lessons you’ve learned and use them for whatever you do next. > > Whenever I don’t reach my goals – no matter how minor they are – I immediately think about the next steps: What do I have to do to avoid making the same mistake twice? What are the key areas for improvement? What was the main source of failure? What will I do next? Do I need to change my plan to reach my goal? Who can help me so that I can reach my goal? I won’t stop contemplating until I figured out the next to-do, wrote it down, fixed it in my calendar, and took the first step towards my next try. > > We need to understand that mistakes and failure are the most valuable source of improvement. Failure means you aren’t good enough YET. Or it’s not the right time YET. Failure unfolds our current limitations and helps us to tap our full potential. > > I regularly reflect on my latest mistakes and day-to-day failures. I have a document solely dedicated to my personal areas of improvement. Whenever I witness room for improvement, I note it down and think about how I can progress. Challenging myself and aking a little risk every day have become part of my everyday life. I think this is the only way we can live our life to the fullest. How can we leave this world without once having reached the limits of what is possible? I think that is what makes so thrilling. --- # Consistency – why is it essential for success? - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/consistency-why-is-it-essential-for-success - Date: 2020-04-26 - Categories: Goal Achievement Summary: * We greatly overestimate what we can achieve in a few weeks * Great things take time * Success results from the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out > It’s not about intensity, it’s about consistency Dear friend, How do you define success? Is it the fact of achieving wealth, respect, or fame? The desired result of an attempt? Working hard day-to-day towards your self-defined goals? No matter how you approach a definition of this term, being successful implies at least 3 integral ingredients: 1. Goal(s) 2. Work 3. Achievement. 1. You cannot be successful without having a goal you want to achieve 2. You cannot achieve your goals unless you work towards them 3. And eventually, you’re only successful when you achieve them Having a goal is the easy part. Execution and persistence are what most people lack. They often fail because they don’t even try. And of those people who overcome their inner resistance, the majority gives up after a short time. ### **We greatly overestimate what we can achieve in a few weeks** When I try something new, let’s say running, I keep in mind that as long as I keep going, I’ll progress no matter what. I tell myself that I need to keep going until I witness progress. Only when I advance and can feel a real difference, I allow myself to reconsider my plan. For instance, if I hadn’t stuck to that principle, I’d have quit running after the second time. IT SUCKED SO HARD. I was so slow at the beginning and it was so boring. But I kept going. I told myself, I have to keep going until I can run a little faster and longer without feeling more exhausted. Today – almost a year later – I am unbelievably grateful that I kept going. I felt in love with running and it’s so much fun now. The main reason for failure is our impatience. We want things fast. We don’t really care when we’ve to work our asses off for a few hours as long as we obtain what we want quickly. But what makes most of us struggle is when we have to perform simple little things over the course of several months without a manifestation of our effort. It’s understandable that you quit after a few times because it sucks when you go to the gym and you cannot see any benefit. It’s understandable that you quit after 2 weeks because you cannot witness a drop-in weight when you go on a very strict diet. It’s understandable that you quit playing the piano when you try to learn it and even the basics are very hard to master. At first, even the easiest things seem to be difficult. Yes, it’s frustrating. Sometimes starting something new seems impossible to accomplish. Eventually, though, what separates failure from success is trying one more time. ### **Great things take time** No matter if it’s eating healthy food, exercising, sleeping enough, reading books, smiling more often, etc. – we often fail in accomplishing those little things because we’re not able to grasp the impact – whether positive or negative – those little daily deeds can have. This can be very well illustrated by looking at smokers: Smoking a cigarette now and then doesn’t seem very risky. But the fact that more than 10% of ALL deaths can be attributed to smoking is disastrous. Recent studies show that every second habitual smoker will probably die from the consequences of smoking. We greatly overestimate what’s possible in a few months and strongly underestimate what’s possible in 10 years. It doesn’t matter which area of life we look at: relationships, ventures, career, health, sports, music, art, etc. You won’t establish a great friendship in a week. It takes a lot of time – not months, but years – until you really get to know and can fully trust each other. The same goes for sports, getting in shape, building your own company, or getting the job you always dreamt of. You cannot become Beyoncé or Adele after singing a few months or achieve the aesthetics of someone who has been doing sports and eating healthy for several years. That’s just not right and it wouldn’t be fair. Success isn’t about eureka moments, your big break, pulling off all-nighters, or drinking Red Bull all day. If you want to achieve things in your life, it’s about aiming for daily progress. You need to exercise, read, work, learn, study, every single day. Inconsistency is the enemy of results. ### **Consistency is the key to success** If you really want to be successful, you have to do all the many minor things right, day-in and day-out. You shouldn’t have high expectations (in the short-run) at first, but rather you should ask yourself EVERY day, how can you be a better version today than yesterday. It’s about 0.1% improvements and not about doubling your performance after a few weeks. Start small, be patient, and wait for progress. If you cannot trust the process and need more assurance, ask an idol or a person who’ve already achieved the goals you are striving for. Find out how much time sh/e needed to progress. You’ll be surprised how open and willing people are to share, and how long it will take until it’ll actually take to make a big step forward. You don’t fall in love with someone because s/he invited you to dinner once, gave you a present, and watched a movie with you. We fall in love with someone because of all the little courtesies, sweet text messages, spending hours, days, and weeks with each other. We don’t fall in love with someone after a few days. As it is with relationships, so it is also – as already described – in other areas of our life. You cannot expect to make a great impact in your job after a few weeks. It’s rough to learn to basics and create any value at all at the beginning. And if you want to create a business, you cannot expect that people are waiting for you to purchase your product. No one is waiting for you. In a process of uncountable iterations, we find out what is working and what is not. Overnight successes are one of the biggest misconceptions in our world. Even if someone becomes successful overnight, s/he has already worked for numerous hours without anyone noticing it. Sometimes it takes you 10 years to get to the day you’ll be noticed or make the step you need to be successful. Till then you need to stay consistent, try things out, fail, stand up again and again, and be the biggest fan of yourself. --- # Why I always write down ideas immediately & how it’s changed my life - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-i-always-write-down-ideas-immediately-how-its-changed-my-life - Date: 2020-04-19 - Categories: Goal Achievement Summary: * Free your mind and become more productive * Keep track of great ideas * Use your thoughts to define clear and tangible next actions regularly > Your brain is made to generate ideas not to store them I’m pretty sure you know this feeling: you drank a cup of coffee and, suddenly, you’re constantly distracted by a flow of ideas coming to your mind. Similar occurrences happen when you’re doing mundane tasks and become bored. Our brain is a master of procrastination and loves variety in life. Other major distractions include your environment: family members, flatmates, or colleagues – from silly noises to thought-provoking questions – people surrounding you can disturb your concentration, too. Those distractions, though, severely hurt our productivity. Once distracted, we need a good amount of time until we’re focused again. And the more energy and time we allocate to them, the more difficult to return to a state of “flow”. Moreover, most of the time all energy spent on these random thoughts is wasted as we lose track of them. So, … ## How can we stay concentrated despite these distractions and how can we harness our brain as an “idea generation machine”? What helped me a lot to keep track of all of the ideas that randomly came to my mind, and what worked marvelously against these interruptions was writing down my thoughts. For many years, I’ve been doing this: as soon as I have an idea or am distracted by the input of another person, I create a note. I just pick up my cell phone, use the most simple note-taking app available, write down as little as possible, and then I am good to go on again. At the end of the day or week, I take the collected thoughts and notes, structure them, and define clear and tangible next actions. ### Free your mind – productivity Once your thoughts are written down, your mind is free. You can tell yourself that you’ll think about this notion at a later point in time, but now it’s time to focus on your task at hand. Moreover, you can release the burden and free capacity which would be used to store your thoughts otherwise. Your brain is an awesome tool to come up with new ideas, but it’s very bad in keeping them. Unless you write them down, storing them is difficult and drains a lot of energy. Since you want to increase your productivity, you should choose the media for keeping track of your thoughts wisely. If you cannot discipline yourself and become distracted even more when you write a note on your smartphone, you should think about other possibilities to store your thoughts. For instance, when I need to study, I ban my smartphone completely. I use an app that allows me to deactivate my smartphone for a certain period of time (even if I restart it, I cannot use it then) because I hate being distracted and cannot control myself. To be able to keep an overview of my ideas nevertheless, I have paper and pencil always within reach. ### Keep track of great ideas Since I’ve developed this habit, I could retain plenty of great ideas. So many marvelous achievements started with a simple random thought that was written down and executed. For instance, Apple was founded because Jobs and Wozniak wanted to make computers small enough for people to have them in their homes or offices after they wondered why such an amazing invention like the computers didn’t reach the mass-market. Create a habit to write your thoughts down. You’ll be surprised how many ideas are trash, but also how many great ideas you’ll come up with. ### Define clear and tangible next actions Storing your thoughts will help you to stay productive and focused. Yet, if you want to capitalize on your creativity, you also need to take action. “An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied”, Arnold Glasow once said. I strongly believe that the path to success is to take massive, determined actions. When your colleague asks you to send them a report or your family members want you to do something for him/her, we tend to do it without keeping track of these requests. But when you’re distracted by your mind and note down these random ideas, they become less attractive and are perceived as a lower priority. In order to make the most out of my notes, at least once a week, I sit down, look through my idea storage, structure and reformulate ideas, and define clear and time-bound actions. This website/blog, my weekly newsletter, my YouTube channel, etc are results of these sessions. Whenever I look through my notes, I have to write down the next steps for each and every idea. I cannot let them sit for any longer once I look at them again. At least I have to think about, how I can explore the idea further (e. g. through further research on the internet or asking someone) and when I’ll do that. --- # Why to always have a smile on your face - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-to-always-have-a-smile-on-your-face - Date: 2020-04-12 - Categories: Communication Summary: * Experience more gratefulness * You will become happier * Infect others to be happier * Show openness and tap new opportunities > If you see someone without a smile give them one of yours Walking down the streets yesterday, I once again reminded myself to smile. Then, shortly after I had forced myself to grin wide, I realized why this habit had become so important to me: Immediately feelings of happiness arose and life felt much better than before. I developed this habit after I had finished reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends”. His words inspired and convinced me in a way that I had the urgent need to follow his advice. As Carnegie states in a poem dedicated to this topic, smiling costs nothing but creates much. It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It creates happiness in the home, fosters goodwill in a business, and is the countersign of friends. It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and nature’s best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anyone until it is given away. The positive effects of a simple smile might surprise. But even if faked, a wide grin can give you a boost of hormones of happiness, make you feel exhilarated, and let you enjoy the moment. In order to feel an immediate positive effect, though, you need to smile very broadly for at least 30 seconds. Your face might look quite silly, but if done right, you will definitely notice the benefit. Obviously, you cannot maintain this extreme facial expression forever. Yet, once you got into a happy mood, smiling becomes natural and you don’t need to fake grinning anymore. ## **Why I try to always have a smile on my face** In my opinion. the reasons why much smiling has so many advantages are pretty clear and outweigh the downsides by far. Too many people, however, look unhappy, annoyed, or neutral, leading to the conclusion that too many people don’t really know how much they can benefit from (just) smiling more. In order to tackle this issue, I will explain the most important reasons to have a smile more often on your face. ### **You will become happier** As previously explained and [scientifically proven](https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/smiling-can-trick-your-brain-happiness-boost-your-health-ncna822591), even a fake smile makes you feel happy. True to the motto “Fake It Till You Make It”, a wide smile can trick your brain into believing you’re happy, spurring actual feelings of happiness. Just give it a try right now while you read this article. ### **Experience more gratefulness** Reminding yourself to smile more often helps you to be more grateful. Life isn’t not only about the chase of achievement after achievement. We will never be happy if we don’t take the time to enjoy them. The best way to enhance our happiness is a simple one: we just need to be more grateful for the things life offers us. I always tell myself to be “never satisfied, but always grateful”. As I’m never satisfied with anything in life, I’m at high risk to become unhappy. Consistently reminding myself to be grateful for even the most little thing in life, though, allows me to enjoy a very happy and fulfilled life. Smiling is one of those little things that make life so interesting. For instance, the feeling of walking outside on a sunny day, listening to singing birds, and breathing fresh air is so beautiful. Whenever I remind myself to smile, I immediately trigger a stronger awareness for those little things, enabling me to appreciate them more often. ### **Infect others to be happier** Have you ever been prompted to smile more? I reaaally don’t like when people tell other people to smile. You can never know why a person looks the way s/he looks; therefore, don’t tell them what to do. If you really want to make this person smile, be a good leader and lead by example. Make them smile, don’t force them to be happy. Show that life is beautiful, be happy for life’s own sake, spread positivity, and make an impact. When you try to always have a smile on your face, the people around you will become happier, too. You attract what you give. You can literally infect others with your smile. ### **Show openness and tap new opportunities** Smiling more often signals people around you that you are open towards them. You might argue now that you don’t want to get in touch with more people. That’s totally fine, but then you can stop reading here right now. If you want to be more open, connect to people, obtain new and untapped ideas, live your life to the fullest and have great conversations, a smile can be a great door opener. If you are in a positive mood and radiate this positivity, you’ll have a much easier time meeting new people. In my opinion, openness will always pay off. Being open-minded towards new people has plenty of advantages. In a previous article, I wrote down my thoughts regarding this topic. [Click here to access it](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/3-reasons-why-openness-pays-off). --- # How to add more variety to life? - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-add-more-variety-to-life - Date: 2020-04-05 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *Variety is the spice of life* **Summary:** * Variety comes at an expense – you shouldn’t add variety to things you don’t really like * Be the designer of your life * Be open to everybody * Get perspective – you need to sense what life has to offer Dear friend, Do you know what makes life so beautiful? I truly believe it’s the people, places, and activities life has to offer. Unfortunately, being limited by external or internal forces, far too many people aren’t able to live their life to the fullest and won’t get to know all those wonderful people, visit all those incredible places, or undertake all those thrilling activities. In my view, being restricted not by external, but by internal limitations is even more tragic. People living in developed countries and enjoy economic freedom have so much more opportunity than people living in poverty in the disadvantaged regions of our world. But why so many people don’t overcome their inner boundaries and make their life the best they can have? I think many lack perspective, courage, accountability, and creativity. Moreover and foremost, people become stuck in their rut (monotone daily routine). To spice up your life and break the monotony of your life, I don’t want to tell you to give up on your routines. I do love routines as well. Without the daily monotonicity and structure, my life would be miserable; it’s become an integral part of my life. Yet, *variety* is one of those essential ingredients for a fulfilled life. You cannot live your life to the fullest without variety. Just like everything in life, you need a healthy balance of both in order to get the most out of them. It’s like yin and yang, good and evil, and black and white. Neither should dominate your existence. Actually, I am strongly convinced that variety is one of the most important determinants of our overall life satisfaction. We, humans, are hardwired to need a constant dose of novelty and freshness in our life. And when we lack it, life quickly becomes boring, stale and unfulfilling, often despite many other positive things that may happen in it. But, … ## **How can we add more variety to our lives?** ### **Variety comes at an expense – you shouldn’t add variety to things you don’t really like** Repetition kills the excitement. Even fun and joy become predictable with repetition. Variety is the best cure against monotony and repetition. We are all creators of our own life. When it comes to routines, we should create a routine for everything that has to be done but isn’t exciting. Adding variety to brushing your teeth or commuting to work won’t make your life substantially better, however, adding variety to those activities comes at an unproportional expense. You shouldn’t add variety to things you don’t really like. ### **Think in terms of places, people and activities** Before writing this article, I was doing my research and found a great article about how we can conceptualize variety. According to Eduard Ezeanu, we can increase the variety when we think in terms of places, people, and activities. Eduard states that if you have a lot of variety in at least 2 out of these 3 categories, your life will be very fun and exciting. A great example to illustrate this concept: You can live your whole life in one relatively small town and rarely visit any other places, but if you constantly meet new people and expand your social circle, plus you frequently try all sorts of new things (hobbies, sports, etc), your life will feel vibrant and you’ll be happy. So, first of all, you should conduct a reality check: Do you regularly experience something new in at least 2 of those categories? In which areas do you have a lot of variety? Do your job, hobbies, and other activities fulfill you? Do you visit a lot of different places? Or are you in touch with a broad range of people? If you lack variety, you first need to identify the areas not providing you with the needed excitement. ### **Be the designer of your life – activities** Your job doesn’t fulfill you? Get a new job! You are passionate about something and always dreamed about doing it? Do it! Learn that instrument, try that sport, write that book, shoot that video, visit that theater, help those people, sing that song,… It takes a lot of courage to try out new things. Additionally, at first, the easy things seem difficult. Starting with a new hobby requires persistence. Once we got started and become good at something, the difficult things become easy. For instance, when I started with videography it took me 10 hours to create a video. Today, the same video would take me at most 1 hour. The same goes for running: I started with 4 kilometers in 35 minutes. Today I run about 9 kilometers in 45 minutes. If you want to introduce more variety into your life by adding activities that excite you, you need to be patient and have the courage to try one more time. ### **Be open to everybody** Do you feel like you’re missing variety in your relationships and circle of friends? First, you should analyze whether you just didn’t get to know enough people you value or you feel like you don’t have the time to harness this variety. In the case of the former, you definitely need to be more open towards people. Most great friendships were established because of randomness. There is no blueprint for getting a large circle of great people around you. Yet, openness is key. You don’t have to actively search for people, but if you don’t get into touch with people, you won’t be able to lay the foundation for a relationship. Be open, be curious, ask questions that spark your interest. You don’t have to fake anything, just share your thoughts. The people who deserve a seat in your circle of friends will respond accordingly. In the case of the latter, you might have the wrong priorities. There is almost nothing that is more important to me than the people I value most. You cannot live a happy life when you don’t have people you love around you. Take the initiative to entertain, and invite friends or family over for dinner or something different. Create time and room for events with people you love. You don’t have to spend your whole free time with different people, but you should try to spend time with a variety of people before you fix your circle of friends. Another great approach is to create variety for someone else. Surprise someone, just visit or call them. Show honest interest in people. It’s not about quantity, but quality. ### **Get perspective – you need to sense what life has to offer** What should you do if you lack variety with regard to places? In my opinion, our world is incredibly beautiful, and we don’t have to travel far to see this beauty. To bring variety into your life, you should use the available opportunities before traveling around the world. Most of us don’t even really know the place where they live. If you want to have variety and are short of time to travel, explore the city you live in: eat out in unknown restaurants, find your new favorite café, go for a long walk, say hello to your neighbors, explore the city at night, etc. If you want to visit other countries and don’t have a lot of money, travel to countries that have a lower purchasing power. For instance, Eastern Europe offers amazing places to visit and at the same time, the price level is affordable. Eventually, it’s about how open you are to these experiences and what you do with these opportunities. --- # How to have more meaningful conversations - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-have-more-meaningful-conversations - Date: 2020-03-29 - Categories: Communication > > *The biggest communication problem is that we listen to reply, not to understand* > > Dear friend, > > During my weekly reflection, I was wondering at what moments I felt most happy. Concluding that there is nothing more joyful than having a meaningful conversation with a person which is valuable to me, I urgently wanted to analyze what I love so much about these dialogs and how I can have more of them. > > **Here my summarized considerations:** > > What’s great about deep conversations > > * Thrilling and exciting talks about things that matter most to us > * Share deepest beliefs and motivations > * Identify problems and potential solutions for our greatest challenges > * Open up freely and support each other > > How to have more meaningful conversations > > * First and foremost: be genuinely interested > * Be curious about the underlying motivation and their opinions > * Lead the conversation and ask engaging questions > * Balance the conversation by sharing about yourself > * Dare to share small vulnerabilities > > ## What’s great about deep conversations > > What I really like about conversations that go far beyond small-talk is the feeling of opening up and sharing our true opinions. I enjoy asking people what they love doing and particularly why they love doing it. When we talk about what is most important to us and why, and there is someone who is a great listener, energy and passion flow through our body. We become thrilled and excited proportionally to the degree of how much we are passionate about the topic and how well the other person listens to us. Triggering these emotions in others is pure pleasure for me. > > Additionally, deep conversations are the basis for identifying personal issues that someone has to deal with. Having meaningful dialogs with others enables us to instill trust in them. People open up more freely and regularly, allowing us to support each other, either mentally or practically by providing solutions for their greatest challenges. > > Most of the time, we are too shy or don’t want to bother anyone with our troubles although the majority of people love solving problems and helping others out. Actually, most often it is a “win-win” situation, but those opportunities cannot be seized as we tend to not open up. Having deep conversations regularly will solve this issue easily. > > ## How can we have more meaningful conversations? > > ### **First and foremost: be genuinely interested** > > Imagine there is someone asking you why you are working in position xyz or studying/majoring in abc. There are two scenarios: in the first one, the person is someone conducting a survey for her or his boss and quite unmotivated to do her or his job. In the second scenario, a person two years younger than you asks you the same question, but this person tells you before doing so that s/he always wanted to be in your position (studying abc/working as xyz) and wants to know your honest opinion. Whom do you tell more passionately and honestly about your experiences? > > If we want others to talk about things that mean a lot to them, we need to show them clearly honest curiosity. When people open up, they make themselves vulnerable. Showing genuine interest is a clear sign to them that their risk of opening up will be worthwhile. > > Moreover, be a great listener. Instead of just listening to the words someone is saying, understand them. If you notice that you’re distracted, silence whatever distractions are grabbing your attention, such as a cellphone, music, or noise. Give the person your full attention while they are speaking and do not interrupt them. Wait your turn to speak. > > ### **Be curious about the underlying motivation and their opinions** > > Meaningful conversations aren’t about the WHAT but the WHY. The fact that someone is working as a business consultant might be very uninteresting to you, however, the actual reason why someone is pursuing such a career might be very exciting. For instance, the person might have worked for a company that went out of business and she wants to prevent the loss of jobs by being a great advisor to distressed firms. The story behind this motivation might be very interesting. > > A good way to make the transition from typical, shallow small-talk conversations is to just follow up with “why”: > > A: “Why do you like pizza so much?” > > B: “Because my mum is Italian” > > A: “Oh wow, that’s interesting. What do you like more, Italy or country x and why?” > > … > > People love to share their opinion on things they are excited about. “Why do you like xyz?”, “What do you think about this or that? Why?”, “What do you do in your free time? … Swimming? Why?” > > But don’t forget that you have to be honestly interested! Don’t force the conversation. Try to hit on something the other person is passionate about that you’re also interested in. > > ### **Lead the conversation and ask engaging questions** > > Just asking why isn’t enough. If you want to have a deep conversation, it’s important to keep it going for at least some time. Before people open up (varying from person to person), there are hurdles to pass. In order to accelerate the process, get the other person to talk about himself/herself first. And how? Make it a point to ask at least one question before moving on to the next topic. Before you share, let them share; and before you start talking, let them finish their talk. > > Later, once trust is instilled it’s your turn. If she or he’s interested in what you have to offer, you can naturally transition into a pitch that interests her or him and doesn’t feel forced. A lot of times, a person will self-identify a need right after you talk about what you do. After getting to know each other more, you’ll know more about the similarities and topics you both are excited about. > > ### **Balance the conversation by sharing about yourself** > > Whenever you ask personal questions, share about yourself, too. I use to share a little piece of information about me related to the question I’m about to ask. Share your opinions, too. Be honest and try to conform to the other person’s opinion. If you disagree, tell them, but explain your view and don’t argue or force a discussion. > > However, don’t cut someone short in order to share. Sometimes it’s common to let someone talk for a long time. Aim to share roughly as much during the course of the conversation. This rule of thumb will become more and more natural the more you get to know each other. > > For instance, If someone briefly mentions what they think of his or her job, you can later briefly mention what you think of *your* job. If the person is interested in this topic, s/he will ask you based on what you said. > > The same goes for other topics: Childhood, school, friends, hobbies, etc. > > ### **Dare to share small vulnerabilities** > > It’s vital to allow yourself to be vulnerable in relationships. If you want others to open up, you need to be willing to do it as well. Share things that are personal to you. This will instill trust in others and encourage them to open up to you, too. > > For instance, when you ask a person about their time in high school and the person responds quite shallow, you can tell them a story in which you felt uncomfortable, anxious, or sad. Most of the time people can relate to those experiences and add something to your input. --- # How to deal with the chaos - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-deal-with-the-chaos - Date: 2020-03-22 - Categories: Goal Achievement ### **When the common good is more valuable than one’s own** As you might know, I am a strongly positively minded person. Right now, though, this “crisis” is overwhelming. So many things are happening and I feel like we are losing more and more control over our life. Every day a new escalation level is added due to the current pandemic. My generation and I have never really experienced such a situation. I cannot remember any similar time when we as individuals felt so powerless. Even the global economic crisis 2 decades ago rolled by without me/us really noticing it. These days it is a truly disquieting time. There are people varying from extremely panicking to ruthlessly not caring, from going out of business and losing everything they own to making a fortune from short-selling financial assets or using arbitrage opportunities. Our world is currently fallen into chaos. But how can we deal with it? How can we manage this massive degree of uncertainty, fear, and hysteria? When I was thinking about these questions, I had a pretty rough time because of the complexity and far-reaching consequences of every individual’s actions. Yet, I decided for myself to align my decisions with three guiding principles for the upcoming weeks: ### **Maintain a normal life in a cautious manner** Panic has never contributed to a better outcome. When we fall out of our daily life, feel fear, or are exposed to the unknown, we quickly tend to act irrationally and make dumb decisions. As a consequence, I want to live as “normal” as possible. Panic and hysteria are contagious. If people around you don’t act fearfully, you will automatically feel much safer. ### **Taking care of the weakest of family and friends** While the disease itself is not dangerous for most of us, the weakest (people of risk groups) of our society strongly rely on us to take care of them. We need to make sure that we support these people and lower the risk of infection for them as low as possible. If you have grandparents, for instance, help them out with groceries shopping. We all can contribute to this crisis in a positive manner and when you have to make a decision and take action always keep in mind that our weakest ones are at real risk. ### **Comply and adhere to new rules issued by the different governments** Yes of course, it is f\*\*\*ing annoying when your vacation is on ice, your indoor sport facilities are closed. or cannot leave the country anymore. But all those decisions are made to protect us, not to annoy us. Once we trespass a critical line and don’t respect key rules, the situation will be even worse. The bad thing is not the single act of disobedience, but the mass movement that is triggered. Once someone ignores a governmental rule, many might do it as well. And in a collective, the consequences will be severe for the society. So, I will think twice before I bend a rule in the future. --- # How to stay productive in chaotic times (COVID-19 Crisis) - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-stay-productive-in-chaotic-times-covid-19-crisis - Date: 2020-03-22 - Categories: Goal Achievement ### **In every crisis there is opportunity** **Summary** * Establish time slots for “worry time” and isolate your worries to that designated period * Switch your mindset to a positive place before going back to productivity mode * Create structure and establish a routine * Harness the constraint of social distancing to your benefit * Use additional free time to foster or renew relationships Dear friend, The past days I was constantly concerned with the current COVID-19 pandemic. We are massively affected in the battle against the virus: our individual freedom is considerably curtailed, many of us risk huge financial losses or already face bankruptcy, as well as older and people with a medical condition fear for their lives. As I’ve already written in [last week’s post](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/post/how-to-deal-with-the-chaos), we have to adapt to the new circumstances and comply with the latest rules. Moreover, we must take care of the weakest in our family and circle of friends, but we also need to maintain normal life in a cautious manner the best we can. In this post, I want to share with you my thoughts with regard to how we can make the most out of this social and economic disaster and how we can stay productive during these tough times. ### **Establish “worry time” and isolate your worries to that designated period** In the past days, one particular activity consumed a great deal of my time: Thinking, talking, and reading about the COVID-19 and its implications. On every platform, in real life, every media – simply everywhere – people are talking about the pandemic. I believe that neither talking about the current situation nor continually reporting about new information is a bad thing. Yet, when we constantly spend time dealing with this subject, we are definitely not doing ourselves any favors. By doing that, we create a bubble of worries, fears, and uncertainty. In the current situation, nobody can guarantee or say anything with certainty. As soon as we deal with this ambiguity, it becomes part of our life. If this happens, as you have probably observed in the last few days, your attention and consequently your productivity drops dramatically. In order to increase productivity and increase our levels of happiness, we should limit our “worry time”. When I talk about worry time, I’m not only referring to having negative thoughts about this pandemic, but also contemplating about neutral aspects which don’t affect you. I highly recommend you to establish a maximum of two time-slots a day within which you allow yourself and people surrounding you to grapple with COVID-19. In this time frame, you are allowed to talk freely and extensively about anything concerning the crisis. The goal isn’t to suppress your anxiety, worries, or desire to deal with this subject, it’s more about giving this issue less room to drain your energy and other resources. ### **Switching your mindset to a positive place before going back to productivity mode** Another advice regarding your worry time: Don’t just cut off your mind when you were contemplating or talking about the crisis. Your mind will stay in this negative mood, affecting your performance negatively. You should rather try to adopt a positive thought before you go back to your non-COVID-19 activities, such as work, calling friends, or spending time with family. If you don’t know how you can achieve a positive state of mind, here are a few recommendations from me: Think about 5 things you are grateful for right now. Take 10 very deep breaths. Listen to one of your favorite songs with high volume. Tell someone you love how much you are thankful to have him/her in your life. ### **Create structure and establish a routine** In order to be productive under these new circumstances, it is essential to have at least a to-do list. However, it is better to structure your days more detailed. When you are forced to sit at home the whole day, procrastination is inevitable without the necessary preemptive measures. Every morning you should do what you usually do when you go to school/work. Wake up early, shower, brush your teeth, put on adequate clothes, have breakfast and do all the other activities you are used to. Subsequently, you should take a piece of paper, your calendar, journal or preferred medium to write down the tasks of the day. Think about all the things you want to accomplish today and prioritize. Write everything down you can realistically achieve this day, but include a proper buffer for unexpected events and activities. Moreover, you should incorporate routines into your daily life. For instance, call a friend after you are done with work, go out for a walk after lunch, read 20 minutes after dinner, write a letter every Sunday morning to your future self. If you establish structure and routines, chaos and uncertainty will have a hard time to bring you down and chances that you become distracted decrease. Make use of those simple but effective tools. ### **Harness the constraint of social distancing to your benefit** Most of us have an additional amount of free time due to the pandemic. I believe that this constitutes a great opportunity. Many of my friends try out new things or restart a hobby, such as painting or reading more. But there is so much more we can do. I think that the crisis forces us to physically distance ourselves from each other, but we all simultaneously grow together in spirit. The only way to curb the threatening damages is to stay united spiritually and act collectively. What we can do for sure is to use our additional time to get closer to our loved ones. Ask your friends and family if you can help them out, offer support for strangers in need, make the time you sit at home to have meaningful conversations with your partner, parents, siblings, grandparents… Moreover, harness technology to overcome boundaries. We don’t have to meet in person to be close to someone. Use video calls and other forms of communication to make the experience as real as possible. --- # Why reflection is so important - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-reflection-is-so-important - Date: 2020-03-01 - Categories: Goal Achievement > > *We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.* – John Dewey > > Have you ever consciously reflected, questioned your actions and decisions? If yes, do you reflect regularly? > > I reflect on different temporal levels. Doing this consistently for some amount of time now, it affected my life considerably positively. > > This week I want to tell you something about my opinion on this topic: why reflection is so important for me, why most people don’t do it, how do I reflect (my weekly & monthly reflection routine), and what are tips to get started. > > ### **Why reflection is so important for me** > > To put it in a nutshell, this habit has had an impressive impact on my life: > > 1\. It makes me happier > > 2\. It gives me great ideas and perspective > > 3\. It provides a more conscious and more empowered decision-making process > > 4\. It helps me to learn a) more and b) faster from mistakes > > Challenging my decisions and actions as well as the underlying values has totally changed the way I look at life. I decide more deliberately, have more freedom of mind, and measure myself by my own standards, not those of others. For instance, I don’t care what people think about me as long as I act in accordance with my fundamental values. Whether I wear washed-out T-shirts with holes in the gym, don’t drink alcohol at a party, don’t want to talk about people negatively (gossiping), or work my ass off to make my dreams come true. > > Reflection produces great ideas and provides new perspectives. Without this conscious thought process, I wouldn’t have started to upload videos on my YouTube channel, write blog articles, change my eating habits, do endurance sports, etc. > > Additionally, I have accelerated my learning process since I questioned my actions and challenged me more and more. One very good example is how I deal with pressure in stressful situations. When I was in high school, I poorly performed in presentations as I couldn’t deal with time restrictions (e. g. max. 5 min. for a presentation). Through thinking regularly about this obstacle, I found ways working for me very well (good preparation and self-confidence are vital). > > ### **Why people don’t do it? (summary of main drivers)** > > People… > > * don’t understand how to reflect (although it’s very easy) > * don’t like the process (it is not the most enjoyable activity) > * don’t like the results (e. g. I drink too much, that’s bad for my health) > * have a bias towards action (have an urgent need to do something instead of taking a break to evaluate interim outcomes) > * can’t see a good ROI (return on investment; they think it is a waste of time) > > ### **How does it work?** > > After giving you a (hopefully) reasonable understanding of why a frequent reflection is a great tool, we are going to find out how it actually works. > > Basically, reflection is examining and comparing thoughts about oneself or one’s own behavior. It involves the conscious consideration and analysis of beliefs and actions for the purpose of learning. As you may already know, successful reflection requires experience. Exposing yourself and taking action is are key premises. I found this great illustration depicting an experience-reflection-learning loop: > > [](https://www.linfield.edu/assets/files/community/WHY%20REFLECTION%20IS%20IMPORTANT.pdf) > > [![](/images/essays/why-reflection-is-so-important-1.png)](https://www.linfield.edu/assets/files/community/WHY%20REFLECTION%20IS%20IMPORTANT.pdf) > > [](https://www.linfield.edu/assets/files/community/WHY%20REFLECTION%20IS%20IMPORTANT.pdf) > > Reflection gives the brain an opportunity to pause amidst the chaos, untangle and sort through observations and experiences, consider multiple possible interpretations, and create meaning. This meaning becomes learning, which can then inform future mindsets and actions. > > In order to reflect, you have to think about past situations or beliefs. Reflection is an individual endeavor, there is no right or wrong as long as you take an objective stance. This means that you have to think from a bird’s eye perspective, independent of external factors biasing your considerations. When you ask yourself “am I happy right now?”, you have to be frank with yourself. What is bothering you and why? Why do you believe you are happy? Are people telling you that you should be happy? Do friends or family have expectations of you leading to your unhappiness? What makes you happy? > > You aim at freeing your mind from external influences, beliefs, and values that don’t comply with your very own core values. (As a first step I would highly recommend you to think about them first, as they are very important to come to consistent conclusions. > > In order to illustrate a practical approach to reflection, I want to give you a list of steps on how to get started. > > ### **Tips to get started** > > 1. Identify some important (to you!) questions (see my reflection routines at the end of this post to obtain some inspiration) > 2. Select a reflection process that matches your preferences. Many people reflect through writing in a journal. If that sounds terrible but talking with a colleague sounds better, consider that. As long as you’re reflecting and not just chatting about the latest sporting event or complaining about a colleague, your approach is up to you. You can sit, walk, bike, or stand, alone or with a partner, writing, talking, or thinking. > 3. Schedule time. Most leaders are driven by their calendars. So, schedule your reflection time and then commit to keeping it. And if you find yourself trying to skip it or avoid it, reflect on that! > 4. Start small. If an hour of reflection seems like too much, try 10 minutes. If once a day of reflection seems like too much, try once a week. > 5. Do it. Go back to your list of questions and explore them. Be still. Think. Consider multiple perspectives. Look at the opposite of what you initially believe. Brainstorm. You don’t have to like or agree with all of your thoughts — just think and to examine your thinking. > > ### **My weekly reflection routine** > > * What was a highlight moment of the week? > * Did I achieve my goals? Why, or why Not? > * What’s a life lesson that I learned this week? > * What are my 3 main goals for next week? How will I achieve them? > * Who deserves a big ‘thank you’? > * How can I help someone else this coming week? > > ### **My monthly reflection routine** > > * What did I achieve this month? > * What did I fail this month? > * How happy do I feel, why? > * Who am I grateful for, why? > * Who/what does harm to me? > * Am I still consistent with my core values and mission statement? > * What was I doing this time last year? Do I progress? Why/why not? > > This was this week’s blog post. Thank you so much for reading it! I hope you liked it! > > Illustration 1: https://www.linfield.edu/assets/files/community/WHY%20REFLECTION%20IS%20IMPORTANT.pdf > > See also: https://hbr.org/2017/03/why-you-should-make-time-for-self-reflection-even-if-you-hate-doing-it --- # Why great things take time - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-great-things-take-time - Date: 2020-02-23 - Categories: Goal Achievement “Einstein had been working on a theory for the relationship between space and time for years but had made little progress. He was again stumped, so he decided to get some fresh air and hopped on his bike for an excursion through the quaint streets of Bern, Switzerland. As he peddled along the cobbled streets he happened to come across the Zytglogge, a famous medieval clock tower in Bern that he had passed hundreds of times before, but this particular time was different. When we gazed at the clock tower, he had a sudden moment of clarity… the answer to special relativity was actually quite simple. Time can beat at different rates through the universe. It all depended on how fast you moved. The rest is history. Einstein had an often called “Aha!” moment. There is this common belief that we are fortunate to have these sudden realizations and attribute our breakthroughs to them, but are they really so sudden? Perhaps not.”1 Einstein believed that ideas take a while to formulate and do not do so in moments of aha, but rather slowly brewing and forming over time. It was not so much a sudden moment of insight, but rather that he was, “…led to it by steps arising from the individual laws derived from experience.” Translation: it was a progression that took a long damn time. Simply because the final manifestation happened in a single moment, does not mean that is where the real insight occurred. ### ***Great things take time.*** How many times have you heard that phrase in your life so far? Chances are, quite a bit. It’s a commonly thrown around phrase that lacks the punch to convene its inherent meaning. We are spoiled by all those seemingly “overnight” success stories: People publish a video that goes viral and are set for life, release a song and are globally known the next week, or make an astounding discovery as Einstein did and receive the Nobel Prize. Most of the time, though, we don’t get to see how much effort and time was invested in those very brief breakthrough moments. We see those people as a prodigy (wunderkind), gifted, and attribute their successes to talent and luck. For example, Ed Sheeran suddenly appeared on the international music stage, and since then he has skyrocketed. Many people think that Ed Sheeran is simply blessed and his success can be solely boiled down to his talent. However, he had been performing as a street artist for more than 10 years before he was even noticed and started writing songs when he was in high school. Can you imagine how many hours Ed Sheeran needed to become the singer who made it almost a decade ago? Let’s say an average of 4 hours a day, 360 days a year for 10 years. 360 x 10 x 4. That’s approx. 15000 hours and Ed Sheeran may have worked even more. It took him al least 15000 hours to got to this moment when his song “The A team” reached international success. If you are/were convinced that Ed Sheeran is gifted and all his success is based on his talent, are you still believing that this is the case? ### **Why many of us fail to make their dreams come true** I am strongly convinced that everyone can accomplish extraordinary results if we put in the necessary work. It is true that we all have a different starting point in different areas of life. And yes, we all make progress at different speeds and not all of us can become Einstein. There are indeed boundaries. Nevertheless, there is no shortcut. Most people achieving extreme performance once had a dream and worked as hard and as smart as they could to make their dreams come true. What most of them share in common is perseverance. Although they have to invest thousands or even tens of thousands of hours to save their seat in the ranks of the greats, they are willing to take the risk for several years or even decades of no success. In view of the risk and the great effort involved, it seems clear that we tend to give up our dreams. What I really don’t like, though, is the reasoning underlying those decisions. I cannot disagree more when someone wants to tell me something is impossible or that he/she has not the required talent to achieve something. I think this is 99% bullshit. ### **Everyone can achieve something great** We don’t have to become the next Adele, Picasso, Bill Gates, Oprah, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lawrence, etc. to make our dreams come true. If we have always wanted to learn to sing, paint, drawing, to found our own company, to become an actor, etc, we just have to put in the work and take the risk. No one can tell us that we are going to be successful, but also NO one can tell us that we won’t. One thing is for sure, however, if we don’t even try, we’ve already failed. I know dozens of people who would like to sing, but at the same time tell themselves that they cannot learn to sing. 99,9% of our world population is physically capable of hitting notes accordingly. It just takes a lot of work. How can we tell although we haven’t even tried? All those teens taking part in the talent shows have already been singing since they were young. They put in the hours, even though we don’t want to acknowledge it. The same goes for all those aforementioned areas of life. Moreover, we cannot simply expect to achieve something great after trying a few times. It might take dozens or even hundreds of hours until we can witness progress. Particularly my generation and the upcoming ones are more and more impatient. Instant gratification takes away our ability to work towards things. Yet, we cannot make an educated decisions before we haven’t invested a sufficient amount of effort and time. ### **It comes down to one question: Are we willing to pay the price?** Ultimately, we have to be honest with ourselves. Do we really want to become this or that person or learn a particular skill? Or do we just think that it would be “nice to have”? It’s totally fine to look up to someone and acknowledging their success. Yet, when we really want to achieve something similar and tell ourselves that we can’t because we don’t have the “luck or talent”, we lie to ourselves. We make up excuses to justify our failure to try. If we really want to achieve something great, we need to be willing to pay the price. This time I want to close this rather controversial article with a quote of John Wooden: “Good things take time, as they should. We shouldn’t expect good things to happen overnight. Actually, getting something too easily or too soon can cheapen the outcome.” 1) See: Aly Juma: “The Power of Slow: Why All Good Things Take Time” URL ([click](https://medium.com/@alyjuma/the-power-of-slow-why-all-good-things-take-time-bbcdbf8648e4)) --- # Never regret anything – how to guide your decisions - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/never-regret-anything-how-to-guide-your-decisions - Date: 2020-02-16 - Categories: Goal Achievement ### **We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret** Together with a large group of friends I traveled to Israel. We had a full-packed schedule: Every day we went to startups, visited important institutions or did sightseeing. Although it was exhausting, we had a lot of fun. On Saturday, though, we decided to skip a stop on our itinerary (travel plan) and to make different use of our time. Most people in our group wanted to harness the unique chance to leave Israel and take a look at Bethlehem in Westbank (Palestine/Jordan). I decided against it, though, and honestly, I really regret it. My friends told me I should come with them and make use of that one-time opportunity. However, I thought it wasn’t going to be worth it. I felt a little sick and wanted to use the time differently (studying). Moreover, I still felt jaded with traveling because of my semester abroad. I was convinced that resting and keeping up with my study plan is better for me than visiting another spot. Regarding this internal conflict and feeling of regret, I wondered which guiding principle was subject to this decision, how I generally make decisions, and what would be an ideal guiding principle for me. ### **What is a guiding principle?** A guiding principle is generally any simple and memorable rule for living. It encompasses your personal beliefs and values and guides you throughout your life in all circumstances. Most of your conscious decisions are based on your guiding principles. ### **Which guiding principle was subject to my decision I regretted** When I think about the aforementioned situation and how I made my decision against traveling to Westbank, I come to the conclusion that I strayed from my usual guiding principles. I decided against the trip because I thought I can use the time more wisely for something that seemed more important and enjoyable to me (in the short-term). ### **How I normally make decisions** Most of my decisions – minor as well as major ones – are based on a simple question: “When I looked back on this decision 80 years from now, which alternative would I regret most?” It encompasses my decision making rationale very well. I try to think very long-term since I want to maximize my long-term happiness and prefer it over short-term pleasure. If I had used my usual guiding principle, I would have decided differently. Whether I spent 3 hours fewer on my GMAT preparation or I am a little longer sick doesn’t really make a difference in the long-run compared to the one-time opportunity to make the trip to Bethlehem (which is very interesting for me). Now, I have to live with this decision. Yet, I am very glad that I made this experience as it triggered this thought process. I asked my friends who are with me in Israel and wanted to know how they make decisions and what could be “ideal” guiding principles. After contemplating a while, I still think my “usual” guiding principle fits me very well. ### **Never regret – an ideal guiding principle?** Yet, making all/most of your decisions based on a long-term rationale comes at an expense. Aligning all your actions according to your future makes it really difficult to enjoy the moment. In my opinion, it is really important to stick to your decisions and don’t question them once you chose your course of action. In case you always want to make up your mind differently or are afraid of choice, you cannot really enjoy life even when you made “the ideal” decision. Maximizing your happiness with a good guiding principle will only work out when this process/guiding principle doesn’t make you feel more negative in general when it comes to choice. Moreover, I lack a lot of experience. Thus, my decisions are biased when they are subject to my guiding principle: How can I know what I will regret in 80 years? You can only imagine and estimate what is really important to you in the future. This inaccuracy can lead to misjudgment. Finally, aligning all your decisions with your long-term vision takes so many opportunities to please yourself. When you always think about your future, you might be afraid of the outcome of my decisions. Consequently, this “never regret anything” guiding principle might withdraw many of those little enjoyable moments, such as unplanned trips, having great conversations while procrastinating, doing what pleases you most at a certain moment, etc. All in all, I am still convinced that long-term thinking is one of the most important values to me. There is nothing more that motivates and pleases me more than the certainty that it can always become better and usually, it becomes so much better. Yet, it seems really important to know about this decision-making fallacy. --- # How to deal with a lack of motivation - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-deal-with-a-lack-of-motivation - Date: 2020-02-09 - Categories: Goal Achievement I am sure you know this feeling: You don’t want to wake up, get out of your bed and start your day. The reason, tedious work is waiting for you. ### **When motivation hits rock bottom** No matter how much drive you have, no matter how positively minded you are – there are times when even the most motivated people don’t want to get up. Right now, I’d say I am pretty close to this state. GMAT exercises and business case preparation become more and more repetitive, progress slows down, and the end of this isn’t even close. Rationally I know that I need to put in the work and it’s only a temporary phase. Yet, it bothers me as I could do plenty of other things instead of practicing 30 hours a week. Waking up with a smile on my face feels more difficult these days. ### **Dealing with a lack of motivation** Although it is quite natural to have these motivation drops and most of the time they are a temporary phenomenon, I don’t want to accept this decline in quality of life and overcome this phase as fast as possible. Fortunately, I know myself well. What helps me most when motivation drops is to think about what makes me happy, not in the short-run but in the long-run. Short-term happiness equals pleasure, long-term happiness equals meaningful relationships, achievement, and self-actualization. I could stop preparing for the GMAT and the case interviews right now and do something pleasurable instead. In the short-term, I would have a great time from the moment I quit. In the long-run, though, I would be very down if I couldn’t get into the MBA program (the reason why I do the GMAT) or land the consulting job (the reason why I do case interview preparation) I always wanted. So, in order to get back at my usual motivation levels and not sacrifice my future happiness, I have to reminisce why I originally started and find a remedy increasing my motivation and not conflicting with my goal. ### **Purpose is the key to everything** All my decisions are premised on fundamental principles. They have to correspond to my long-term vision and mission (aka purpose of life; read my [previous article on that topic here](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/home/why-purpose-is-extremely-important)). As a result, I only want to land this job in consulting and get into the MBA program because this will help me to make my dreams come true. Thinking about the potential success of these endeavors makes me wonder about the importance of these accomplishments. This thought process leads back to the basic question of why. Why do I need to get into management consulting? Why do I need to get into this MBA program? Are these goals intrinsically motivated or do I strive for prestige and acknowledgment? Do I really need to achieve these goals in order to fulfill my dreams? Luckily, the answer to all these questions hasn’t changed since I made the decision to pursue such a path. Making myself clear what is really important to me leads to the conclusion that all the effort will be worthwhile. As I wrote [here (about me page)](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/about), I want the world to be in a state in which there are no limitations on mobility, access to quality education, and nourishment. I don’t have to become a management consultant and I don’t have to attend a business school in order to pursue this dream. Maybe it’s even harmful. Yet, I’ve already evaluated alternatives and made my mind. I want to learn from people with the same aspirations. And from what I’ve experienced so far, the probability to meet those people is very high where I want to land a job and do my MBA. I believe in the power of great relationships and mentors. All I want to do in the next few years is to learn as much as possible from inspiring people. ### **And now?** All in all, after this reflection process I feel (more) motivated again. All these hours of practicing will entail a clearer sense of purpose now. When I will wake up tomorrow, I know that I want to practice for a particular reason. Having this opportunity is a reason alone to be highly motivated. Yet, I think this is not enough to gain all my motivation for these goals back. Therefore, I decided to take a whole day off next week on Tuesday. I will be in Isreal next week and I aim to enjoy this day without even thinking about all my current projects. Just a little break. And as I know myself very well, I am very sure that I will miss being productive and will be very glad to be able to continue working on my goals the next day. In next week’s issue of my weekly newsletter, I will let you know if this helped me to become more motivated again. Stay tuned! --- # Long-term patience – key for your success - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/long-term-patience-key-for-your-success - Date: 2020-02-02 - Categories: Goal Achievement People often ask me why I plan everything so much in advance. For instance, I created an excel sheet for my GMAT preparation in December 2019 and I have been preparing for the test for approx. one month now although it will be in Mai (usually people practice for one or two months); the same goes for my job interviews. Among many other reasons for this compulsion to plan, I contemplated this weekend, “long term patience” contributes a lot to this habit. ### **Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out** Through my past successes and failures, I learned that great things take a lot of time but not a massive one-off effort. Success is rather the result of many small efforts performed over a long period of time on a daily basis. Or as we use to say in Germany: “Rome was not built in a day”. For instance, I have been working out for almost five years now. Doing this, I experienced that most people who are “long-run” impatient will eventually fail. They think they can gain muscles and lose fat very quickly, but it is a long-run game. Among the two most common reasons why most impatient people fail in “bodybuilding” are, first, that they over-strain themselves, become therefore injured, and are forced to stop working out consequently or, second, train very hard but irregularly, eat clean and healthy but binge drink at the weekend, and quit (too early) blaming their “bad genes” for their failure. Actually, you don’t have to work out six times a week, eat solely chicken, rice, and veggies for the rest of your life, and sacrifice every fun activity in order to get in shape. Eating healthy but delicious food and working out hard and regularly over the course of at least two years as well as not hurting yourself is almost everything it takes. Another example is my YouTube channel and my blog which are very small right now and require me to spend a lot of time and energy to get it running. I would not say that these undertakings are great achievements (at least not yet IMO), but every YouTuber and blogger started to like me and most of them kept going, did something for their goals every day and were indeed long-term patient. ### **Macro patience and micro speed** Gary Vaynerchuk, a keynote speaker and author as well as a successful entrepreneur, constantly preaches his concept of “macro patience and micro speed”. I cannot agree more with him on this issue. Too many people want to obtain certain things very fast even though they still have a lot of time. Gary claims that you should work hard and a lot to achieve your goals (micro speed), but be very patient in the long run. According to Gary, you will eventually get to your objective as long as you adapt your plan adequately and work hard enough. I am convinced that planning can greatly increase the chances of success. What is most important, though, and separates losers from winners is that winners never give up. Long run patience, consistency, as well as persistence are key. --- # Why relationships are so important - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-relationships-are-so-important - Date: 2020-01-26 - Categories: Relationships My very good friend invited me to visit him and his family for the past weekend. Although I had many things on my to-do list(s) – the upcoming weeks are fully packed – I really wanted to come with him, and so I accepted his kind invitation. As you probably know, I am this kind of person who reaaally dislikes an incomplete task list. I am an anti-procrastinator; I become stressed if I am not ahead of my schedule (lol). So – to be honest and most likely very strange to you – it wasn’t easy to decide against my schedule and overcome my stubborn anti-procrastinating self. This sounds really stupid, I know. ### **The weekend definitely worthwhile** Anyway, it was awesome. I am grateful to have such (a) great friend(s). People caring for you, listening to you, providing advice, having similar interests, values, and attitude, showing genuine interest, being honest and, treating you like a family member are invaluable. I truly believe there is nothing more vital than these relationships. Reflecting on the past days, I realized that this is key to happiness. No matter how successful you are – independent of your definition for it – as long as you do not have anybody to celebrate it, they are worthless for your personal self-actualization, and, eventually, for your well-being, too. Consequently, rejecting this great opportunity for a short-term gain would haven\`t been the best decision. Yes, I am behind my schedule now and yes, I ditched work for pleasure. However, this “investment” of time in this relationship was more valuable in the long-run. ### **Success comes at an expense** There are plenty of situations in which it is more reasonable to focus on personal success. You cannot party 24/7, take drugs and neglect your health and simultaneously become a professional athlete. These are conflicting objectives. The same goes for many of my goals. If I want to achieve certain things in life, I will often have to decide against various pleasurable activities. Success comes at an expense. Nevertheless, even the most successful people in different areas of achievement take time off. Everyone needs a break from time to time. Additionally, you cannot truly succeed without the support of your closest friends and family. It takes time and effort to build these healthy relationships. However, it is not the quantity of time but the quality of time you spent with someone. In conclusion, an investment to cultivate and foster meaningful relationships is always worth it as long as you enhance the quality of them. A short-term and long-term perspective must always be part of the decision-making process. Just working is not an ideal solution. --- # How to deal better with criticism - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-deal-better-with-criticism - Date: 2020-01-19 - Categories: Communication Last week I observed a couple arguing with each other. Previously, the female told her boyfriend that *he was never listening*. She gave him negative feedback about his behavior. Instead of listening to her, though, he rejected her claim and said it was her fault because she did not talk about interesting topics and he was just too tired to listen to every word. Their argument went on and on. He felt offended and had a desire to defend himself. Have you ever experienced a similar situation to the previous one? Have you ever been criticized because of your behavior, look, language or something similar? *I have been and am regularly criticized by various people.* I love feedback and genuinely embrace it. However, I have not always been like this. In particular, I had difficulties in dealing with criticism adequately. In this article, I want to tell you which steps I follow in order to deal better with criticism. First of all, a little summary and, subsequently, I am going to explain it in more detail. To put it in a nutshell: 1. Take a short deep breath to lower your stress hormone levels 2. Ask how the criticism is to be understood (gives you more time to calm down) 3. Think: What could the other person be right about? What drives this person to give you feedback (constructive vs destructive criticism)? 4. Tell them that you agree on points on which you are on the same page 5. Try to understand: Keep questioning until you truly understand the issue 6. Never justify yourself 7. Request help: Be curious and ask them how you can improve your weaknesses ### **Feedback is the most valuable source for progress** **1) Breathe! Bring down those stress hormones** Maybe you remember the last time someone criticized you: Someone tells you something negative (or at least not positive) about your behavior, your look, your technique or some other thing you value. Your body immediately responds defensively; you feel offended, attacked and challenged. And why? (skip this paragraph if you don’t want to read a medical lecture) Amygdala, an integral part of the limbic system of your brain, informs the hypothalamus that “danger” is imminent. Then your hypothalamus releases hormonal messengers, including the corticotropin-releasing hormone. It ensures that it releases another hormone, adrenocorticotropin, or ACTH. It reaches the cortex of the adrenal gland with the blood and causes it to release the stress hormone cortisol. As a result, your breath accelerates, your pulse and your blood pressure rise, your liver produces more blood sugar and your spleen flushes out more red blood cells. All in all, your whole body suddenly functions differently. In order to prevent an impulsive, imprudent reaction, you should take a deep breath, let the message sit and focus on staying calm. **2) Gain additional time – ask a (counter)question** As you will most likely need more time to calm down and clear your mind, you should ask the other person a question: “Sorry, but I don’t really get it. How is this to be understood?” or “Interesting! What do you exactly mean?”. **3) Think – consensus and motive** After gaining additional time, contemplate what the person could be right about and why this person shares their opinion with you. Have you already been criticized for the same reason before? Or did you observe the issue as well? You should identify points of agreement. **4) Get on the same page** Next, you should tell the person what you agree on. The goal is to signal that you are open and want to listen to their opinion, but also give yourself the chance to learn something new. Admitting weakness is a sign of strength. When you find common ground with the other person, the conversation immediately becomes more constructive and valuable. **5) Seek true understanding** By showing genuine interest and appreciation of their opinion, you established an atmosphere allowing you to access your friends’ knowledge. And now it is time for the most important step: What is exactly criticized and why? What does the other person don’t like about it and why? Dig till you reach the core of the issue. When someone calls you “asshole”, you have no idea what this person dislikes about you and why. If you talk to this person and show real interest, you will most likely identify the real meaning of this insult. Maybe you are treating this person in a way that they don’t want to be treated or you said something you didn’t really mean as they understood it. Through questioning, you will be able to truly understand the issue and the motive behind their criticism. There are destructive people who provide no added value. Their opinions are to be ignored. There are also people who give you seemingly highly destructive feedback. Although they were not even asked for their opinion, they might be truly interested in helping you to improve. They are just not able to express their criticism properly. By listening carefully and unbiased, you allow yourself to harness these growth opportunities. Ultimately, it is all about separating the destructive from the constructive feedback and understanding the core of the message. **6) Never justify yourself** Another very important step is to never justify yourself. Justification is regarded as defending oneself which signals a lack of interest. When you justify yourself, people will feel guilty and sorry for sharing their opinion with you. As a result, the conversation cannot be as constructive as it could be without justification. **7) Be curious and ask them how you can improve your weaknesses** Finally, after understanding the core of the feedback, you should stay curious and ask for advice: How can you improve? What should you do and why? Are there any tips? This will help you to accelerate your very own progress and really make the most out of this conversation. – Have you ever been criticized and dealt well with it? What did you do and did you like it when the conversation was productive and helpful? Let me know! --- # Cuba – what I should have known - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/cuba-what-i-should-have-known - Date: 2020-01-12 - Categories: Communication ### **Expectations** Last week I arrived in Havana, Cuba. A long dream came true; I’ve always wanted to travel to a Caribbean Island. When I was thinking about Cuba, I imagined a very relaxed but energetic atmosphere, fresh fruits and vegetables, delicious mojitos and Cuba Libres, beautiful beaches and hot temperatures. After landing at the airport, though, I immediately experienced every downside of traveling to this country. ### **What a backward country** It took 2,5 hours to pass the border security although the same number of people at an average airport would be through this process after 20 minutes. Everything here takes so much longer. Since we got out of the airport after sunset, it was already dark. Yet, the air was hot and very humid as it just stopped raining. Unexpectedly unpleasant feeling. Arriving at our apartment (Airbnb), we were friendly welcomed by our host. At this time we were starving as we hadn’t eaten since the day before. So, we asked where we can withdraw cash and have dinner. He gave us great recommendations. When we tried to obtain cash from an ATM, however, all our credit cards were denied. Subsequently, we searched for alternatives, asked people on the streets where we can access cash. Every other ATM was dysfunctional as well. As all the restaurants rejected credit cards. Since we could not exchange our foreign cash – all foreign exchange cabins have already closed – we went back to our apartment again. The next day I was looking for alternatives. When I was at a bank, they told me they could not withdraw cash because the computers could not access the central bank server. Here in Cuba, you cannot rely on any kind of device or technology. Moreover, internet access and groceries are highly limited. You can only buy 3 hours of internet access per day (you have to buy cards with an access code which allows you to use the internet). And when I went to a “grocery store”, there was no water anymore and, for example, there were only 3 packages of pasta available. ### **Happy ending?** Driving from Havana to Trinidad, I finally had enough water, cash and enough internet cards with me. I already saw major parts of Havana and I slowly began to really enjoy my stay here. The locals and other tourists were very kind, nature looked magnificent, the weather was awesome and the food was great when you knew where to eat. So, I was looking forward to getting to know this country more and having a pleasurable time. Trinidad felt like medieval times: Cobbled streets, horses are the main way of transportation, houses seem older than the United States, lots of farms and livestock and nobody appears to care about time. We went to the beach there. I’ve never seen a more beautiful one. White sand, warm temperatures, calm, shallow, and clean water, wonderful pal trees – just awesome. The next day we took a tour to a waterfall by riding horses. Incredible experience. From now on, though, our journey only got worse. Food became worse and worse. Most restaurants charged prices comparable to German ones. The restaurants we visited, however, delivered food on a very low level. Additionally, I’ve never been served so badly in my life. Our host, people in Trinidad and people on the internet recommended us to go to Varadero (a major city in Cuba). It would be even better: Better food, beaches, drinks, nature… ### **Unfortunately, they were so wrong** Varadero is like an abnormally but badly commercialized paradise for package holiday tourists. The beach and coastline is enormous. The best parts, though, are only available for guests of those innumerable hotel resorts. Moreover, they are overcrowded or empty. I’ve never had such problems because of the food like in Varadero. It was almost impossible to get decent food although the prices were relatively high. Additionally, 95% of the restaurants had very slow and unkind service. Dishes were bad copies of western food. Local food was virtually impossible to order. Almost every day I had pain in my stomach which became even worse in Varadero. Moreover, the weather in the north of Cuba was colder, blustery and cloudier. We wanted to undertake a trip to the coral beach and snorkel. But due to the strong wind, we were not allowed to go into the water. Unfortunately, I did not meet any tourist (backpacker or hotel resort traveller) – and I met a lot at the airport – who look at their trip positively. All in all, I am convinced that Cuba can be a great experience. Yet, I strongly believe that it requires the right amount of preparation or very low expectations. Cuba’s nature, people and climate is wonderful. There is a lot to discover and to try. Nevertheless, everyone who wants to travel to this country should anticipate the backward and “tourist-abusive” atmosphere, otherwise, the trip will not end positively. --- # Late? A plan does not work out? Why I won’t stress myself any more - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/late-a-plan-does-not-work-out-why-i-wont-stress-myself-any-more - Date: 2020-01-02 - Categories: Goal Achievement I am this kind of person who is the total opposite of a procrastinator. The earlier I can begin with something, the better. I love being on time and hate being late. I love planning months – or even years – in advance and hate having no structure in my daily life. I love waking up early and hate sleeping more than necessary. ### *Sounds ridiculous, right?* Yet, I am a very spontaneous person as well. For instance, I like it when someone spontaneously invites me to a party. Even if I have a full schedule the next day, I will go with them. The same goes for other parts of my life. When I was in high school, I always dreamed of working for a specific company. Luckily, there was a program that allowed me to study and simultaneously work for the company. So I applied for it, got into the interview and succeeded. After they offered me the position, though I changed my mind in the very last second. Why? Because I watched a fictional series, did some research and set a new long-term goal which I have been pursuing since then. This mixture of being, on the one hand, pathetically structured and organized and, on the other hand, very open to immediate changes allows me to cope with stressful situations confidently. ### *And when a plan is going to fail?* Yet, I still highly dislike when my plan doesn’t work out or I have to change my course of action involuntarily. For example, I planned to go to a nice restaurant with my friends in Mexico on December, 31st. As we did not know that almost all Mexican restaurants require a reservation, we did not make it into a restaurant at first. It felt really bad and stressed me. I tried my best to stay positive, but eventually, this feeling was potent. In the last few week(s) with my friends, I got the chance to learn how to cope better with these situations. My friends are used to being very spontaneous and they always seem late. Yet, it somehow always works out for them. In the case of our dinner on the 31st, we kept going, knowing that we will eventually find a good place for our meal. And yes, we made it. We wandered around, but with one goal. On one street, we saw a restaurant. The owner was standing in front of it. It was crowded and very busy. He saw us and waved his hands. We told him about our issue. He understood our problem and told us to come in. The end of the story: We were served veeeery good Mexican food, enjoyed great service and gave a generous tip since the restaurant was almost half the price compared to the other ones. During my trip with those friends, I accumulated plenty of such stories. It’s crazy how it always worked out. Yet, I realized that the “procrastination for the win-strategy” is only worth it when you are able to stay positive minded all the time. Otherwise, you are going to stress yourself too much. ### **Losing my mind** I was not used to so much procrastination at first. Mentally, I went crazy. My mind always reminded me to make a reservation for this and that, to organize this early and have a plan for that. While giving it a try and trusting the power of procrastination, I don’t want to freak out when we were late or had no plan. At first, it was not that easy but I really got used to it after a few days. After realizing that it actually almost always worked out, I received a boost of confidence and stayed mentally calm. So, I learned how to live as a procrastinator. It does not bother me to be late, have not made a reservation yet or not having a plan. I just accept the situation as it is and perceive it as normal. I know it is going to work out and I cannot turn back time. It is more about being mentally present than being mentally in one’s own head. Nevertheless, my way to go keeps as it was before those experiences. Being a procrastinator means that you save a lot of planning and work ahead. On the other hand, though, you also sacrifice a lot of chances. Preparation and planning can be harnessed to find the ideal outcome for specific situations. Without planning and preparing, you will most likely only be able to achieve a mediocre solution. Your outcome depends on luck and slips more out of your control. I want to be the boss of my own life and control it. Procrastination means giving away power. Discipline, planning, and preparation in advance is freedom. Yet, I am 100% convinced that the ideal way is a mixture of both. Procrastinators must learn to engage more in preparation and planning more, and anti-procrastinators must understand that planning and preparation are not everything. If you get stuck in your head and worry while you are not in time or your plan has been thwarted, you will lose a lot of quality of life. I will no longer stress myself – if I am late or if my plan does not work – for this very reason. --- # Semester abroad – what to know before you go - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/semester-abroad-what-to-know-before-you-go - Date: 2019-12-23 - Categories: Communication My semester abroad is about to end. Reflecting on the past months, I contemplated what I learned during this time and what I would have done differently with the knowledge I have today. Quite frankly, there is a lot I could have done much better with proper planning and executing. Nevertheless, I do not regret anything. I may have missed a few chances, but this way also great things came up. For instance, I have always wanted to go to Hawaii and planned to go there during Thanksgiving break. Due to procrastination, lack of focus and improper execution, I abandoned this plan though. This allowed me, however, to accept the invitation of my friends to come with them to celebrate Thanksgiving the American way – one of my top 3 experiences in the US. In this article, I want to share what I would have known before I went abroad. In case you have a semester abroad coming up and want to make the most out of it – and let not all things take their course, this will give you a better understanding of what you can and should expect from your semester abroad. With this, let us jump right into the article. ### **Improvement of your foreign language does not come without effort** Before I came to the US, I thought that I can easily improve my English skills. Just being abroad, though, will not make you improve your foreign language skills. There are many obstacles that will prevent you from improving. First and foremost, many exchange students stay in their bubble. They spent the most time with people speaking their language. Secondly, most people do not put in the effort to get to know locals and foster friendships with them. Speaking with international students might help you to speak a foreign language you both can speak more fluently, however, learning grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and the native everyday language can almost only be done with locals. If you really want to improve your foreign language skills, I recommend you to consider the following three requirements which helped me to progress most quickly: * Get in touch with locals (see my next advice) * Ask your friends to correct your grammar and pronunciation * When you do not know a word, write it down, look it up and learn how to use and pronounce it * Do not be shy to ask a native speaker when you need help to express yourself ### **Developing and fostering a good relationship with locals is not easy** Getting in touch with locals is not hard. You can easily find locals at your school, local events and parties. However, as many people will be able to verify, getting friends is really hard. When you go abroad, most locals already have their circle of friends. Moreover, being fluent in a language and being capable of having enjoyable conversations are two different pairs of shoes. It took me plenty of approaches and text messages until I could hang out the first time with an American and got invited to their parties. And even after meeting a few times, I still had to take the initiative. So, if you plan to dive deep into the foreign culture and want to build friendships with locals, you should be aware that this requires effort and persistence. Be open and not afraid of locals, tell them that you are new in town and want to get to know people. Be nice and not disappointed when they do not show interest. Stay authentic and search for people you are really interested in. Take the initiative, ask them if they want to hang out, workout with you, have lunch or dinner, meet to drink a coffee… It might take some time, but eventually, it will work out. The benefits are definitely worth it. ### **Traveling – make the most out of your trips** During my time in the US, I went on a journey many times. Whether I went out in nature or explored cities, traveling is one of the greatest things I have ever done. In the first weeks, I visited numerous cities (e. g. LA, Vegas, Vancouver, San Francisco) and went to various national parks (Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Joshua Tree, Mohave Desert, …). I made some key learnings while I made these trips. First of all, do research and brainstorm about the places you want to go to. The earlier the better. Ask friends and other people for recommendations. Secondly, plan your trips early. Where exactly do you want to go? When do you have time? Do you want to make the trip alone or with others? Thirdly, take concrete action. Book/rent your transportation, make a reservation for your accommodation, make a time table for your trip. When I had not had traveled so much at the beginning of my time in California, I might have missed a lot of great trips. Midterm, I temporarily lost my motivation to execute. As a result, I couldn’t get it together to plan my trip to Hawaii and forfeited this opportunity. Execution is key. Many people have great plans and lots of motivation. Yet, failure is usually the result of a lack of taking action and decision making. --- # 1 year of cold showers – not what I was expecting - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/1-year-of-cold-showers-not-what-i-was-expecting - Date: 2019-12-16 - Categories: Well-Being I have been doing cold showers for over a year now. And I thought it is time for a quick reflection on this subject and about all the effects it has on my life. To put my reasons for continuing in a nutshell: * Shower quicker * Become more disciplined in other areas of life * Get grounded and be more grateful * Amazing feeling afterward ### **Why have I started** As I have been interested in personal development for quite a bit of time, I happened to watch and read through plenty of videos and articles illustrating all the benefits of taking cold showers. According to scientists, those bloggers, YouTubers and a bunch of other people, it has numerous positive advantages and a positive impact on your well-being, such as: * Enhances skin and hair * Promotes faster muscle recovery * Improves fertility * Increases testosterone levels * Lowers chances of depression * Lowers stress * Promotes emotional resilience * Drains lymphatic system * Promotes fat loss * Improves immunity * ………………………….. Sounds quite good, right? So, I just wanted to give it a try. ### **How I got started** “I mean it is just a shower, nothing really special about”, I thought. But when I wanted to begin showering cold, it was already very cold in Germany. It was not freezing, but still chilly. My first few showers were like a real shock for my body. When the cold water hit me, my breath stopped for a few seconds. The coldness struck me very hard resulting in my inability to breathe. However, the feeling after each cold shower was absolutely great. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a masochist. It really sucked to turn that knob for the cold water every single time I took a shower. Nonetheless, this great feeling of accomplishment kept me going. And I did. ### **What has changed during my trial** After two weeks, I slowly felt that I get used to it more and more; it starts to become a habit. The only reason why I continued, though, was the reason that I loved that feeling after each cold shower. It gave me so much; I felt very grateful, happy, satisfied and grounded. During our German winter, the cold showers made my skin to feel burning. There were days on which the temperature was so low, that the water felt like ice on my skin. During these sessions, those breathing issues came up again; it was just too difficult to concentrate on controlled breathing. The longer I was taking cold showers, the more I enjoyed them. I felt like something is missing when the showers were becoming warmer and warmer as the outside temperature increased in spring. Moreover, when I was showering at another place where the temperature could not be lowered enough, I had this feeling of dissatisfaction and incompleteness. But this has also changed. Now, showering still has a number of advantages I can experience in my daily life, but it is no big deal anymore. Showering cold has become part of my routines. I do not even think about it and I cannot really remember anymore how it felt to have a hot shower. ### **Why I’m going to keep doing this** Surprisingly, I have not noticed any of those health benefits that are spread on the internet and in science. Most people talking about their experience claimed that they could feel a real effect on their bodies. The only physical change I could observe is that I am less sensitive to cold temperatures. What this habit taught me, though, is are four main things. My showers do not extend longer than necessary; cold showers are very quick showers. I really appreciate this fact as it helps me to do not waste time in the morning or after my workout. I used to take very long showers as I love warm water. Secondly, it makes me more disciplined. Discipline is like a muscle, you have to train them and the more often you exercise, the stronger it becomes. Taking cold showers takes a lot of discipline. Overcoming that uncomfortable feeling and pushing oneself to do something out of your comfort zone in one area of your life, helps you to do this in another area. So, cold showers are a great tool for me to make me more self-confident, consistent and decisive. Thirdly, showering cold grounds me. Just before I switch on the cold water, my mind still wants me to get out of the shower and not let the cold water run over me. At this moment, I often think about it how privileged I am. About 4.3 billion people do not even have access to safe shower/sanitation facilities. Being born and raised in a developed country is like winning the lottery for me. Whenever I struggle to discipline myself and almost fail to get a cold shower, I think about the people that do not even have this choice. Finally, when you “survived” that first few seconds of this awful feeling, you already made it. Your body gets used to the cold and you will be fine. The more cold showers you take, the faster your body adapts. However, the great feeling after each cold showers is still there. It is just a magnificent sensation to know that you accomplished it. It gives me a real kick and has become a vital component of my well-being. Hope you liked this blog post. Have you ever voluntarily taken a cold shower? How was it? Have you ever thought to make this a habit? Let me know! All the best, David --- # Health is the most important need for us human beings - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/health-is-the-most-important-need-for-us-human-beings - Date: 2019-12-08 - Categories: Well-Being Whenever I get sick or I am injured, I realize how important health for my well-being is. There is nothing affecting my daily mood more. For example, even if I have “only” a mild cold, it is substantially more difficult for me to stay positive and enjoy life. It is a fortune that we can have a great influence on how hard a disease hits us and how resistant we are to injuries and diseases. The more we invest in our health and well-being, the better we can deal with it. The terrible thing about it, however, is that we can hardly observe the real benefits and risks of investing too much or too little in our health. Usually, people who do not give a damn will only start to feel it when it is already too late: Lung cancer when you are smoking, insomnia when you abuse caffeine, stomach, back, cardiovascular, … problems if you only eat greasy food and do not do sports, etc. Investing in your health is like investing in your pension: You might only feel and acknowledge the actual benefit when you are in need of it. In the best case, though, you will never have the feeling that you need more money in your old days. Same goes for your health: If you do it right, you will never regret doing too little for your health. However, if you did not invest enough or anything at all, you might not have any negative thoughts about it in your 20s or 30s. But sooner or later you will feel more and more uncomfortable and be worried about the future. And when you retire, you feel the real downsides of not investing in your old days. The key to a happy life is health. There is no well-being when your health is below its “average” level. When it comes to investing in your health, it is not about having the perfect formula for the ideal diet and lifestyle to achieve maximum “healthiness”, but rather it is about the little small decisions you make every day and maintaining a generally healthy lifestyle. In the following, I want to tell you about a few habits I implemented in my daily life to improve my well-being and give you a short explanation of why I do it. **1) I drink 0.7 liters (23.5 fl. oz) of water right after waking up and I always have a full glass of water on your working desk** Water is an essential nutrient, and all organs and tissues in your body depend on it to function. Since your body loses a lot of water during sleep, you need to compensate for these losses to avoid dehydration. Drinking water first thing in the morning jump-starts your metabolism, fuels your brain, gets rid of the toxins in your body and re-hydrates the body. **2) Do not buy drinks containing sugar and any kind of candy for your daily life** This is all about the purchasing process. Once you buy the unhealthy stuff, it’s already too late. We all tend to eat so many things that are not good for our well-being only because of habitual behavior. When you feel bored or stressed, the first thing you usually do is to go to the fridge or a cupboard and search for something to eat. Most of the time this is not even a conscious decision. In case you ban candy and beverages containing from your shopping list, you allow yourself to make more conscious decisions about what you eat and drink. Moreover, indulging yourself with candy or a soft drink becomes a conscious decision and you will enjoy it more. **3) Whenever it is possible, consume whole-grain products** Whole-grain products contain more fiber, vitamins and mineral nutrients than products subject to further processing (white bread, “normal” rice, etc.). Moreover, they fill you up longer and help you to maintain a stable blood sugar level which helps to prevent cravings. **4) Find a sport you can fall in love and exercise regularly** The most important influence on my life so far has been physical exercise. Since I started doing lifting more than four years ago, plenty of things have changed: I have become more self-confident, disciplined, open-minded, relaxed, energetic, communicative and so many things more. Doing a sport on a regular basis has an insane number of advantages. As an innumerable quantity of scientific papers suggests, sport is also crucial for health and well-being. I am sure you already know all these benefits for yourself. Still, I wanted to point out the importance of sports in our lives again. I can only warmly recommend that you (again) do sport regularly as soon as possible. Doing sports can change your life. Not immediately, but definitely. What are you doing for your health and well-being? Let me know and write a comment or send me a message! --- # 3 reasons why openness pays off - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/3-reasons-why-openness-pays-off - Date: 2019-12-02 - Categories: Communication Have you ever encountered the following situation? You saw someone who looked or did something interesting. You overcame your fear to approach this person and just said “Hi” or asked him/her a question. Based on this first action, you got into a great conversation which ended in exchanging contact details or a follow-up meeting. You invited this person to join your friends at a party or asked them for a date or something similar and, eventually, a great relationship was established. I was often taught that life rewards openness and curiosity. In this article, I want to give you three reasons why you should be open-minded and tell you about personal experiences that made my life a little better just because I was curious. To put it in a nutshell, the three arguments why openness pays off: * More and diverse relationships with people you like * You learn more about things you are not familiar with * Miss less untapped opportunities ### **More and diverse relationships with people you like** Openness primarily refers to an unbiased interest in unknown people and situations. I have already had numerous great conversations and got to know various people only because I was curious. For instance, whenever I see someone in the gym doing an unfamiliar exercise drawing my attention, I asked them why they are doing it and if they would not mind to show me how the exercise works. The same applies to people in my daily life. People wearing shoes or clothes I like and want to buy as well are not safe from me and are approached as soon as possible. By being genuinely interested in their opinion and what they have to say, great conversations occurred. It might feel awkward in the first few seconds as many people are not familiar with these situations, however, if you can show real interest and basic soft skills, they will quickly feel comfortable. Of course, not every situation might end super positively and there are always people who do not want to be disturbed or talked to. Nevertheless, many more situations will lead to great new relationships. ### **You learn more about things you are not familiar with** There is an innumerable number of things we do not know: Information which can help you to achieve your goals, increase your health and well-being, improve your relationships, support your family and friends and much more. Most of this knowledge, though, will stay untapped for you. On the one hand, it is obvious that is impossible to access and capture all wisdom. On the other hand, however, much information accessibly lays in front of us but is not seized: Friends and family members, YouTubers, writers, Google, etc. There is so much free wisdom. Albert Einstein once said: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence”. You can only learn something new when you ask questions or try something out by yourself. When I was young, I filled my parents with questions about literally everything. I wanted to understand everything I thought was interesting. I am unbelievably grateful that my parents were patient with me and took their time to answer my questions thoroughly and fostered my curiosity even more. I still stick to this habit and immediately ask questions when I do not understand something: Either I instantly search for the answer on the internet, write my question down and look for it later or ask a person about it. This allowed me to acquire a lot of knowledge which helps me to make better decisions or improve in a certain area. For instance, when I love a dish someone made for me, I always try to find out the recipe or cooking techniques that were applied. Even when I do not cook the recipe by myself, I can still learn a lot about cooking in general. This way I can apply my expanded knowledge to my own cooking and improve. Specific examples are that a cooking thermometer is the safest way to get perfectly cooked meat or that most people underestimate the power of the right amount of salt, fat, and acid in their dishes which makes them taste bland. ### **Never miss untapped possibilities** *If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later* Richard Branson said this once. He is a great proponent of curiosity, openness, and audacity. Open-minded people are ideally people that see the opportunity in every problem instead of the problem in every opportunity. Open-minded people know that they are rewarded for trying things out they do not know. Every day we are confronted with plenty of opportunities. Most of the time they appear minor and from a low impact on our lives. Friends recommending a new show on Netflix, colleagues telling us about a great tool to cope with a certain problem, moms and dads sharing their advice with us,… The unappealing thing about this is that most of the time we are convinced that we know it better, that we do not need their help or suggestions. We often reject their ideas just by simply not trying them out. In my case, I have already tremendously often refused to try out things my mother suggested to me. 90% of the time – when I tried them after refusing the aid – it actually helped me. Whether it is about traditional natural medicine (for instance certain teas or herbs), cooking, doing the laundry or other typical problems in the household. The same goes for so many other areas in our life too. Teachers and managers, for example, want us to perform better. Yet, we tend to not listen to them and continue to do it our way. And further, there are so many great opportunities we fail to harness only because we are not open to unfamiliar ideas. If I had not listened to one of my friend’s advice, I would have never started my newsletter. He told me once that I should try to reflect on a regular basis. This led to my daily reflections which led to my monthly reflections and then to my weekly reflections in the form of my weekly newsletter. And if I had not started my weekly newsletter, I probably had not thought about other possibilities to share my experience, which was the main reason why I started this blog and my YouTube channel. Only when we are open to unfamiliar ideas and try things out, we can our lives to the fullest and can access our greatest opportunities. I really hope that I could bring you closer to the idea of why openness is so important for me and that you are open to becoming a little more curious about stranger people and notions. --- # How to improve your sleep – 6 tips - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-improve-your-sleep-6-tips - Date: 2019-11-25 - Categories: Well-Being In this post, I will give you a quick overview of my six most important tips on how to improve your sleep. To cut a long story short: * Stick to a sleep schedule * Improve your sleep environment * Avoid caffeine after 3 pm * Restrict naps to a max. of 30 minutes * Establish a pre-sleep routine * Go to sleep when you’re truly tired ### **Stick to a sleep schedule** First and foremost, it helps a lot to stick to a fixed sleep schedule. Yes, always waking up and getting to bed at the same time restricts you a lot. For instance, you cannot go out with friends and stay up that long without interfering with your sleep schedule. However, this method is crucial to get the most out of your sleep. There is nothing more efficient than a fixed sleep schedule and the right amount of sleep. So if you really struggle to feel energized and refreshed when you are awake or if you have to perform a very high level, I would definitely recommend you to adopt a fixed sleeping schedule. In case you are in a similar situation as me and do not want to sacrifice your social life, I highly recommend you to fix at least the waking up time and catch up with your missed sleeping hours with the help of naps during the day. In one of my articles, I have already talked about [why I always wake up at 7 am](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/home/why-i-always-wake-up-at-7-am). Read it when you want to find out more about the benefits of waking up on the same day ([click here to access](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/home/why-i-always-wake-up-at-7-am)). ### **Improve your sleep environment** Another significant aspect of good sleep is the create a good sleep environment. It basically comes down to three aspects. **1) Noise down** Make sure that your room is quite. Close windows and doors, put music and TVs off, make sure your neighbors and other people are quite and in case you cannot avoid or eliminate these noises try earplugs; they may also help. **2) Keep your room cool** We tend to sleep best in a slightly cool room (around 18° C or 65° F). A bedroom that is too hot or too cold can interfere with quality sleep. So, make sure you let some fresh air in your room before you go to sleep and temper the room properly. **3) Make sure your bed is comfortable** Your bed covers should leave you enough room to stretch and turn comfortably without becoming tangled. If you often wake up with a sore back or an aching neck, you may need to experiment with different levels of mattress firmness, foam toppers, and pillows that provide more or less support. **4) Reserve your bed for sleeping** Do not work, watch TV, or use your phone, tablet, or computer in bed. Your brain will associate the bedroom with just sleep which makes it easier to unwind and relax at night. ### **Avoid caffeine after 3 pm** Pretty simple advice to my fellow coffee and energy drink lovers: Avoid this stuff as much as possible in order to improve sleep quality. And if you just cannot or do not want to do without it – as I do not – restrict your consumption to no caffeine after 3 pm. ### **Restrict naps to a max. of 30 minutes** I am a huge fan of naps. It is a great tool to refresh yourself and regain concentration. However, power naps help the most when you limit them to a maximum of 30 minutes. Otherwise, you will end in REM sleep (deep sleep phase) and feel even worse. In case you want to have a longer nap, try to sleep for 90 or 180 minutes. A full deep sleep phase takes approximately 90 minutes. This allows you to avoid waking up during REM sleep and feel energized. Keep in mind, though, that in case of such a long nap, you might have difficulties to fall asleep later. So, only make use of longer naps if you have a (little) sleep shortage. ### **Establish a pre-sleep routine** Many people – including me – swear on pre-sleep routines. In my case, a sleep routine helps me a lot to calm down and fall asleep quicker. I use to answer three questions that help me to reflect on the past day and, then, read for at least 15 minutes. I highly encourage you to try it out by yourself for at least ten days to experience the first results. It will be worth it! ### **Go to sleep when you are truly tired** Who does not know this situation: You have been laying in your bed for 30 minutes and you just cannot fall asleep. This leads to frustration. The next time this is happening to you, I suggest you to do the following: If you’re not asleep after 20 minutes, get out of bed, let some new fresh air into your room, then, go to another room, and do something relaxing like reading or listening to music until you are tired enough to sleep. This will help you to calm down, release pressure and anger. Additionally, you will fall asleep better and probably even quicker. And that brings us to the end of today’s article. Thank you a lot for tuning in and reading all this through. Let me know if you want to know more about my evening routine as well as if you have remarks, feedback or questions. Highly appreciated! All the best to you and yours, David --- # How to get the most out of your day - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-day - Date: 2019-11-17 - Categories: Goal Achievement In this post, I will give you my three most important tips on how I make the most out of the 24 hours we have every day. To put it in a nutshell they are: * Always wake up with an alarm * Write down your three most vital tasks before you go to sleep * Schedule and prioritize your time ### **Always wake up with an alarm** According to the majority of research, seven to eight hours of sleep are necessary to maximize productivity. Sleeping less leads to a loss of mental clarity and brainpower, but can also lead to a loss of well-being as well as a lack of regeneration. There are many more reasons why you should sleep enough. Thus, having enough sleep is crucial in order to make the most out of your day in the long-run. Nevertheless, I would rank “always getting up early with an alarm clock” among the top three of my most significant habits in terms of productivity. When you win the battle with the alarm, you have already almost won your day. This first achievement of the new day gives you the power over your life and time budget. In my view, it is a massive gain of freedom when you have the discipline to wake up whenever you want to. It allows you to design the life you want to. ### **Most people have the discipline to wake up early when others make them to do so** Most people around the globe, though, only wake up with an alarm when they are forced by external circumstances. It is pretty common for most of us to wake up with an alarm clock from Monday to Friday because of work or school. At the weekend, however, most people do not even think about setting an alarm. I think this is pretty sad. Most people have the discipline to wake up early when others make them do so. They let others determine how their days are designed. As a result, the majority of their life is dictated by other people. But when it comes to schedule the time on weekends, most of us do not have the discipline to create a life they desire. ### **It is not necessarily about waking up early** In my opinion, the most important part of this habit is that you limit your sleep to an average of seven to eight hours per day and make setting an alarm every day a fixed component of your life. It is not necessarily about waking up early, but rather it is about gaining control over the limited time you are given in your life and make the most out of it. When you partied till 3 am, you do not have to set an alarm at 8 am. The goal is to set an alarm that allows you to sufficiently regenerate but prevents you to oversleep. Every minute overslept is a wasted minute of an invaluable lifetime. [I wake up every day at 7 am](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/home/why-i-always-wake-up-at-7-am) even when I would only get three hours of sleep after a long party night. I do not want to persuade you to adopt such a habit, because it has some requirements that the majority of us do not meet in order to make it as a gain in productivity and happiness as I perceive it. If you are interested in the reasoning behind this habit, [click here](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/home/why-i-always-wake-up-at-7-am) to read more about it. ### **Write down your three most vital tasks before you go to sleep** As an integral part of my evening routine, I always reflect on the past day as well as prepare myself for the upcoming 24 hours. One meaningful part of this is to think about the three most vital tasks/events of the next day. This has several reasons: * It helps me to prioritize my schedule * Doing it before going to sleep allows my subconscious to work on a solution for problems overnight * People writing down their goals are from 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to successfully accomplish their goals * Supports scheduling my day the next day It takes about three minutes to accomplish, but the effect is enormous. Since I started this habit, I have been able to accomplish more in less time and set myself even bigger goals. This habit allows me to break big goals into smaller ones since I am forced to think about what is possible the next day and what is not. Moreover, it helps to prioritize. What is most important about this habit is the process itself and not the outcome. The three minutes you spent on thinking about tomorrow makes you more conscious about your scarce lifetime and to value you it more. Actually, I do not only write down goals or challenges, but rather upcoming events or activities. For instance, when there is a party, meeting with friends or a particular gym session the next day and this might be one of the most important activities the next day, I set those as one of “the most vital tasks of tomorrow”. By doing this, I think about how I can make this even better. How can I make the most out of this party, meeting or workout; how can I improve this part of my life even more. What can I do to enjoy this time more? The process itself leads to a more conscious decision-making process and, eventually, helps me to achieve the happiest and most fulfilled life I can have. ### **Schedule your day after waking up** It is no wonder that the great achievers of our century precisely schedule their day. It makes it possible to prioritize and focus as well as become conscious about what matters this day. Every morning when I wake up, I take my bullet journal (a kind of significantly expanded to-do list book) and think about what I have to accomplish today, what is upcoming, how long each of the entries approximately takes and in which order I want to deal with them (prioritization). The goals I set myself in the night before that day is, of course, part of it. In the following picture, you can see today’s schedule: ![](/images/essays/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-day-1.jpg) Today is a rest day, this there is no workout scheduled. Moreover, as I hung out with friends a lot in the past days, I did not schedule something I could do with them, but I also usually include “free time activities” in my schedule. As you can see, I prioritized my tasks (starting with writing this article) and estimated the time takes me to accomplish them. Having an estimate of how long they take helps me a lot to keep focused and stick to my plan. I do not like wasting time when I have an ongoing task. This scheduling activity takes about 5 minutes in the morning and it is definitely worth the effort. Additionally, it is a dynamic process. If I find out that a task is not that important anymore or there is an incident, I will adjust the plan. However, I usually do not deviate from my schedule. Forcing myself to stick to it, helps me to stay focused. For me, there are not many things that make me feel more satisfied than having a fully accomplished schedule. All in all, these three habits greatly contribute to a more efficient and productive life. I can only highly recommend trying it out for yourself. However, do not overtax yourself and be patient. All these habits show their real benefit after a certain time of practicing them (approx. at least a month). Let me know if you want to know more about my evening or morning routines as well as if you have remarks, feedback or questions. Highly appreciated! All the best to you and yours, David --- # How to become more optimistic - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/become-more-optimistic-3-tips - Date: 2019-11-11 - Categories: Goal Achievement As I talked about “[Why I love being an optimist](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/home/3-reasons-why-i-love-being-an-optimist)” last week, I will tell you this week how I became a more optimistic person. In my opinion, there are three main aspects to become a more positively minded person: * Have the right mindset * Focus on thinking positively * Do not downplay your successes In the following, I am going to explain to you each of these points in more detail and enrich my recommendations with my own experience. With these words, let us dive into the first aspect. ### **Establish the right optimistic mindset** ![](/images/essays/become-more-optimistic-3-tips-1.png) This little graph is a rudimentary representation of our thought process and how it should ideally be. Actually, there is no space for negative thinking when you adopt the right mindset. An optimist is convinced that s/he has the power and responsibility to take their destiny into their own hands. Optimists are not worried about the upcoming exam, product presentation in front of their boss or the first time they have to speak in front of a large audience. In fact, people with a positive mindset know that they are prepared for this moment, give their best and, therefore, have no reason to be negative about the situation. In case you really cannot do something about your situation, the only way to deal with it is acceptance. When you want to be happier and you are often confronted with uncertain situations in which you feel powerless, the only way to manage them is to accept it. This will help you to make the best out of the situation despite the fact that you cannot do anything about it. Moreover, it helps you to obtain a positive mood since you can focus on positive aspects. ### **Failure is inevitable – it is part of humanity as oxygen is part of living beings** Another very important aspect to consider is that you should definitely come to terms with failure. Failure is inevitable. It is part of humanity as oxygen is part of living beings. Without failure, there is no evolution. You cannot learn to walk without falling and standing up again and again. You cannot write a great article without before you wrote a great number of bad sentences. You cannot achieve anything great in life without failing and trying again before. Obviously, there are different “degrees” of failure. When you write your first exam in school, you might achieve a very good grade. When you try to play an instrument the first time, you might produce some very good tones and a nice melody. However, compared to what is possible after trying many more times, this first try can also be seen as a “failure” since there is always a lot of potentials to improve and compared to your 100th performance your first performance will always look worse. And this brings us to a very important lesson: Firstly, no matter how you define failure, the first try will never be as good as the 100th attempt. Secondly, you will eventually succeed, but before that, you cannot fail to try again and again. Optimists are not afraid to fail, they embrace failure because they appreciate the lessons learned from failing and know that they will be successful sooner or later. ### **Focus on thinking positively** When you adopted the right mindset, you should start to concentrate on thinking positively. Begin by consciously identifying the type of inner dialogue or language you use daily. We all have one. What is yours? Take a mental note about the negative words or phrases you use at the end of the day. For instance: I cannot, I do not know how, this is impossible, I always get this wrong, I am now able to do this, I will fail anyway, etc. When you notice yourself saying something negative in your mind, you can stop your thought midstream by saying to yourself (or in your head), “Stop!”. Saying this aloud will be more powerful, and having to say it aloud will make you more aware of how many times you are stopping negative thoughts and where. Now, dig deep down inside yourself and rethink your assumptions. Are you assuming something is a negative event when it is not necessary? Stop, rethink, and see if you can come up with a neutral or positive replacement. Example: Notice the difference between telling yourself you can’t handle something and asking yourself how you will handle something. Doesn’t the second thought feel more hopeful and lead to more creativity? Do not ask yourself whether something is possible, ask yourself how it is possible. ### **Do not minimize your successes** Unfortunately, many people have a habit of not fully appreciating their wins and downplaying their successes. I struggle with this one, too. People will praise me for writing very good grades, being very athletic or having a positive vibe. But I will just answer, “Anyone could do that.” This kind of reaction de-emphasizes all the small efforts we put in to make our lives a success. Anyone could do it – yes – but many did not and will not. The same might most likely be true for you. Even reading this post all the way to this point means you are putting the effort in to improve your ability to think positive. Give yourself some credit for that. As you pursue positive thinking, happiness, or well-being – whatever your goal is – take note of your wins. After every small win, celebrate a little bit. --- # 3 reasons why I love being an optimist - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/3-reasons-why-i-love-being-an-optimist - Date: 2019-11-05 - Categories: Communication ### **An optimist sees a solution for every problem; a pessimist sees a problem for every solution** Almost every day we are confronted with situations that are subject to uncertainty. Whether we have an important exam, waiting for results, are on the way home on foot and a thunderstorm is coming up or when we cheer for our favorite sports team: We cannot predict the outcome of these situations. Most people have colored thoughts in regard to these uncertainties; we tend to perceive ambiguous circumstances in either positive or negative light. So-called realists are a rather uncommon appearance. Of course, we tend to be subject to regression to the mean and, therefore, extremes such as naive optimists – almost bending the truth and take abnormal risks – and depressive pessimists are pretty rare. Nevertheless, I would love to tell you why it is so important to me why a positive mindset – aka being an optimist is so important to me and my daily life. Moreover, I enrich my reasoning with scientific research; the source list can be found at the end of the article. ![](/images/essays/3-reasons-why-i-love-being-an-optimist-1.jpg) Furthermore, before we jump into the article. [**Here**](https://web.stanford.edu/class/msande271/onlinetools/LearnedOpt.html)**, you can access a test created by Stanford University researchers to estimate whether you are more optimistic or pessimistic**. Pretty interesting to get an objective idea of your thinking and it only takes 10 minutes. ### **More success in your career** Scientific studies show a clear tendency: People acquired a positive mindset are more successful in their job, have on average a higher salary and accomplish more challenging goals than their contrary peers in the long-run. Martin Seligman – a very old psychologist teaching and researching at the University of Pennsylvania – dedicated his life to the exploration of positive psychology. In one of his studies, he found out that approx. 70% of the polled self-made millionaires are optimists. Seligman reasons that people with a positive mindset are more likely to solve challenging problems better as well as to overcome failure and fix mistakes. ### **It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy** In addition to the scientific evidence, I would like to emphasize that in my opinion, it is also evident that optimists tend to be more successful: If you genuinely believe that you can master a challenge, then it is clear to me that logically the chances for mastering it automatically increase. You tune your brain to failure when you tell yourself that you most likely will not do it and that the likelihood of failure is high. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Being optimistic implies more self-confidence. What leads us to the next consideration. ### **An optimistic mindset favor self-confidence** The belief being able to determine one’s own destiny and influence one’s own journey of life requires you to have faith in your own power and control over different kinds of situations. People believing in the positive outcome of situations tend to perceive life as something they have control of, whereas pessimists tend to have a fixed mindset implying their path of life is fixed and therefore cannot change. Thus, optimists are more likely to risk something. As a result, they fail more often, but also learn more when it comes to getting out of the comfort zone. People who have a positive feeling towards failure are more likely to challenge themselves. Consequently, positive minds are more open to going up to people they do not know. We all know this situation: There is this one person we want to talk to. Whether it is a person we find particularly handsome, an idol or we simply want to ask a question. But we do not dare. Instead, we think about different scenarios of how we could approach the person. Unfortunately, with every minute we think about the uncertain situation the odds for doing it are dropping. People with a positive mindset, though, generally cope with these situations differently. With our positive bias that all people like us and the case is going to end positively anyway, we are more likely to have the courage to do it. Moreover, optimists have a tendency to overestimate their capabilities. Admittedly, this can result in complacency and can have severe drawbacks. Nevertheless, this characteristic helps us to develop stronger self-esteem as we learn more about what we are capable of and what we are not. And this is what self-confidence is all about: Self-assurance in one’s personal judgment, ability, and power. ### **A positive mindset implies a happier life** Finally, I want to address another vital aspect of an optimistic mind. Through the attentive observation of friends, I have noticed that people with a positive mindset tend to be happier. There is a friend I got to know at the beginning of my semester abroad. Whenever I see her, she is unbelievably energetic, positively minded and smiling. When I drew my attention to the way she expressed her thoughts, I discovered that she was almost never negatively minded, but rather tended to be a little naive. This is actually the reason why I am currently writing this article. This obvious relationship between her happiness and her positive thought process made me think about this whole topic, reflect on past experiences and enrich my reasoning with scientific research. According to the vast majority of science in this field, people with a positive mindset are less likely to suffer from depression, can cope better with strokes of fate and overcome negative feelings because of failure faster. Optimists see – per definition – the good in even the worst situations. When receiving feedback, people with an optimistic attitude are more likely to embrace and appreciate it. ### **High achievement takes place in a framework of high expectations** People with a pessimistic mindset, though, might argue that they are the happier people for the following reason: As they expect less and, thus, are more likely to exceed their expectations, they seem to be happier more often. For instance, when you tell yourself that you will not pass the exam scheduled for tomorrow – although you had learned sufficiently – and you eventually pass with a decent grade, you might be happier than an optimistic having high expectations and, eventually, falls short of one’s expectations. BUUUT: This is only true in the short-run. Yes, you are happier when you exceed or meet your expectations and you are sad when you cannot excel. However, optimistic people tend to strive for more; they expect more, and, as high achievement takes place in a framework of high expectations, they eventually will achieve more. High achievement leads to higher satisfaction which ultimately leads to greater long-run happiness. Moreover, while the pessimist is worried about not passing, the optimist is positively minded and happy. During this state of uncertain – until you get the results of your exam – you feeling emotions more extensively. Consequently, pessimists are less happy on average than their contrary peers. This was this week’s article. I hope you liked it. Let me know if you have any questions, remarks or feedback. Highly appreciated! See you next week when I will write about how you can become more positively minded! All the best to you and yours, David References: **Martin E. P. Seligman,** 1990: *Learned Optimism*. Esteve, Rosa; López-Martínez, Alicia E.; Peters, Madelon L.; Serrano-Ibáñez, Elena R.; Ruiz-Párraga, Gema T.; Ramírez-Maestre, Carmen: Optimism, Positive and Negative Affect, and Goal Adjustment Strategies Carver, C. S., Scheier, M. F. & Segerstrom, S. C. (2010). Optimism. *Clinical Psychology Review, 30*(7), 879–889. Hanssen, M. M., Peters, M. L., Vlaeyen, J. W., Meevissen, Y. M. & Vancleef, L. M. (2013). Optimism lowers pain: Evidence of the causal status and underlying mechanisms. *Pain, 154*(1), 53–58. Schueller, S. M. & Seligman, M. E. P. (2008). Optimism and pessimism. In K. S. Dobson & D. J. A. Dozois (Hrsg.), *Risk Factors in Depression* (S. 171–194). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. > [Why Optimists Make More Money Than Pessimists](https://www.nav.com/blog/why-optimists-make-more-money-than-pessimists-29676/) https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-of-happiness/positive-thinking/ --- # How you say something matters a lot - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-you-say-something-matters-a-lot - Date: 2019-10-29 - Categories: Communication This past week I had a very insightful but also painful experience what I was glad to gain: I had a discussion with someone about politics and how the average person is disinterested in political participation. While arguing, I used a friend of mine as an example for how disinterested even such an educated and smart person like her is not interested in politics (she suggested a few minutes ago whether we could change the topic as we – 6 people – were sitting in a van and she does not want to talk about political issues under such circumstances. We were on a road trip to Yosemite National Park.) ### **The tongue has no bones, but is strong enough to break a heart** What I actually wanted to say was that she is ambitious, willing to learn a lot to achieve her goals and very educated; but although she has a high degree of reflection and access to education, she is not interested in political discourse. I aimed to reinforce my argument that the media have such a strong power as most people are not willing to spend much time on thinking through complex political issues and, therefore, how the media process, edit and condense information has a great impact how political parties and representatives are perceived by the general public. My statement, though, was perceived completely differently. Because I expressed this argument in a quite dismissive and arrogant tone, it was totally misinterpreted by her. And what comes on top: She was not really attentive to the rest of the discussion and only noticed parts of the discussion I had with another friend. As a consequence, she justifiably confronted me how I could dare to judge her political awareness in such a negative manner. She felt she was unreasonably bashed for her political consciousness by me and blamed me for my derogative way of expression. I really hope you can still follow me and understand the setting as well as the presentation of the problem: “Just” because I expressed myself not in accordance with the message I wanted to deliver, I hurt someone’s feelings and put her in a bad mood. ### **An insightful but also painful lesson what I was glad about to gain** After she had expressed herself, I told her that I was really sorry and that it was not acceptable to criticize her in such a manner and that she was totally right. Subsequently, my other friend and I continued to discuss politics, however, I had a guilty conscience. When we arrived at our next stop, I sought her out for a private conversation in order to say sorry again since I was really sorry for blaming and make her look like a fool in front of our friends in the car. After I had hugged, we were good and she understood me but told me that I need to be more conscious about how I expressed myself as she has often noticed a tendency to such a dismissive manner. ### **I do not want to be perceived as an arrogant jerk** She was right. When I was observing myself seriously arguing, I caught myself using exaggerations to emphasize my assertion and reasoning. Sometimes, I unconsciously made use of an arrogant tone and dismissive tone. Because I did not expect this to be true, this genuinely shocked me. In my view, it is extremely important to be authentic and be who you are. And yes, that is how I am. BUT: I do not want to be perceived as an arrogant jerk who is looking down on other people. Yes, I love making fun of myself and enjoy it when others make fun of me, especially if I can make fun of others too. And yes, being honest and direct is substantially vital too. However, I should definitely have control over how I am perceived by others and, in particular, should not behave in a way others I do not want myself to act. As a consequence, I will be more aware of my day-to-day behavior and be more conscious about how I argue and deal with situations when I talk about or with people. The goal is to say the same things, but be understood the way I want to transmit a statement. What do you think about this issue? Do you think I exaggerated? Can you understand why this is so important to me? How would you act in such a situation? Would you draw the same or different conclusions? It would be awesome if you let me know! All the best to you and yours, David --- # How quitting video games changed my life for the better - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-quitting-video-games-changed-my-life-for-the-better - Date: 2019-10-22 - Categories: Communication It is this time of year again: The League of Legends world championship is taking place and the best players in the world compete for the title “best LoL players in the world”. *Side note: League of Legends (LoL) is a competitive video game with steadily increasing popularity and growing fan base. Many of you might not know it. This, though, does not really matter regarding the issue I want to write about today.* Almost four years ago, I was in love with this game. It gave me so much: I have always been a competitive person, loved challenging myself and wanted to prove to others that I am right. LoL is a very competitive game, requiring you to improve otherwise you will not be able to climb the competitive ladder and get stuck. So, it was ideal to give me the competitiveness I desired. I set myself goals and thought about strategies on how to achieve them, such as creating a schedule when to play games, watch replays to analyze mistakes and when to watch videos to improve my skills. Yeah, I was really into it. Besides, I found some delightful friends with whom I spent plenty of amusing hours playing this game. Sometimes, it was so incredibly pleasant that we played until late into the night. Thinking back to it is always a great pleasure. ### *I was so passionate that I was close to tears.* But then there was this day: I was once again incredibly frustrated since I lost many games in a row and just was unable to progress. I was so passionate that I was close to tears. Because of a game. A *video game*. This day I realized that I have to make a decision about where this is going to lead. I contemplated why I was playing this game, why I spend so much time on it, whether there was a purpose in it and why I should keep playing it and any other game. A rigorous reflection process was started. From this day on I quit gaming and playing LoL. I often had the desire to play it again and thought about the people I spent many hours with. The arguments against playing again, however, were much stronger. And so, I had not touched the keyboard to play a game for many months and have full control over my game consumption. Today, I sometimes play with my younger siblings one or two rounds different kind of games when I am back at my home town, but as I am not used to it anymore, I cannot play more than half an hour without losing the desire to play another round. ### **The reasons why I quit this hobby are quite apparent** Now, what were the reasons why I stopped carrying out this extensive hobby? First and foremost, gaming itself is not bad at all. It is a social activity that provided me with a lot of happiness as well as great and enjoyable moments I do not want to miss. Therefore, this article is not against gaming in general, but rather it is about why I took a different path and why thinking long-term is extremely important to me. ### **Gaming can be a hell of a lot of wasted time** One of the three major reasons is that gaming cost me countless hours of my life. Playing video games can give you a lot of enjoyment in the short-run, however, in the long-term it might indirectly deprive you of so many opportunities. Before I stopped gaming, I had imagined how many hours would be set free in case I quit playing video games and what I could do with all this additional lifetime. Looking back, it was a extremely good deal: My grades in high school improved, I started going to the gym more often, met and got my long-term relationship, started DJing and producing mixtapes more intensively (what I quit before going to college), invested much more in my personal development and several other great opportunities arose, such as having a greater incentive to meet friends more often in the real world or more time in college. As there were many things I enjoyed more and made me happier in the long-run, it made no sense to me to continue gaming which leads us to the next reason. ### **I did not see meaning in it** Further, gaming did not *really* mean anything to me. What I mean by this is that playing video games was just a fun activity. I just did it for fun. Having fun is not really bad. However, during this reflection and thought process before quitting, I made up my mind that from now on, everything I am going to do *regularly* must have a purpose. Every habit, every day-to-day decision, everything I do on a regular basis has to be based on a conscious decision as well as my principle of long-term thinking according to my vision and purpose of life. And gaming is definitely not part of that. It is a fun activity, yes, but there are many things giving me at least as much fun as gaming did in the long-run, for instance shooting videos. Consequently, I had another very strong argument against playing video games as often as I did. ### **Extensive gaming is bad for health** Another strong argument against gaming as a hobby was that it was not healthy for me. You only sit in a chair and steer at a monitor, not able to move and stretch yourself for hours. You not only risk muscle, stamina and strength loss but also your eyes can get worse as they are constantly overexerted. In conclusion, gaming was not merely a waste of time and did not give me any sense, it is even not good for my personal well-being. Damn! Of course, there are many other habits and hobbies that are worse than gaming, such as drinking and a normal office job is not really better than gaming for several hours. But since there are many other hobbies which I enjoy more, are meaningful in the long-run AND are good or at least not bad for my health, I was totally determined to quit gaming. I can completely understand when you do not want to quit gaming or any other hobby similar to it. Maybe it provides you with a sense or you do not want to quit because there is no alternative in sight, for instance, it helps you to come down. Nevertheless, I hope I have given you food for thought that will help you make your life a little better. Any remarks, questions or feedback? Feel free to let me know; I highly appreciate it! See you soon my friend. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Why I always wake up at 7 am - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-i-always-wake-up-at-7-am - Date: 2019-10-14 - Categories: Communication This past week I was really struggling with maintaining my habit to always wake up at 7 am. However, I still managed to stick to my habit despite I was partying more or less three days in a row and doing sports almost every day (which requires you to sleep more). In this article, I want to tell you why it is so important to me to wake up every day at 7 am, why I still wake up that early despite I went to bed pretty late and what the benefits and downsides of this habit are. ## If you win the morning, you win the day This week was rough: On Thursday I went to sleep at 3 am, on Friday it was at 2 am and on Saturday it was at 1:30 am. I love going out, have fun with my friends, dance in the night club – the worst part about it, though, is that it drains a lot of your energy and productivity for the upcoming day(s). There is a clear trade-off: Either you sleep as much as you need to be productive, but wake up pretty late when the half of the day is already over; or you wake up as early as usual and be tired and less productive. For a quite amount of time, I have always chosen the latter. But why the hell am I doing this to myself? Waking up early at the weekend is one thing. But why do I wake up after two or three hours of sleep despite I have plenty of time to sleep and no pressure to get something done? The answers to these questions – my dear friend – will be given to you in the following paragraphs. ### **From trying something new to a great new habit** When I started this habit I did not really think about the great benefits of it. I just wanted to try something new, challenge myself and my discipline to establish a new habit. After reading the power of habit I had become affected by integrating more and more habits into my everyday life, including this. Today, however, I can say that this was not even such a stupid idea. ### **What to consider when you want to try it** After doing this for a few months I can feel the true benefits of having a constant wake up time and it is totally worth the upside of it. First and foremost, however, it is very important that one can acquire this habit, that one can really make use and harness the extra time you gain from implementing this habit. Always waking up at the same time/early gives you a hell lot more of time to get something done. If you don’t really have something to do, something that drives and motivates you to be productive, it is substantially more difficult to get this habit going. In my case, I do a lot of sports, set myself new goals again and again (currently: YouTube, personal branding stuff, learn for university, read a lot; upcoming when I get bored: make use of open course work of Stanford University, study French again…). And therefore, I can really take full advantage of this habit. Even when I am tired, I am so motivated to wake up and get the day started. In particular, at the beginning of implementing this habit, it is really hard to wake up at the weekend or after a party when you do not have something to do in the morning inspiring/motivating you. Sooo, if you want to try it, first set yourself a task that motivates you so that you can take advantage of the time you gain. ## The advantages of always waking up at the same time ### **Get more out of your day** But now enough talked about the obstacles that prevent you from practicing this habit. Let me tell you something about the advantages. First of all and very briefly, it allows you to get more out of your day. It is quite obvious that you get more out of your day, when you do not oversleep your weekends and other free days. Oversleeping in this context means sleeping more than your body actually needs (six to eight hours). Oversleeping is, in fact, just a waste of productive time. I mean if you really enjoy sleeping a lot and value sleeping more than being conscious and productive, it is the better deal to sleep as much as you love to. However, if you want to get more done, always waking up at the same time will help you to make more out of your precious time. ### **Reduce the probability of insomnia** Moreover, when you always wake up at the same time, you will cut the probability of not being able to sleep (insomnia) by a huge amount. I cannot even remember the last day I had problems to go to bed and sleep. This consistency has allowed me since I started it to create a steady sleep rhythm what is the basis for coping with insomnia. There were times in my youth when I had great problems with falling asleep because my sleep rhythm was so broken. Making use of this habit, massively helps you to keep up a steady sleep rhythm and, eventually, helps you to prevent sleeplessness. ### **Sleep less and still be more productive – make use of power naps** There have been a few days I have not made it to get enough sleep at night because of this habit. Alone the past week I could not get more than six hours of sleep three days straight. However, this is no problem at all if you are able to take a nap(s) to refuel your energy. In particular, at the weekends (or students that can wake up during the week whenever they want to), you are usually so flexible that you take some to take a nap. Naps allow you to recharge your limited energy sources on these days with too little sleep. In the first one or two hours after waking up after a short night, you can be still productive in spite of the sleep shortage. However, to maintain high productivity which rapidly decreases after these first hours, you need to take a nap. After doing so, your body’s energy supply is recharged and you are ready to go to be productive for another several hours. So all in all, you sleep less (e. g. you sleep 5.5 hours at night + two 30 min power naps instead of getting 7 – 8 hours of sleep at night), buuuut when making use of power naps you are at least as productive as getting 8 hours of sleep. Consequently, you not only have more time to get things done and live your life consciously, but you are still productive when not even more productive as power naps can boost your productivity massively. ### **After creating a real habit, you will not need any discipline to wake up anymore** Finally, I want to point out that creating and implementing a habit always takes a lot of discipline at first. After several months or even weeks, though, you will not need discipline anymore to follow it. No matter what habit I created – whether cold showers, reading, reflection, running, etc. – at first it took me discipline to do it. But now, after doing it for a longer even time even cold showers take me now discipline anymore. I will just jump in the shower, turn on the cold water and get my cold shower. That’s it. And what is really interesting: If I do not follow my habit, do not go for a run, do not get a cold shower, do not read in the evening, I feel like there something missing and suddenly I have a great need to do it as always and get my cold shower or go for the run. And now, same goes for the 7 am waking up habit. For a few weeks now, I have always had a great need to get out of the bed no matter how little sleep I had. Therefore, I can only tell you that you can really trust the power of habits. It helps you to make this a great success. After talking so much about the positive aspects of this, I also want to highlight downsides of it. ### **You need to be able to cope with sleep shortages** My goal is to always hit at least an amount of eight hours of sleep. This means that I need to go to bed at 11 pm what has always been a very good time to go to sleep for me. Going to bed earlier is no problem, too, however, most of the time something gets in my way and prevents me from going to bed earlier. 10:30 pm, though, is my deadline for finishing my last task at hand (doing stuff for college, calls with friends and family, watching videos, writing something, etc). The reason for this is, that I always read at least 15 minutes before going to bed and reflect on the day in writing. I really do not like going to bed later than that as I really rely on sleep. However, at times social activities hindering me from doing this. Either friends want me to go out, I want to go to a party with friends or other things stopping me to get a proper amount of sleep. Especially, this week that was the case. Although I took my power naps to offset the lack of sleep I had, I still felt very tired after day two of this series of sleep deprivation. I could not manage to maintain a high level of productivity, felt demotivated during the day and was only hyped at night when I was out again. And on the third day, I felt so tired, I almost fell asleep at my neighbors’ couch during the early evening when they were hanging. After this third day, I really needed more sleep. So, I woke up on Sunday (day four) at 7 am again, but fell asleep one hour later again for another two hours of sleep and took another nap for 30 minutes at 12 pm again. During this time I was not really productive, however, I went to a beautiful island which is part of San Diego at midday and could really enjoy it since I was fully refueled with energy. I am sure in this case it would have made more sense to sleep longer than 7 am. However, I really do not like to break my habits. Moreover, sticking to the 7 am plan allows me to be even more disciplined and maintain my sleep rhythm. **In conclusion**, waking up at 7 am has really great benefits, such as more time for yourself, being more productive on average and reduce the probability of sleeplessness. On the other hand, though, it requires a lot of discipline and endangers productivity at times when you get started. All in all, I really recommend trying it out for a few weeks so you can harness the power of habits and feel the benefits of it. I really hope you enjoyed this article. In case you have any questions, remarks or feedback, let me know and write me a message per mail or on social media. All the best, David --- # Why video calls are awesome - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-video-calls-are-awesome - Date: 2019-10-14 - Categories: Communication Dear friend, In the following few paragraphs, I want to talk about why (WhatsApp) video calls are so great and why I want to call my friends and family more often now. # The important thing is that we stick together A few weeks ago, a really good friend (kudos to Joshua) called me spontaneously via WhatsApp video call. I am still very impressed by how easy it was and how much more personal that felt compared to a normal audio-only call. After my friend had called me, I had several other video calls in the past weeks. Whenever possible, I used the video call instead of the audio-only one and it was soooo much more pleasant and enjoyable. The conversations were more emotional, personal, funnier and all in all a *real* experience. And it is sooo freaking easy – just a press of a button. I think for iPhone users this is nothing new (as you have FaceTime) and might sound quite silly, but I had not really been able to imagine that this can make such a difference. And what is more, it is so easy compared to other alternatives, as for instance Skype video call. # The family is the first essential cell of human society Now, knowing that is so easy to have so meaningful conversations with family and friends, I strive to make use of it and call my family and friends more often. When spending time in San Diego – thousands of kilometers away from the place where I actually live – it comes clearer and clearer to me how much I love and appreciate my family and friends back home. Scarcity shows us what is really important in our lives. I think no matter how busy you are and no matter how stressed you are, you can always make time – at least a few minutes – to reach out for your best and loved ones. In fact, if you and they have a smartphone and an internet connection there is no real excuse for not calling them on a regular basis. Of course, there might be sensible reasons why you do not want to cultivate and maintain a connection to someone, BUT time and effort cannot be a reason why a relationship is sacrificed or has to suffer. In my case, I try to reach out to my parents at least once a week via a video call from now. And whenever possible I try to call my friends via video call. I want to make the most out of my time and instead of chatting messages back and forth, the time is better invested in a real conversation via (video) call. So, after this learning, I do highly recommend you to use WhatsApp video call (, FaceTime or whatever app) more often when you want to have a great conversation with your loved and best ones. I hope this pretty basic insight (or reminder) from me motivates you to use video calls more often and spend more time caring for your relationships – in case you have not already done it. As always write to me when you have questions, remarks or feedback. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Why purpose is extremely important - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/why-purpose-is-extremely-important - Date: 2019-10-07 - Categories: Communication ### **Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement** Dear friend, You are currently reading the 20th issue of my weekly learnings newsletter. Twenty weeks ago, I started this endeavor and, so far, it has been still totally worth it. So many insightful thoughts, many hours spent on invaluable reflection about life and because of this, I even started a YouTube channel 2 weeks ago (unfortunately, it will only be in German until next year). Besides, my own webpage is online, meaning that from now on you can read my weekly learnings on this webpage, too (www.davidstrittmatter.com). As I want to do the most out of my time here in San Diego, I am trying many things out – currently it feels like waaaay too many, such as the YT channel or setting up my own webpage – and focus on my personal development – best part of the semester abroad so far. Until now, this has worked out pretty well [#yeah](https://www.davidstrittmatter.com/blog/hashtags/yeah). To enlighten you a little why I am starting to become a YT star now (just kidding!): The main reasons for the webpage and the YT channel is: I want to expand my channels for reaching out to other people. My personal vision and mission (aka purpose of life) is all about creating value and having great time doing so. In order to share the most important experiences on my journey through life, I want to achieve a sufficient reach on different platforms and spread my knowledge in various channels. I really do not like the fact that so many people are not able to follow their passion and their dreams just because they do not have inspiring goals or do not know how to take action and implement their plans – this is really sad! As people sharing their biggest failures as well as the way how they overcame them (for instance Gary Vee does this) have always been extremely valuable for me, I want to try this too. I really want to serve as a good role model and inspiration eventually. If I become a criminal or a supervillain one day, though, you will know the reasons for that and have a great negative example still providing you value, too! ## **Why purpose of life is extremely important** These past days I have been asked a lot what is driving me, where I am draining my energy from and why I am so passionate about life. The answer to this is somehow simple but somehow also not: Purpose. I truly believe that purpose is the key to life. **What do I mean by that?** Since the day I intensely thought about death and the meaning of life, the way I view this world has changed substantially. I realized that we only live once and that we all are going to die someday. But till then, there are so many more days we are alive. I was thinking about how I can make the most of all these days, how could I fill all these days with life, how could I live a life with no regret, how I can be a happy person. In order to answer all these questions, I simply needed to figure out one thing: **What is the purpose of my life?** I am strongly convinced that there is no universally valid purpose of life. It all comes down to what we want to do to make out of the years that were given to us in this magnificent world. The good thing about this is that you have choice as well as the bad thing about this is that you have choice. Paradoxical, isn’t it? I believe it is our duty to give our life a purpose (or no purpose at all). This can be hard for many of us as it lays in our responsibility if we tell ourselves that is our duty to give our life a purpose. However, it can be also seen as insanely great since we can choose for ourselves what we will strive for in our lives. After I had thought a lot about what makes me happy, how I can best prevent regret and how I can achieve a life I am proud of, I formulated my personal “mission” for this life. It goes like this: *Advancing the progress of this beautiful world, serving people every day as an inspiration and role model, to be part of the whole, to love and laugh infinitely and to discover every day as a new opportunity.* **And now, why is it so important?** As you can read, I wish my life to be all about having an impact, shaping this world, having a great time and helping others to do even better. And what is the reason for this again? That is what makes me happy and living a life I will not regret. This is what motivates me to go out of my comfort zone, become every day a little better, forego short-term gratification so that I have a more fulfilling and meaningful life. Purpose gives you the energy to achieve your dreams and the most difficult challenges. Just think about doing something you have to do, but you see no purpose in. Think about homework when you were in school. Think about doing your bed when you saw no purpose in it. Think about going to work when you only do it for money. Everything changes when it has purpose. We humans need a purpose to be fulfilled, disciplined and, eventually, happy. I reaaally hope I could convey my message why it is so important to have purpose. Let me know if there is something unclear, or when you need advice in finding your very own purpose of life. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Accomplish the most annoying task of the day first - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/accomplish-the-most-annoying-task-of-a-day-first - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **It isn’t a matter of time, but a matter of priorities** Dear Friend, It’s time again for another episode of my weekly reflections. As announced, this one will be a little longer. It’d really appreciate if you wrote me what you like more (this length or like the posts before). The tendency, though, seems to indicate that the format as the recent ones fits you more. So much for that little request. Let’s jump right into my learnings of this week. **End your meetings and conversation with positive energy** In the beginning, when I started reading books about personal development, I read an article on a topic that went in the direction of “the art of a good conversation”. Unfortunately, I forgot what the title of the article was. Yet, I could keep parts of the content in my memory. According to the article one crucial part of a great conversation – in particular important when getting to know new people – is the ending of it. Most people would think that the end of a chat is relatively meaningless compared to the “middle” or “beginning” of it. However, the ending is as important as the other parts. At first, I thought “Yes, maybe this article is right, but I mean come on: After the conversation hits its end we are done and this is totally okay”. This was two and a half years ago. But then, after following the advice of the writer (well, more than two years later) I do admit that the ending of even the smallest chat is of great importance. First of all, what was I even advised to do? As far as I remember the writer wanted to persuade the readers to let never again end a conversation with low energy. This is to say that 1.) YOU should always end the conversation 2.) with a high energy atmosphere and 3.) a good hook for the next conversation. Some examples to make this more illustrative: 1) You know this situation: You met someone you know and you have a little small talk. Somehow the conversation becomes/keeps superficial and shallow or one of you both just wants to end the conversation (e. g. due to time constraints), but you are feeling uncomfortable ending the chat. What is likely to happen? The conversation becomes more and more unpleasant – for both of you – until one has the courage to end it. In order to prevent such situations, I highly recommend you to always end the conversation by yourself, and not when it is too late. What brings us to 2): What is meant by ending it with high energy? It is quite simple: You have already often experienced this feeling of pleasure, happiness, eager for more, enjoyment etc. in conversations. You laugh, have fun, joke around, listen carefully – all in all have a very good time. Usually, you have this kind of feelings when the conversation hits its climax. Therefore, reaching this state shouldn’t be difficult to you when you have decent conversational skills and the setting allows it (the other person, the general atmosphere, circumstances…) as you have already achieved this many time. But if you generally have problems reaching such a state, you should focus on that first (you can write me a message if you would like to have any advice or materials such as videos, books, articles…). Now, how can you end the conversation in such a high energy state? There is a quite simple answer to this: You just end the conversation when you hit the climax. As the saying goes: “Leave on a high note.” In view of my experiences it has worked really well when I ended the conversation after a joke or after we laughed about something more or less random. What leads us to the last point 3): Finish with a good hook for the next conversation. Hook in this context particularly means that you have something to continue the conversation on another day or in another setting (e. g. on WhatsApp). This can be the bad joke you made use of to end the conversation, other jokes which were used in the talk, joint interests you want to undertake together (sports like go jogging/for a walk, visit something you have always wanted to, try something new you both want to, collaborate/learn together, …). I am convinced that the more often you apply this method, the more ideas creativity you will have. In my case this works really really well. Since I tried this out, I have been able to leave conversations with a much more positive feeling and prevented many of these awkward situations in which the conversation should end but didn’t. Moreover, I think it is much more pleasurable for your friends/conversation partner as well if you are able to implement this method properly. Eventually, I am sure that this can compensate a bad beginning of a conversation (so, your first impression is affected by your “last” one). I would be great if you give it a try and in case it will start working, let me know how you are feeling about it! **Accomplish the most annoying task of a day first** The second learning of this week is something you might have heard several times before: Do the most annoying task/to-do list entry/stuff/call/whatever first; and do it as fast as possible. I mean this sounds very simple, but the impact of implementing this habit can be huge as you might have experienced, too. For me, it feels very unpleasant not being able to accomplish an annoying task first in the morning because as long as this duty is not done, I will have a pretty uncomfortable feeling, cannot calm down, be stressed and have a negative mood. It feels like you have a very important exam in the afternoon you just want to get over. The problem with these annoying tasks is that most of the time those duties are not urgent in the first place BUT they can become very urgent if you do not get them done timely. In my case this week I needed to book trains to make the most out of my free weekends during my summer internship. In Germany (to all my non-German readers), we have the Deutsche Bahn and it is quite expensive to boke a train in the last minute. Moreover, I really enjoy taking the train and – yeah, I really depend on it, too (broke student, no car, you know). So, I need to book the train very early to be able to get the needed discounts. But in order to do so, I have to coordinate with my family and friends at my home town when they have time for me. This might sound very silly to you, but I really don’t like coordinating this. It is very difficult to reconcile the interests of my family and friends. Just a quick explanation why this is a chore for me: My parents have been separated since my childhood. They live about 40 kilometers/25 miles apart. Moreover, as my home town is in a very rural region my friends are also very split apart in terms of space. Hence, I really need to rationalize how I can make the most out of my time at the weekend as you have just like 48 hours. Additionally, I will be in the USA for a half year in two months. Therefore, there is even pressure on me to spend time with all the people I want to see before departing. In order to coordinate this, I need to tell my friends that I am very restricted and although they are very important for me, I have to tell them that I want to see the other friends and family members as well. In addition, I need to make choices regarding which train stations I am going to arrive as I have to be picked up by car – very bad public transportation you know, and, *THEREFORE*, it was a very annoying challenge to me (well, the explanation was not that short). Additionally, train prices can increase day by day and the longer I waited, the more expensive the tickets became. So, I had this chore (annoying task) and the longer I waited the more annoying it became. This week I realized that I have procrastinated a lot regarding this issue since I more and more felt this unpleasant feeling again. And I knew that it has become very urgent (prices have already soared). Consequently, I put this annoying task the first thing I will tackle the next day. At the evening before, I scheduled all the calls with my family and friends from my home town and sent all the messages to gather the necessary info (who has when and where time for me). The next day then, I was able to create a proper plan and, thus, I could book the trains in accordance with the availability of friends and family. After I had booked the last train, I felt such a freeing feeling like I would have just finished an important exam. Now, reflecting about this I am very grateful for this learning. If I hadn’t put this chore the first thing in the morning – I am quite sure – I wouldn’t have got it done this day. And if I hadn’t got it done this day, I wouldn’t most likely haven’t accomplished it today. I really hope I managed to make clear what this learning is about and why it helps me to make my life a little better and happier. That’s it for this week. Hope you enjoyed it and could learn something for yourself. Let me know if there is anything you want to ask or tell me. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Create not-to-do lists to change habits - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/create-not-to-do-lists-to-change-habits - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **There has never been a better time to be alive!** Dear Friend, I am really **happy** you are **reading this (again)** and hope you can enjoy it. If there is **any feedback** you want to let me know (greatly appreciate it!), just write me a short mail or Insta-Message. This week I had plenty of time to reflect what I was doing during the last weeks, got many great ideas for my personal projects and could think about the future and what is going to wait for me. For me *now* is a great time to be alive. I am very excited about what the next time will bring and even more to share this experience with you. But for now, let me share my learnings of this week. **Create not-to-do lists to change your habits** Ever **wanted to change a habit** (e. g. more exercise in everyday life; more time for you own or less time wasting/more efficiency; eating more healthy food, …)? Most likely you will answer this question with yes. And ever created a to-do list to remind yourself of these resolutions? Probably yes, right? Well, I have already faced such issues plenty of times. Luckily I read an article of Tim Ferris and **tried something new: “Not-to-do lists”**. According to Tim they are **often more effective than to-do lists** for upgrading performance as what you don’t do determines what you can do. And not doing something is more like a law. We are used to following the law and, therefore, it is more effective to do not-to-do lists. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, believe this reasoning or not, the **empirical statistics are in favour of not-to-lists**. Hence, you should give it a try as well. For me, it works great. In order to give you a little inspiration, here some of my not-to-list items (also inspired by Tim Ferris): **Do not use your smartphone first thing in the morning or last thing at night.** Instagram can wait until 10am, after you’ve completed at least one of your critical to-do items. Latter just gives you insomnia. **Do not try to please everyone** “There is no sure path to success, but the surest path to failure is trying to please everyone.” **Do not carry your smartphone 24/7** Establish a “smartphone” week day, e. g. Sunday. Going out for dinner with your partner/friends? Keep the smartphone at home or at least in the car/bag. Last tip regarding this topic: **Focus on one or two habits** at a time, just as you should with high-priority to-do items. **Never eat alone** There is this fairly good known book called “Never eat alone” by Keith Ferrazzi. I have already read it two times and summarized it as well. Yet, I did not really understand the core message until a few weeks ago. This book is, generally said, about the good way of networking, how you create meaningful relationships instead of just connecting with people with a plan in mind, exchange your contact and approach them again if you need something. Does not sound that bad, right? Today however, I want to **focus on a very important aspect of this book** which is so important to the author that he even named the book after it. The last weeks I have been mainly concerned with learning for my exams (at the end of each term we have our finals counting 100% for the grade). As I prefer to study at home, I was always more or less socially isolated in this time perioed. This semester I wanted to change this and, hence, thought about possible solutions. Eventually **I decided that every day I would go to lunch with someone or take a coffee break together**. Additionally, I wanted to meet as many different friends as possible since I was not used to having lunch with my friends often and did not want to make it a habit at first (strict diet, you know). **During this time, I had many incredibly great conversations**, could develop the relationships with these people further, collected tips for the exams, could talk about exciting topic, could offer help in case they had a problem, ask for help, and **generally had a very good time.** Further, the best thing is that you did not lose any time for your studies or work since you have to eat or want to take a break anyway. In addition, the people I met were always positively inclined when I asked them. All in all, this is a habit I highly recommend to anybody who wants to make use of any second of life and has no problem with being together with friends or other new people. This was the last week’s post. Next week there is going to be a little longer recap of my learnings. Let me know if you like it shorter or longer. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Do it with all your heart - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/do-it-with-all-your-heart - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart** Dear Friend, What’s up? How is it going? Last week, I arrived in the United States and so far, it has been a really great time. America is very much different from what I have experienced in other countries. My thoughts at the moment, however, revolve around two particular impressions: On the one hand, Americans are so much more friendly and open minded than what I am used to. This makes starting a new life and getting used to their way of living so much easier. On the other hand, everything feels way more superficial and ambiguous here. Whenever I talk to a person, see an advertisement or watch a video here, I have a great need to be suspicious about the situation. At first, you are overwhelmed by all the compliments you receive and all the statements you hear and watch. But when a conversation becomes deeper or you do some research, you will most likely find out that the person who spoke to you or the advertisement was not honest with you. It feels like this is the normal standard here where I am currently staying (Los Angeles). For example, a cashier asked me where I am from because my English has no clear accent but neither was American. So, we started talking about Germany. She said she loves Germany, always wanted to be there and heard so many great things about it. I said I could not believe that because the US alone is so big and has so much to offer. After agreeing with me she stated she like travelling a lot. Then, I dug deeper and asked her where she has travelled before and what she most like about Germany. She then answered that she had never left California and could not really tell me what she liked about Germany. I suppose she did not even know where Germany is located in Europe although she “loves it” and always wanted to be there. Of course, these individual statements should not be used to draw general conclusions about the entire American people, however, like almost every conversation with an American felt this way. All in all, I really love the US and I am so grateful that I have the chance to live here for almost half a year. And although this critical reflection might seem very negative, the positive aspects of being here has outweigh the negative by far until now. Enough talked about the US, let’s get into my learnings. **Do it with all your heart** Ever faced the following situation? You wanted to say hello to a person but you were not sure if you should do it. Then, when greeting the person, you only got a very cautious hello out of your mouth. Or a similar issue but in another setting: You were in a conversation with someone or you spent some time with him/her, the meeting got to its end and you were not sure how to say goodbye? This is what happened to me last week. I was in the gym and saw a guy I had met and had had a nice conversation with some weeks ago. I looked in his direction, but he always looked into a different direction. With this uncertainty in my mind I got very unsecure when he just walked to the exercise machine few meters/feet away from me. Nonetheless, I wanted to say hello (due to my “Overcome-Anxiety-Loop/Habit”). However, instead of greeting this man properly, I just got a very quiet and unsecure hello out of my mouth. I am not sure if he even could listen what I had said. He just nod and started exercising on the machine. I am really grateful for this awkward situation and the corresponding learning. From now on I will either do not greet a person or do it properly. And due to my overcome anxiety habit, it will almost always be the latter. Regarding this issue I made a similar experience but with a positive ending. This time it was about saying goodbye. As I have left Germany for several months, I said goodbye to many of my friends and family. What I realized in doing so was that it really makes a difference how you say goodbye to a person. There is a difference between just giving a hug and giving hug with all of your heart as you would not be able to see the person for a quite a bit of time. It seems to me you can really feel the difference. I do not want to say that I am going to fake my feelings towards people I say goodbye to and do not want to you to do this either. However, how you say goodbye to a person has an impact on how you are remembered which should not be underestimated. Due to this experience, I decided for myself that I adjust the way I am saying goodbye to a person in warmly and sincere way henceforth. Eventually, the person should feel more appreciated and keep me better in mind no matter which kind of relationship connects us. A good way to achieve this is to imagine that I would not see them for a long time. I will try this out let you know how this is going. And how it is about greetings and saying goodbye, almost everything seems to me much better when you do it with all your heart. Whether it is your work, how you interact with people, appreciate things, listen to others, gifting, etc., I am convinced that this can have a real impact on my life. This was the last week’s post. I hope you can learn something from these learnings, too. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Do not be afraid to make mistakes! - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/do-not-be-afraid-to-make-mistakes - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new** Dear Friend, I am really glad that you are reading this new issue of my weekly newsletter. I had another great week and many things to tell. And, how was your week going? What challenges did you meet? What are your current goals? Could you come a step closer to achieving it this week? Let me know if you want to! **Do not be afraid to make mistakes** This week was not the best week with respect to my job performance. Although I was highly motivated and worked longer days than ever before, I could not achieve the objectives my boss and me set for myself. We had a very strict deadline and needed to finish a prototype of a very comprehensive report for our customer. This report is partly based on Visual Basic scripts which are coded by my boss and me. As I tried a few things out and my boss worked simultaneously on the script, we had severe unexpected issues on the day right before the meeting with our project sponsor (customer side – the person who is willing to pay with his/her budget to employ us consultants). I was sure that my script is going to work and my report to be finished, but as we merged our two parts of the script, it did not want to work the way we wanted it to work. And why? Because I tried a different approach which did not fit the code of my boss. This is not generally a big issue. But since we had this tight deadline, this caused severe consequences: We were not finished with our prototype and could not show the customer all the features we wanted to. I was very disappointed of myself and my boss was really stressed as well because in our business the customer is king and we could not meet our expectations. In the end, it was not that bad at all. The customer was really happy with the features we could show and explain. Furthermore, my boss was satisfied after the meeting. Eventually, I am so glad that I made this mistake and tried another approach. It helped me to understand when it is time to focus on the current best practices and what is working. Moreover, my boss likes my alternative approach and wants me to implement it throughout the script and report since he prefers it over his version. Additionally, I was required to speak up and answer critical question in the customer meeting as I was the only person understanding what and how I implemented it. All in all, it was another great learning. I am strongly convinced that mistakes are great opportunities for personal growth. Therefore, I am so attuned that I even seek to make mistakes. If you embrace mistakes and failure and do everything that you can make the best out of it, you will have a massive learning curve. Finally, one very important aspect needs to be mentioned here: Yes, mistakes are huge opportunities for your development. However, you should not do the same mistake twice and learn from every mistake you will make. This may sound trivial, but many people underestimate how many mistakes they do several times and do not want to adapt their behavior and learn from it, unfortunately, huge amounts of wasted potential. **Be always honest and give direct feedback** Another learning I made this week is something what I realized more and more in the last months: Honesty is unbelievably important, not only in personal relationships, family, friends etc., but rather also in professional settings. Ideally, you and your colleagues strive to do your best to achieve your personal goals. In order to obtain them, you usually also want to do your best at work. And to do your best at work, you need to find out what you are good at and what you do not do well yet. And how can you find out what you do well and what you do poorly? Feedback! What do you think happens when a colleague asks you whether you like something of his/her work and you say to him/her that you like it although you do not? Do you think they believe you? It depends of course on how well and often you “lie”, but usually you, they and I know when someone does not give us honest and direct feedback. Yes, we like hearing positive feedback and yes, we like when others like what we do. However, we humans desperately want to know the truth ultimately. But why are we not honest when it comes to giving our peers and bosses negative feedback? On the one hand, we do not want to appear rude, unkind and cold, on the other hand, we might be afraid of consequences we face when we give negative feedback to our bosses. In the short term, this might work and lead to acceptable results. In the long-term, this can lead to very impersonal, superficial relationships (you cannot trust each other) and a work environment in which growth is diminished. I truly believe that we should not criticize others when they did not asked for my opinion (I adopted this mindset from Dale Carnegie – How to win friends), but when they ask you for feedback, you need to be honest and direct. Otherwise, your relationship is doomed and you prevent your colleague from getting better. In my case, I was really honest to my colleague after he asked me what I thought about something he showed to me (part of a report we prepare for our customer). I really disagreed with parts of how he wanted to illustrate the information. So, I explained honestly, cautiously but directly what and why I did not like. He then argued and defended his approach (as we all humans do when we are criticized), but eventually he understood that I wanted to be honest and give my best so that we can achieve great results and, consequently, agreed with most of what I proposed. I was really proud of me that I was honest and direct in this situation and did not whitewash anything. Eventually, this strengthens our relationships and makes us to work with each other better. This was the last week’s post. I hope you can learn something from these learnings, too. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Do not work away like mad — the power of schedules - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/do-not-work-away-like-mad-and-the-power-of-schedules - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **Don’t work away like mad – the power of schedules** Dear Friend, Welcome back to another weekly learnings newsletter. I hope you are doing well and have a great time. In my case, I had an awesome week although I spent 90% of my time studying for my final exams (I really don’t like studying that much, but who even likes this anyway?) and writing them. It just feels so nice when you put so much work and time into a project and, then, have the chance to finally complete it. Moreover, I am also looking forward to the upcoming days when I will start my internship and have more time for myself and my personal development. Well, that’s enough said about this week reflection. Let’s come to the learnings of the past days. **Shut down your smartphone when it’s time to concentrate and focus** This week was the last week of my examination period. During this period of time, I had the chance to try out new techniques for improving my productivity and effectiveness. I have always believed that making use of breaks and planning for periods of full concentration are the key factors for a very effective and efficient learning experience. However, I was always sceptical regarding shutting down my smartphone since I have always thought it’s enough to ignore it during working periods and limit the use to breaks. However, it has usually been very difficult to withstand using the smartphone when I was waiting for a particular message or information. Therefore, I wanted to try something new: Whenever I had to learn something particularly annoying, I shut down my smartphone so that I wasn’t even able to look if there was a new message, mail or something similar. The smartphone was consequently just a black screen then and I would have taken a decent amount of time until it had been restarted. Consequently, I wasn’t tempted to look at it. Sounds like a really simple solution, right? But you cannot imagine how much more productive I became when I shut it down. This allowed me to stay focused twice as long. It is a real “gamechanger” for me although it was such an obvious issue. I really recommend trying it out. If you are a person who uses your smartphone a lot and you are not able to completely ignore it during the learning phase, then you should definitely give it try. This simply change allowed me to stay in state of very high concentration. I am convinced that many of those small little changes can have a very large impact on our lives. In my opinion it is just a challenge to find the ones that work for us. I think is the real challenge. **Don’t work away like mad** Another experience I made during the last weeks was the following: Regarding strict schedules and strict time plans I have always very been very sceptical l until I tried it out for myself. For my final exams I set up a very detailed and clear learning plan. It stated when I needed to learned what for how long (implement with a very simple excel sheet). This plan allowed me to oversee what I was going to do in total for my project (in my case the exams). I could see how much time and effort I would (need to) invest into the exams. Additionally, I incorporated into the schedule buffers that allowed me to have enough free time for activities I really enjoy (going out at the weekend, meeting friends, …) and which enhance my performance (doing sports, sleep, good food, coffee breaks, …). After seven weeks of strictly pursuing this plan I come to the conclusion that its advantages massively outweigh its downsides. This strict schedule helped me to arrive at a level of very high confidence and trust in my (newly acquired) knowledge regarding the final exams. I have never been more even-tempered, confident, secure and calm regarding finals. Moreover, writing the exams was much less unpleasant. Due to this very positive experience I am really excited to try this out for other projects and areas in my life. Yes, it requires a lot of discipline and takes a lot of freedome. However, ones the first week is successfully completed it becomes very easy to continue. And, in addition, the more and better you keep the plan, the more freedom you will have. A very good schedule always incorporates breaks and time for activities you really enjoy. In case you efficiently accomplish your work tasks, you ideally have sufficient time left for the fun activities. Whereas, in case of chaotic, “work away like mad” approach you might not even have any time for such actitivies as you might did not work efficiently enough. I really hope I could make you clear why this concept works so well for me. Unless you really do not like strict schedules, you should try to set up a small schedule for your next small project which includes the necessary breaks and buffers for fun activities. This was the last week’s post. I hope you can learn something from these learnings, too. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Don’t give up until you’ve even tried - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/dont-give-up-until-youve-even-tried - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Goal Achievement **Winners never quit and quitters never win** Dear Friend, Another crazy week of my semester abroad has passed and again I could gain many impressions of the USA. The time here in San Diego is still very exciting. Every day I get to know new people, discover the country a little new and get used to it a little bit more. I can recommend to everyone to visit this city and the state of California for a while and to get an impression of it. Well, that’s enough about the United States. Let’s get to last week’s learnings. **Don’t give up until you’ve even tried** You know these quotes that are telling you that failing is part of the process and in the long-term only the people who are not afraid of failing and never give up succeed? I fully convinced that this is true, too. I believe, however, that this applies not only to vital things (like founding your own business, quitting your job etc), but also to everyday things. Last week I booked a travel to Las Vegas (transportation, accommodation, tickets for the attraction… included). The next day after the booking I received the confirmation mail of it. When I read these, I realized that I had booked the trip for exactly the weekend when another trip was due, for which I had booked flights that could not be canceled. In addition to the date, I could also read in the mail that it was not possible to cancel the trip to Las Vegas or change the booking to another available date. Since the trip to Las Vegas as well as the other trip would not be possible in parallel and both cost several hundred euros/dollars, I was shocked and depressed because of my own stupidity. But as I have become a really problem-solving oriented person since I have been working on my personality, I did not want to leave it at that and had a great desire to overcome this bad situation. As it was pretty early in the morning, the office of the travel agency had not yet been open. Instead of just waiting I thinking about ways to convince the agency to switch my travel to another date. I had like 25 minutes until the agency office opened. In this time window I had many thoughts about the upcoming call with the agency and decided what the best approach would be. After calling the agency several times (because nobody answered the phone), a sales manager of the agency called me back. As I had already decided for myself, I told him that I was 100% sure that I booked the travel for a different date and that the confirmation mail was different to what I thought I had selected. I told him that I cannot participate in the travel and the ticket would be worthless for me, consequently. Additionally, I argued that I could not afford another ticket and I had always wanted to go to Las Vegas. After all those arguments which I tried to deliver as friendly and kind as possible, the sales manager said that he is going to switch the date and that under these circumstances he made an exception. A few minutes after the call I received another mail confirming the switched date. You could not believe how happy I was after I accomplished this. This day started pretty bad, but after receiving this confirmation mail I was incredibly happy. I think this incident is a good example that you should never fail to try and take action. Without action, nothing can happen. Regarding this booking issue, I would have spent a relatively high amount of money (for me this is a lot of money) for nothing if I had not tried to convince the agency representative. I need to admit this is a pretty simple problem and was not the biggest challenge, however, yet a lot people fail to overcome oneself even in such a situation and do not try to tackle the issue. And if you already fail in your daily life to take such a matter, failing at larger issues is more or less guaranteed. Therefore, do not fail to try. Start with the small problems in your life. Tackle these matters as fast as possible. Do not even give yourself time to tell yourself that you could fail or that it is not worth it. Eventually, you can only win if you try. **Make thoughts about where you can find interesting people for you** Another learning I had last week was a pretty valuable one. I was in the gym and was talking to a stranger guy. I got into a really good conversation and had a good connection from the beginning. We could talk about similar topics, had similar interests and it seems to me even a similar set of values. Probably in the coming days we will hang out with each other to continue our conversation and have some fun. After my workout, something became clear to me: You can meet people almost everywhere, but at certain places there is a higher concentration of certain people. For instance, in a gym you will most likely come across much more people who are interested in sports in general, disciplined, self-confident etc. In contrast to, at dance club it is easier to get to know to people who are interested in partying, dancing, going out etc. This might sound pretty trivial and in my view is definitely is. However, the implications of realizing that is huge for me: No matter which kind of person/people you are searching for (new people in a new country/city like me, a girl-/boyfriend, potential colleagues, new friends in general), there are certain places where you can find the people of your interest. For example, if you want to find a new partner for your life, you should first think about what you are searching for. Then, after that, go to those places and try to approach people there. In the 21st century this might not be the easiest way to get to know new people (social networks, dating apps etc). However, the most interesting people I have always found in real life and not on the internet or on an app. In my case, I am currently searching for some people I can party with. I have already got to know many great people and, for instance, my friends from my home university who are also in San Diego for studying are great people as well. However, all these people do not like to go out as frequent and intense as me. I am a kind of person who enjoys dancing for hours and having a great night till the sun rises. Yet, I could not find people like me here in San Diego. Due to this learning, I made some thoughts where I can find people that are more like this. In the coming week I will try to find places where I expect to come across them with a higher probability. And eventually, I will go to those places and try to find people to party with. I really hope that this will work out. No matter how this little experience will work out, I will let you know. This was the learning of last week. Wish you a great week and see you soon. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Don’t hesitate when you are afraid to do something - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/dont-hesitate-when-you-are-afraid-to-do-something - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication Dear Friend, It’s time for the 10th issue of my weekly newsletter. So far, this project has shown that the amount of time I have invested in it has definitely been worth it. Not only I received so much critical feedback showing me that spreading these words creates value for the readers, but also this experience of reflecting intensively on a weekly basis seems to be massively valuable for me in the long run. What do you think about this? Do you reflect actively and regularly your day(s)? Do you think you can benefit from regular reflection? It would be great if you let me know! **Do not hesitate when you are afraid to do something** I suppose you all will most likely have experienced the following situation at least once: You would like to do something (e. g. approach a stranger person), but you didn’t do it because you were too afraid of the situation or the situation would have caused too much inconvenience to you. This happens when you are required to leave your comfort zone and enter a mode in which you can grow substantially, and are not willing to get out of the cozy comfort zone. I am quite sure this frequently occurs in all of us. In such situations our head tries various reasons why we should not do what we actually would like to do. For instance, we create worst-case scenarios in our mind which are totally unlikely. Just take for example when we want to approach a stranger person who we admire or think s/he is pretty. Most often we think the person does not have the time to talk with us, have nothing to talk about or that we will be rejected. Have you ever left your comfort zone and have you ever regretted leaving it? In my case, it has always been worthwhile. If you approach that guy/girl who looks nice, if you talk to that person you randomly saw on the street and have always wanted to ask a question, if you just do it instead of hesitating and not doing it in the end… This feeling of getting out of your self-imposed boundaries, conquer your anxiety and will against inconvenience – it has always been worth the struggle. I want to give you two advices that helped me to get easier and more often out of my comfort zone and getting to a zone of strong personal growth. First of all, I recommend taking action immediately and, secondly, I want you to implement a habit in your daily life. If you recognize a situation I previously described, one very simple trick to overcome anxiety and make it out of the comfort zone is to not hesitate any second and act as fast as possible. This will help you that you mind does not even has the chance to create worst-case scenarios and prevent a rational rejection of inconvenience. It is very simple: E.g. you see that person you admire (idol, role model, a person you are a fan of…) and have always thought about talking to him/her. You are afraid to do it now, though. Exactly in this situation you should not wait any second. Instead you should approach this person right after you saw him/her. You do not need to think about what you say. The first time this might feel very inconvenient. However, if you do this a several times, you can increase your ability to talk spontaneously greatly. It sounds quite simple, but the execution is what it takes to change your life. Further, I suggest any person who asks me whether I have any advice for them that they should implement “getting out of the comfort zone” as a routine. In my daily life I have implemented a so-called “Overcome-Anxiety-Loop”: Whenever I have a feeling of anxiety or inconvenience in regard to a particular situation, I say to myself that I have to do it. This means that whenever I experience a situation which I am afraid of or which requires me to get out of my familiar and convenient zone, I will just do it and do not even think about potential consequences. In the beginning, this cost me a lot to overcome. Since I started doing this, though, I have greatly improved my willpower, ability to get out of the comfort zone and feel much more fulfilled as I am not a slave of my inconvenience or habits anymore. As a result, you embrace the inconvenience and get excited to challenge yourself. Instead of preventing such situations you even force them. Today at the gym I experienced such a typical situation: There was this guy I have already seen many times in the gym and who attracts my attention because he does so many unconventional exercises. This day worked out few meters away from me and seemed to have a longer break. Then suddenly I thought about talking to him, asking why he is training so unconventional and what he is doing that he achieves such good results with it. At the same time this feeling of inconvenience came up as I thought about approaching him. Normally, I would have hesitated or would not even have considered to go and talk to him, but since I had this habit and the Overcome-Anxiety-Loop I said to myself that I need to approach this guy even though I was a completely unknown person to him (and vice versa). In the end I talked to him and we had a really great talk in which I could learn a lot. Moreover, he seems to be a really nice person and someone I can party with. Therefore, we even exchanged numbers so that we can stay in contact (I will not have the time to undertake something with him before I will fly to the US for my exchange semester). Such situations have occurred many times in the last few months and showed me that overcoming this anxiety and rejection of inconvenience is a great deal. If you have any questions, what other techniques helped me to overcome this or other daily challenges, just write me a message! This were my weekly learnings. I hope you could take away something from it. Never hesitate to write me if you have any recommendations, suggestions or feedback since I really appreciate it. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Don’t try to impress but express yourself the best you can - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/dont-try-to-impress-but-express-yourself-the-best-you-can - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **You are born to express not to impress** Dear Friend, Hope you are having such a great time as I am currently having. Right now, I am unbelievably grateful to be alive. It is such an awesome experience here in the USA. I like it a lot! I finally arrived in San Diego where I will stay for the next couple of months and it’s just crazy how many impressions I’ve been able to gain from this opportunity so far. On the one side, there are so many different people (the other exchange students) I am able to get to know because they are really open, friendly and cool personalities, on the other side, getting to know the American college culture is just insane. It is hard to compare American and German colleges. Eventually, I would say they are just different. In San Diego at the state university it feels much more like an experience or adventure compared to Germany. In my home country there is a stronger emphasis on academics and studying. In contrast to where I am currently enrolled, they focus much more on extracurricular activities such as sports and student clubs. Here it feels like that you in some way have to be part of something, whether it is being part of a sport club, a voluntary organisation, a college fraternity/sorority… Moreover, sport has a completely different status here. You either play for a college club or you cheer for them. It feels like there is no way around this. These are my impressions so far, but now enough talk about the USA. Let us dive into my learnings of the last week. **Don’t try to impress but express yourself the best you can** You all know this advice regarding how to behave when getting to know new people: “Just be yourself”. But what does this even mean? How can you be yourself, be authentic if you do not even know who you are? I think this advice is at least useless if not even harmful. No matter in which situation (meeting new friends, getting to know new colleagues, dating a man/woman…) you should not be just “yourself”, you goal should be to express your best self. You should not be “just yourself”. The key is to show people who you truly are and to make sure they really get to know you genuinely. If you are just yourself, you may not look the way you really are. It is your job and your responsibility that people can get to know your (best) self. And I am strongly convinced that it is not sufficient to just “be yourself” as it is often recommended. When I get to know new people – as I have done a lot in the last couple of days – I strive (as always) to be 100% honest, show vulnerability since nobody is perfect, to open myself up and tell them about things that most of you would not entrust your closer colleagues, not to try to impress, but express myself the best I can and be completely frank. Unfortunately, this is easier said than to be done. It depends on your personality and inherent character how difficult it is to express you genuinely and on how much you know yourself as well as you good you can communicate with people so that you can bring over what you really are. This might take its time and effort, but I am really sure that it will be worth it. Whenever I was able to express how I am really are (with all the bad habits and weaknesses I have), I have always been rewarded by getting compliments or getting to know someone who is on the same page. Give it a try, express who you truly are and make sure that others can get to know your genuine self. That was my weekly reflection already again. Next week there will surely be a longer episode. Due to the travelling and all the impressions I experience it is hard to reflect at the moment. However, I will dedicate more time to this next weekend and I will write it down for you. Until then have a great week and see you soon! All the best to you and yours, David --- # Hold yourself accountable for everything happening to you - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/hold-yourself-accountable-for-everything-happening-to-you - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **Move into the driver seat of your life’s journey** Dear Friend, Countless times I have read/heard this statement in personal development books, videos, personalities: You should take responsibility for everything that happens to you in your life. And the reasons for it: If you hold yourself accountable for everything in your life, you are in the position in which you have the most control and power about everything what happens to you. It puts you at choice and that allows you to choose how to respond to life’s challenges. You move into the driver seat of your life’s journey. From the day I read this, my belief that this mindset is so crucial for a happy life has become stronger and stronger. It has been a major part of the way which made me the person I am today. Whenever I was in a situation in which I was not satisfied with the status quo I remembered that I was responsible for changing it and that I am the only person who can be held accountable. It is a very harsh way to deal with life, in particular when something bad occurs in your life. However, adopting this mindset can help you to make the best out of even the worst situations. Once I posted on my Instagram page (my personal development page @ImprovementMentality) that we all take responsibility for everything in life and wrote a short text why we should do it. But then there was a follower of my page who argued that this is bullshit. He said that you cannot be responsible for everything and that you do not have the power and control to change it. This guy had lost his brother recently and his dad had committed suicide few years before he commented my post. This made me thinking a lot. At first I was like: “He is so right! There are so many things out of our control! What would I think if I was in the same situation he was?” But after contemplating a bit of time I concluded something different and answered his comment. Yes, you cannot control everything in your life and yes, you do not have unlimited power just because you tell yourself that you have. Cruel things can happen to all of us, at any time, even then when we do expect it the least. But, this does not mean that you should not take responsibility in this situation. You are the creator of your life. You alone can decide how you want to deal with every kind of situation. You are the only person who has the power to change your view at even the worst situations. I was very sorry for this guy who lost his brother and father. And I appreciated his comment and that he shared his experience with me a lot. Yet, I could not refrain to ask him the following: “If you think that you are not responsible for your current situation, who is responsible for how you deal with it and carry on with your life?” And everything that followed was blaming others (nurses, psychologists, doctors, other family members, …). Eventually, the only thing I responded was that I did not want to offend him and (again) that I am really sorry for everything what happened to him. Little site note: The reason why I aborted the discussion was not that I could not find the right arguments to deal with his, but I think on Instagram (and generally) you should/cannot convince others from your point of view just with written arguments when the discussion is so emotionally loaded. Today I am even more convinced that this person should take full responsibility for what happened to him. He is the creator of his life and holding oneself accountable for it means control and power over his life. Again: Yes, you cannot control everything in your life and yes, you do not have unlimited power just because you tell yourself that you have. But: When you take full responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, words and actions, you take responsibility for your life and move into the driver seat of your life’s journey. And yes of course, you cannot make your family members alive again. But you can make yourself responsible for making the best out of the time you have left for other family members. And you cannot bring your girl/boyfriend back if they suddenly die. But you can hold yourself accountable for making the best out of the situation (help her/his friends and family to cope with the situation, prepare an honorable funeral, pay tribute to their memory, …). You are not doing anything better when you blame others for the situation. When you stop blaming and accept responsibility, you shift from victim to victor. Then you can look at the situation and decide what to do about it. This week I was in my home town and met someone from my childhood. We talked about how our lives are going (friends, job, health, family…) and this guy is the reason why I am writing about this subject today. He blamed everyone but himself for everything bad that has happened to him in the last few days. It was crazy. Whether it was his girlfriend that left him or the job that makes him unhappy or his circle of close friends that only take advantage of him. He always blamed someone else. If this guy held himself 100% accountable for his life and took immediate action, his situation would significantly change in the next few months/years, I am sure. I very much hope that you can follow my thoughts and reasoning. It would be a pity if this message does not come across properly and therefore you won’t have access to it, because this learning, which I have again and again in my life, has been of such great value to me. Furthermore, I am aware that some of you may not agree. I can definitely understand that. Fortunately, I have not yet had a particularly tragic event in my life, which is why I can afford this mindset. This was the last week’s post. I hope you can learn something from these learnings, too. All the best to you and yours, David --- # How to identify your strengths — and why you need to capitalize on them - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-identify-your-strengths-and-why-you-need-to-capitalize-on-them - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.** Dear Friend, Welcome back to another weekly learnings. This week I hadn’t the most “insightful” time. However, I had another great work week at my internship, could visit my friends in my home town and all in all had a great time. I hope you had a nice week as well and can enjoy reading this post. Now, writing this on my way back to the place I am currently living I am reflecting what I learned this week. One thing I want to share with you is something I first thought was only a very stupid mistake from me which wouldn’t be worth sharing. I found out, though, that many people in my closer circle experienced the same issue. Therefore, my fellow readers, I want to share this little advice with you. **Never wear new shoes for work/sports the first time when you need them** If you have to wear particular shoes for whatever reason (hiking, dancing, other forms of sport or – as in my case – for the job) and you are not used to wearing such shoes, do not wear them the first time (a whole day) on the day you have to wear them (e. g. on your first work day). Shoes – especially when they are made out of leather – need several hours wearing them before your feet fit them well. Otherwise you might face severe pain. In my case I have to wear classic suit shoes. I even wore those weeks before for a few hours a day, but I didn’t walk longer distances with them. As a result, I had not only blisters on my feet but am still really wounded (after almost 2 weeks). Similar problems had around 50% of my friends and other people starting with the summer internship at the same time like me, too. Therefore, I really recommend you to wear your shoes several times before you really need them and try to walk longer and longer distances with them. At first you might only wear them inside your home for a few hours. Then you should wear them when you go shopping or using them when walking small distances outside. If you are able to walk at least one kilometer/mile with the new shoes on, your feet will most likely be accustomed to the new shoes and you can wear them regularly when you have to. Otherwise, you might be in this very unpleasant situation like me that you have to wear them and are in a lot of pain. This advice might sound very banal – in particular for the more experienced readers – but I think acting on this advice might prevent a lot of people a very unpleasant experience. **Find a job you fall in love with** Another – a little more impacting 😉 – learning I’ve had in the past week(s) is the importance of striving for a job/work I see my strengths in and I am passionate about. As I’ve already mentioned several times I am really happy about my time in my internship. Currently, it is an ideal mixture of satisfying challenges, interesting topics, great colleagues, a massive learning curve, pleasant work atmosphere… I have already worked for 5 employers in 6 different jobs (internships, part-time jobs, holiday jobs) and I have never been so passionate and happy about my work. You cannot believe how positively this affects my daily life. One example to make this more illustrative: I think almost all of you know this feeling. You are at work and its 11 am. You look at the watch and cannot believe that’s still not 12 am so that you can go for lunch. At 3 pm the same situation: Your work is so unpleasant that you just want the time to run faster in order to leave work punctually. This was the way I felt in my previous jobs, too. In contrast to, in my current situation I look at the watch and cannot believe that it is already 1 pm and that I “have to” go for lunch with colleagues. Same situation at 5 pm: I just cannot believe that the time is running so fast. It is crazy how satisfying my work currently is and I am really grateful about this. Because of that I really recommend you that you strive for a job that gives you such an experience as well. But easier said than done, right? In order to find work which is so pleasant you need to try out many things. A short cut could be that you find your strengths, search for jobs where you can capitalize on it and your aspirations are fulfilled. **Questions that can help you to find this job** is the following: “What was the best day at work you’ve had in the past three months?”, “Which activities are so intrinsically satisfying that you look forward to doing it again and again?” and “Which type of work does not drain much energy from you and enables you to get in a state of high concentration and losing your feeling of time?”. The advantages of working on something you are very good at and passionate about are really huge. Besides a very high level of satisfaction and happiness (you go to bed with the feeling that you cannot wait to wake up and for the next day to start), there are many other effects (empirically proven): Higher productivity (more output), higher effectiveness (better output), less sick days, higher customer satisfaction, better relationships, better relationship to your spouse and family and many more. This is another learning all of us have somehow already heard somewhere. However, as with many of those truisms (things we all know but does not really help us) from “personal development coaches”, they show their impact first when you try them out by yourself. Since I had heard the first time that I should follow my interests and passions and capitalize on my strengths, I have been convinced that this might be true. However, I haven’t really made use of this evidence. Luckily, I can experience personally the huge positive effects of seeking for a pleasant job in my internship. This is the reason I really advise you to follow this commonly known advice (e. g. do not solely do a project/internship for your career but something which is exciting for you). This was the last week’s post. I hope you can learn something from these learnings, too. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Just do it - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/just-do-it - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **To act, or not to act: That is the question** Dear Friend, Great to see you are back to my weekly learnings. This week I finished my consulting internship and received a final feedback for the entire employment. All in all, it was a very nice experience, many things to learn and great people I could get to know. And although it was pretty stressful, I would do such an internship just before my semester abroad again. Now, I have the time to visit and say goodbye to my family and all of my friends before I will depart to the USA for my exchange semester on Friday. And how was your week? Did you have a great time? Are you currently doing learnings? Would be interested if you let me know! **Just do it** I have already written about situations in which we procrastinate in the face of a very annoying task. In this case, I recommend scheduling such duties as the first thing you do at a day. This week I had a similar learning which requires another approach, though. Have you ever been in the situation in which you waited for something so that you can do something? Or you felt not ready? Or you thought that you did not have the time to do it? Any other excuse for not doing it? Then, my friend, you had the same feeling I had this week (and already had many times). There is this more or less famous video of Shia LaBeouf ([put your volumes down when listening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0)) which delivers the perfect answer to this issue: “Just do it! Do let your dreams be dreams. Yesterday, you said tomorrow! So, just do it!” No matter the magnitude of what you have planned (whether it is asking a boy/girl for a date or quitting you job/drop out of college to pursue your dream career): If you keep telling yourself excuses, you will never be able to achieve it. There are no perfect circumstances to do it, no perfect moment, no perfect day, no perfect year. Stop telling you that you are not ready, that you need more time or experience, the right environment or moment. This is complete bullshit. Most of times we keep thinking, talking, planning, … This is often good and might be vital for success, but the greatest point of leverage for getting results is just doing it. Without action you will not get any results. The reason why we often fail is not that we are not ready or do not have the right circumstances, but that we are not taking enough action. If you are currently confronted with such a situation, I would suggest you two things: First, you should literally just do it and act as fast as possible. Secondly, if you really do not feel ready or think that the right moment has not come yet, you should set yourself a clear and specific point in time when you will do it. “Just do it” sounds really simple, but it requires to overcome oneself. It helps if you tell yourself that you have to do it now and that with every second you keep waiting, the probability of achievement decreases dramatically. This is not only a “blind faith” you use to “fool” yourself, but it is empirically evident: Everything you set out to do, you should start within 72 hours. If you don’t do this, the likelihood that you will ever implement and achieve what you have set out for yourself drops to below one percent. The more effort something demands of you, the faster you should act. You should not hesitate any second if you want to approach a man/woman or start with a new sport; you should approach him/her immediately after you saw him/her and jump right into the new shoes to go running in the morning. In case you cannot act immediately, e. g. you want to change your career, you should set you a fixed date at which you will act no matter what happens. Imagine the following situation: Your legs are broken and you suddenly somehow make the decision that you want to start doing more sport. In this particular situation, you should decide what kind of sport you want to start with and set a fixed date and time for your first session. Whenever you ponder reasons not to do it, you should remind yourself that you must do it or you will never achieve it. The goal of these methods is that you strengthen your discipline muscle and make “just doing it” a habit. At first, it will demand much effort of you, but – as with all things – it will become much easier once you have started. This was the last week’s post. I hope you can learn something from this learning, too. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Manage your energy levels not your time - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/manage-your-energy-levels-not-your-time - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **Use energy management to make the best out of your time** Dear Friend, I hope you are doing well and had a great week! I am really happy that you read another issue of my weekly learnings. It is awesome that you are part of my journey to become my best self. This week was a very exiting one. My internship as a consulting intern started. I had my first workday with a very short onboarding and could directly start to contribute to my team’s work. It is really crazy how fast the time is running at the job. I think the reason for this is that the work itself is demanding in a way which is very satisfying. For me, the work must not be too simple and convenient, but rather I need challenges and have a need for learning something new every day. Currently, my internship is offering this and it is really great. But enough about the internship, let’s dive into this week’s learnings. **Manage your energy not your time** Eight days ago (last weekend) I read a Harvard Business Review article about time management, why it is more important to manage your energy rather than your time and how you can implement this in your daily (work) life. As every week I summarized this article (at least one article per week) and tried to implement the scientific findings in my daily life. This time I could feel a huge impact of the reading and this is what I want to share with you this week. First of all, I am convinced that a conscious and proper energy management can help to achieve more in less time and increase your overall happiness and satisfaction (no matter if you study, work or having other kinds of problems with managing your time). According to the authors (Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy) it is better to manage your energy level and capacity rather than your time because time is a finite resource. Moreover, the impact of small changes in your daily routines and behavior to increase your energy levels can have a much stronger impact on the quality and amount of output you can produce. In order to make this a little more illustrative I want to give you a very simple example: What change do you think is more effective and efficient? Sleeping only 5 hours per day so that you have a few hours more daily or, alternatively, focus on only one task at hand, remove all distractions and have fixed and scheduled rest times? I think you know the answer. In the short-term the first alternative might work better, but in the long-term the latter substantially outperforms the first change in terms of quality and amount of output. The article I read deals with the *four main wellsprings of human beings* which represent the sources of energy of us humans: Body, emotion, mind and spirit. Body is like the physiological and biological view on energy management. Emotion focuses on the increase of the energy quality. Mind is all about the focus of energy and spirit concentrates on enhancing the energy of meaning and purpose. Each dimensions offers opportunities for improvement of your daily energy levels and capacity. In the following I try to explain and demonstrate you how to make use of the before mentioned changes for each “wellspring” of energy. Body – Changes in this dimension are straightforward. You can increase your energy capacity by improving your sleep habits, have a good nutrition, do sports regularly (at least four times a week) and make use of breaks and rest. I mean those changes are quite obvious and the most of them we already know. However, I really think you should try to implement a small change (go to bed early so that you have 7 to 8 hours of sleep, e. g.) which you think is very easy for you. The mid-term impact you can experience will be huge, I promise you. Emotion – Changes in this dimension will increase the quality of your energy. It has much to do with how you spend the most of your time and how you perceive the world. One change I really recommend you to consider is that you always try to see the world from another perspective when you are confronted with a conflict (in case you have not already adopted such a view). Conflicts, misunderstandings, arguments and other kinds of such situations can massively decrease the quality of your energy. Just imagine you are extremely motivated when you begin your work day. Suddenly your co-worker blames you that you haven’t still sent him the necessary information s/he requested from you three days ago. However, you don’t regard this job in your responsibility. This conflict escalates and, hence, you need to consult with your manager as your co-worker is not willing to compromise. There are two ways to deal with such a situation: 1. You insist on your view that you are not responsible. 2. You try to understand your co-worker’s view on the situation and think long-term. The authors recommend three questions in such situations to take a more reflected and better position and perspective: 1. What does the other person think and what could be right at this thoughts? 2. How will you most likely view this situation in six months (mid-term impact)? 3. Regardless of the outcome of this issue, how can I learn and grow from it? I really like this questions as they seem to really help taking another view on the situation. Especially the last question can help you to regard the situation positively and learn from it. I am convinced that you can keep your levels of high quality energy when you make use of such methods to make the best out of those kind of issues. **Do not multitask; focus on one activity** Mind – This dimension has offered me the most potential for improvement. I am always searching for techniques and methods to get more done in less time. However, the article showed me that it is not always about quantity but rather about quality. In this dimension you concentrate on increasing the focus of your energy. As already mentioned in the beginning, it is more efficient and effective to focus on a single task. Distractions are very costly and multi-tasking can substantially undermine your productivity. In my case this means that I really need to make sure that my smartphone is not distracting me ([as mentioned in my last learnings](https://mailchi.mp/ac841909594c/do-not-work-away-like-mad-and-the-power-of-schedules)) and that I do not answer emails all the time, but have a fixed time slot for answering them. Moreover, I try to remove any other potential interferences with my concentration. This helped me a lot this week. I put my smartphone in a bag meters away from me, disconnected from the internet when possible and turned my notification for messages on mute. Additionally, I scheduled breaks every 90 minutes and were concentrated during those 90 minutes. I felt so productive and efficient, a very awesome feeling. Spirit – The last aspect to consider is the energy of meaning and purpose. This is a very long-term oriented improvement of your energy levels. I think it clear that when you work at job that fulfills you, gives you a sense of meaning and purpose and which you can fully commit to, you are more energetic and happy doing it. You can access this additional energy capacity through meaningful work and activities which are consistent with what you value most and what has a particular purpose for you. In order to find such work you need to clarify your values and priorities. You need to know what you represent and stand for and what the job/employer – you want to work for – is going to represent. Then, find your sweet spot: Think about activities during which you felt effective, effortlessly inspired and fulfilled. Deconstruct those activities and find out what aspects energized you most. For example, if you had a project on increasing the social impact on your company and you were clearly more motivated, think about what exactly motivated in this work. Was it the social impact? The people working with you on the project? The type of task? With this method you can find out what energizes you in the long-term and what kind of work you need to strive for in order to make use of your own energy of purpose and meaning. I could make use of many of the proposed small changes I read in the article. I hope you can learn something from it too. Moreover, I really hope that I could make clear the different dimensions and opportunities for improvement. If I did not, you can send me a message and I will try my best to help you understanding it. This was the last week’s post. Thank you a lot for reading. See you next week! All the best to you and yours, David --- # Never satisfied, always grateful - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/never-satisfied-always-grateful - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **Gratitude is riches, complaint is poverty** Dear Friend, Welcome back to my weekly newsletter. How is it going? I am still enjoying my internship, can learn more and more from day to day and had a really great weekend. Moreover, I realized a very interesting aspect regarding the difference between working and studying. Working and studying imply two very different kinds of “lifestyles”. As a student you have a huge amount of freedom regarding when you do how much for your studies which makes it possible that you take some days off whenever you want to. However, this also implies that you can always do something (more) for university and that you have no (longer) time periods in which you are completely “free from the burden of learning”. During the semester I have always had this feeling that I can study a little more and use free days for studying. In contrast to, working for a company means less flexibility, but this allows you to shut down completely once the workday is over. There is no feeling that you need to work a little more. When I leave the office, I do not have this unpleasant feeling that I should do a little more or that I need to “study”. I am not a big friend of the concept of a “work-life-balance”, but rather I strive for a “work-life-harmony”. However, it is a great feeling that you can shut down when you are done with your workday and do not have to think about it after you left the office. Although this was no a real learning, I am very grateful for this realization. **Never satisfied, always grateful** This week I received the results of one of my exams. Friends asked me then (they wrote the same exam) what grade I scored. I really do not like talking about my grades as I have really high expectations and start to “complain” (tell them that I am not satisfied) about grades others would be very happy if they received them. This situation reminded me of a very important mindset of mine: I decided for myself that I would never be satisfied. Not with grades. Not with my daily diet. Not with my abilities. Never satisfied with anything. But why do I strive for unlimited dissatisfaction? Most people ask me when I talk about this decision whether I could ever be happy then (e. g. when I say that I want to achieve even better grades). The answer to this is a clear: Yes, of course! Happiness is not about satisfaction, it is about gratefulness, great relationships and many other factors. Just because I am not satisfied with something this does not mean that I am not grateful for this achievement. I am always very grateful for every day in life and happy about every little aspect. However, my goal is to make tomorrow at least a little bit better than I did this day. And as you may already have realized, there is always room for improvement. Consequently, in order to achieve this goal to become every day a little better, I can never be satisfied with the status quo. And why do I want to become better in every aspect of life day after day? Because it makes me so incredibly happier. For me it feels so great to improve my relationships with my friends, family and colleagues, become more and more self-confident, increase the quality of my daily life by keeping track of my habits and make use of lessons learned from others… Life is like a very long train ride on which you get to see more and more beautiful stations the further you go. But when you get off the train, you cannot get to the most beautiful destinations. Applied to the concept of striving for unlimited improvement this means the following: As long as you strive for improvement, you can increase the quality of your life (happiness, quality of relationships, personal health…). But when you start to settle for your life (i. e. you are satisfied with it), you miss the opportunity to achieve an even better, more fulfilling life. Of course, you do not have to be dissatisfied with everything or be dissatisfied all the time. When you take a break to enjoy a “station on your train ride” (what can also be very important), you can always come back on the train after your break. But once you are satisfied and stay off the train, you cannot control whether your life becomes better or not. **Smile and laugh as much as you can** Another realization I had this week (and I have come to realize from time to time) is that I should always give my best to walk through life with a smile on my face. I started this a few years ago (it is a concept adopted from Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends) and it has had a really great impact on my life so far. Not only I feel much more comfortable talking to strangers, become more self-confident and go through life happier, I am also perceived differently by others (always in a good mood, radiating joy and happiness). Moreover, it feels and becomes very natural once you have started practicing it. Yes, smiling is hard and its not natural (nowadays and in the morning at least), so it takes some effort. But once your mood changes, its the most natural feeling. And you’ll catch yourself smiling more than you know. It takes some time getting used to, but once you are it is so easy. This week was difficult regarding being in a “high energy state” since I had a lack of sleep (no insomnia or something like that, just going to bed too late because working hours were a little longer this week). A sleep shortage substantially impacts my daily mood and performance in a very negative direction. But as I could not find a way to get more sleep, I had to deal with it. What really helped and has always helped me a lot in such a situation is to try to smile and laugh as much as possible. This week I came to the realization that this habit can massively help to deal with those energy shortages. Once I get a kind smile back or can laugh with someone about something I get a nice boost of energy. Apart from that going with a smile through life has many more advantages as I have already written. I highly recommend you to smile more often and to work so it becomes a habit for you, too. This were my weekly learnings. I hope you could take away something from it. Never hesitate to write me if you have any questions, recommendations or suggestions since I really appreciate it. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Success does not come overnight - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/success-does-not-come-overnight - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Communication **Success does not come overnight** Dear Friend, Welcome to another issue of my weekly learnings newsletter! This week it will be a little shorter because not that much “new” happened. Nevertheless, I had a very nice realization I want to share with you. **Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out** In my childhood, I always believed that success requires talent, much luck and that it comes overnight. In the last few years, this belief has changed completely. I am still so young and inexperienced and, therefore, may not really say that I am really successful in something (at least according to my definition of success), though, I achieved a few small goals and milestones which enables me to evaluate what helped me to obtain these outcomes and differentiate what is required to become successful. Today, I truly believe that success in most areas of our life does not require great talent and much luck, but rather it requires consistency, effort and willpower. The times when I was most likely to succeed were the times when I was patient, consistent and worked hard for my goals. I mean this sounds very obvious and this is clear to most of us, too. However, this seemingly intuitive concept applies to all areas of our lives. You cannot become Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Obama, Bill Gates, Oprah, … overnight. All those successful people seemed many years to be not successful. When Ed Sheeran started singing he was not the great singer he is today. It took hundreds or even thousands of hours of consistent work and effort before he recognized at all. To get into the position of being offered a record contract, he had to work very much. In case of many successful people, it looks like they became successful from one day to another, but most people do not see how long these people were “not successful” at all until they made it. I had this realization a few months ago. Moreover, I have learned that this is with everything in life (not only “areas of success”). Consistency is key. And that is why all those small daily decisions matter so much in the long-term. In the short-term, it does not really matter whether you skip a workout or prefer watching Netflix over reading 15 pages of a book. I am strongly convinced that future success (let’s say your level of satisfaction, happiness, health and professional advancement) is the result of all the decisions and, therefore, efforts, repeated day-in and day-out. Whether you will be in a healthy and fit condition depends on how often you said yes to fast food and Netflix over healthy self-cooked meals and sports. And whether you will (still) have very good relationships to friends, family and your love depends on how much you invest daily to think about opportunities to strengthen the relationships instead of swiping all day long through your social media feeds. I hope you get the idea of my thoughts. This realization has proven to be very valuable to me. Would be great if you can make use of this learning and take away something from it. All the best to you and yours, David --- # The power of marginal gains - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/the-power-of-marginal-gains - Date: 2019-10-03 - Categories: Goal Achievement **Success is achieved through a few simple methods, practiced consistently** Dear Friend, I hope you are doing great! I have a crazy week behind me and had the chance to experience some unforgettable moments. Over the last couple of days, I traveled to Las Vegas and could experience three days of this amusement paradise. It was simply unbelievable. Besides the numerous casinos, luxury hotels and restaurants, there are several nightclubs that offer – beside unbelievably expensive drinks – the best in electronic dance music. It was such a great experience. I have loved electronic dance music since my childhood and was even an EDM DJ myself for a while in my youth. In addition, the most famous artists in the clubs are constantly DJing. It was such an insane experience for me. Without saying much more, I can definitely recommend a weekend trip to Vegas. If you are careful with your expenses and attentive to price comparisons, you can stay in the best luxury hotels for a low price and enjoy a lot of fun in the best clubs of the world with incredibly open-minded and great people. Before I am going to tell you about my learnings of the past week, I have to address another issue first. As in the 15th issue stated I wanted to find places where I expect to come across people to party with and, eventually, go there as well as telling you about my experiences. Right now, though, I am pretty busy with travelling, preparing myself for other projects (shooting videos; more infos will come) and studying (yes, I am actually still a full-time student). Therefore, finding new people to party with currently has not the highest priority and is to be postponed until I have more spare time for that since my focus is more on sports and other projects now and my grades are very important too. However, it is still my goal to find new people to party with and prove my thesis that you should look for people you are searching for at places you expect them to be. Just stay tuned! Well, now let me tell you about my latest learnings. **The power of marginal gains** Have you ever heard of the power of marginal gains? It states that no matter what you want to improve, a small amount of improvement in everything what is related to this will add up to a remarkable improvement. This concept is said to go back to Dave Brailsford. No British cyclist had ever won the Tour de France, but as the new General Manager and Performance Director for Team Sky (Great Britain’s professional cycling team), that’s what Dave was asked to do. His belief was that if you improved every area related to cycling by just 1 percent, then those small gains would add up to substantial improvement. They started by optimizing the things you might expect: the nutrition of riders, their weekly training program, the ergonomics of the bike seat, and the weight of the tires. But they did not stop there. They searched for 1 percent improvements in tiny areas that were overlooked by almost everyone else: discovering the pillow that offered the best sleep and taking it with them to hotels, testing for the most effective type of massage gel, and teaching riders the best way to wash their hands to avoid infection. They searched for 1 percent improvements everywhere. Dave expected to win the Tour de France after five years of executing this strategy, but he was wrong. They did it after three years. Yes, this is only one particular example. However, this concept is not only quite logical, but I have already experienced for myself how powerful marginal gains can be. When I was in sixth grade, I was one of the worst students in my class in terms of my grades. I was unmotivated to study, did not pay attention to what my teacher told us in class and were just doing my homework irregularly. Since the seventh grade, though, this changed as I wanted to improve my grades. Ever since I have done my homework a little more often, more actively participated in class, earlier learned for my tests and thought about how else I could improve. In eight grade, these small adjustments had not really paid off yet. I was still an average student regarding my grades. But as I kept improving, making marginal gains and searching for more possibilities to create even more marginal improvements (learning vocabularies more frequently, doing extra tasks, searched for more effective learnings methods etc), I finished middle school (tenth grade) as the best student. And it did not stop there. Since I was always striving to improve myself, I could finish high school as one of the best students the school has ever had. Moreover, applying this concept to my academic career helps me to achieve very efficiently above average grades while having a full packed extramural schedule. And it did not take me much more time and effort than my peers to achieve this. I am just searching for the way of least resistance: Searching for areas of marginal improvements with the highest outcome potential. Further, I could not only observe the positive impact of marginal improvements in my school and university successes, but also in regard to my personal development. When I was sixteen years old, I was a totally different person. I was afraid talking to strangers, nervous standing in front of people, uneasy when talking to olders and people I admired and had a low self-esteem. After I had decided for myself that this cannot go on any longer, I found numerous areas for marginal improvement. I started with having a smile on my faces even when I am not in the mood to and talking to people, I already know more often. From time to time I found more and more little small challenges such as being the first person who is going to present in class, talking to at least one stranger person when I am out, reading in personal development books, doing sports etc. Eventually, all these small improvements have added up and helped me to make even more improvements. This kind of compound improvements changed my whole life and lifted my overall happiness to the next level. I really hope that I could make you understand this great concept and, ideally, conviced you to apply this to your daily life and your short- and long-term goals. Please let me know if you are confronted with a challenge and do not know how to apply this concept to it. I would be pleased to support you harnessing the power of marginal gains. This was my learning of the last week. Thank you so much for reading all of this week’s issue. All the best to you and yours, David --- # How to get started - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/how-to-get-started - Date: 2019-10-01 - Categories: Goal Achievement Dear friend, Another great week passed and plenty things happened. Last week I traveled to San Francisco and the Bay Area as well as visited some good friends who are currently working there. I really enjoy this privilege and opportunity to travel so much while I have my semester abroad her e in the US. On the other hand, though, it is also quite exhausting. As I want to keep on track with my grades, do much sport and prepare a new project, I am really busy and even have a constant lack of sleep. After this week and my trip to Vancouver, Canada this week, I will definitely need a break of travelling and, to be really honest, I am glad not to travel and have more time in San Diego , although I love exploring this wonderful continent and have a kind of inner feeling pressuring me to make the most out of this time. Since I cannot enjoy the trips as much as I could if I was not this busy and exhausted, it is more sensible and rational to take a break, too. I am convinced that you should challenge yourself to a certain extent in each area of your life at least once (this is the reason why I have travelled s o much in the last weeks), but you should always think long-term as well. I am pretty sure that I would never regret taking a break after such an impressive time as the last few weeks, and that is what really matters to me. But now enough said on this little issue. I hope I could convey a little of what I am worried about (the tension between making the best possible use of time and the need for a break). ## **How to get started** I am pretty sure that you know this: You have this particular goal, project, habit, endeavor or something similar and you really want it. Your problem, though, is that you are not able to get started. Either you have the feeling that you are not ready, that it is not the right time yet, you need to wait for something or that you are not motivated enough and have not the necessary energy and drive to start. I know this issue pretty good. In fact, I am confronted with this matter right now. As I want to expand my social channels from images (Instagram) and writing (newsletter) to videos (YouTube), I have to get started and shoot my first videos, edit them and upload them. At the beginning, you might be very motivated when thinking about this idea and how it felt when you are succeeding. However, when it comes to taking action and execution your motivation can drop veeery quickly. Shooting videos, for instance, is pretty easy in theory. Practically, standing in front of a camera and talking to a physical object rather than a living being feels pretty weird, having good light and audio quality is pretty hard if you have no clue, and cutting and post-editing is pretty tim e-consuming as well. For me, it is pretty understandable that many people quit before they even get started. And even if you get started, it takes a lot of discipline to keep going. The better the start and the better the first results are, though, the higher the chances you will succeed. In this issue, I would like to tell you what helps me to get started successfully and maintain a high level of motivation and discipline. First of all, for me it is very important to have the right mindset. Moreover, telling your friends, family and colleagues of your endeavour as well as writing down your goals in a smart way is key, too. Finally, time-management and creating a habit helps you to ensure to prioritize correctly. **Having the right mindset** In order to get started successfully, an adequate mindset makes a huge difference. Whenever I am in front of a new challenge, I tell myself that I am going to suck in my first tries, my first tries are going to be shit and at the beginning even the easy things are going to be pretty hard. BUT that is totally okay as if I continue to work consistently and hard on whatever I set out to do, I will improve and succeed eventually, and then even the hard things are going to be easy. With this mindset, it feels so much easier to get started. It takes all the pressure from you as there is no need to perform at the beginning. My first video does not have to win a price, but rather it is more important that I produce and shoot as many videos as I can in order to improve so that my 100th video is going to be great. Thinking long-term is key when it comes to high achievement. Me and my generation – the socalled “millennials” – are so used to instant gratification. But when it comes to long-term success and getting something great rolling, we have to be patient and work for a quite amount of time not seeing any return. In the long-term, though, everyone can succeed if they improve consistently and invest the necessary amount of work. **Tell friends, family and colleagues about your endeavour** Secondly, what highly increases the odds that you get started is when you tell the people surrounding you and spend the most time with about your new project/goal/… For me this is quite intuitive why it helps to get started and keep going. Just image you told your colleagues that you will go on a strict diet to lower your body fat and get in shape. The next week you have to choose between eating a salad or your favourite dish burger with fries in the cafeteria. The odds that you will choose the salad over the burger would be much higher in case you told your colleagues about your goal than if you had not. I want to be as open as possible towards the people surrounding me. I tend to talk casually about all kinds of topics including my goals for my life, current challenges and also my new projects and endeavours. Therefore, most of the people around me know that I am about to start a new YouTube channel and many are interested in what is coming up. The pressure to not deliver is therefore pretty high. Hence, if you want to increase the odds of getting successfully started, I highly recommend you to do this. **Writing down goals in a smart way is key** Another important step for me to make sure that I get started and stay motivated is writing down my goals – either digitally or handwritten – and reminding me to look them up frequently. Every “major” goal I have is written down. Many of them are part of a note app and pop up every few weeks so that I can hold myself accountable for achieving them. Beside that, it is pretty important to formulate your goals in a “SMART” way what means that you write them down: specific (do not say you want to be rich, say you want to be able to purchase whatever you want to have), measurable (do not say you want to be rich, say you want to have at least one million of wealth in your 30s), attainable (be patient and set yourself attainable goals in the short-term and set almost unattainable goals in the long-term), relevant (are you really want to be rich? Do you think this is in accordance with your values? Why do you want to be rich? Reflect your goals and think about whether they are intrinsically or extrinsically motivated and relevant for you) and time-bound (set yourself a clear deadline until you want to achieve your goal). There is even empirical evidence that writing down your goals boost the odds of attaining your goals. But if you ask me, it is pretty much intuitive that this increases the probability of success. If you have not tried it out yet, I highly recommend you to try it. **Make it a habit** Finally, what is also a key element to get started and succeed is to plan a fixed time slot in your weekly or even daily schedule in which you do something for your new goal or endeavour. In my case, I always do something for my new project on Wednesday afternoon. This ensures that I will work on my new project on a frequent basis. I block everything else in this time period to make sure that I have the necessary discipline to work towards my objectives. I am convinced that shooting and uploading videos will become a habit, eventually, but until this happens, many months still have to pass. All right – these were my recommendations on how to get started. This week’s issue was pretty long. I hope you liked it anyway. Thank you so much for reading all of this issue. All the best to you and yours, David --- # Start now and get perfect later - URL: https://davidstrittmatter.com/writing/start-now-and-get-perfect-later - Date: 2019-10-01 - Categories: Goal Achievement Dear friend, How’s it going? Did you have an exciting and enjoyable week? I definitely had a great week. Last weekend I went to Vancouver, Canada for a meeting of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung) of scholarship holders from North America and it was great. So many inspiring personalities from whom I can learn so much. I am amazed every time how down-to-earth these people are, despite the fact that many have already achieved far above average results and are the best in their discipline. Founders who have already failed several times with their company, students who are just doing their masters and are already researching and publishing on big topics in well-known journals, young people who have dared to take the step to the best universities in the world for their studies and pursue their passion there – for me this incredibly impressive and inspiring. Moreover, it felt awesome to be surrounded of people who want to shape this world and actively work very hard to make the most out of their life and, at the same time, I am very grateful to become grounded by such experiences. It reminds that I should never be the smartest person in the room and that there is always someone I can learn from. But now enough swarming and praising – let’s come to the actual topic: My learnings of the past week. ## **There is no perfect time to start** Regularly – even weekly – I am confronted with the issue that I do not feel ready for something yet. I wrote before that [you should not hesitate if you are afraid to do something](https://eepurl.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e7994bbb8d5db7c7fd8131ff8&id=e76b76b5cf&e=88e870d820). This past issue was mainly about running away from small day-to-day challenges due to fear and discomfort. However, this issue is more about the feeling you feel when you think about bigger goals, plans as well as dreams. This is more a sense of insecurity and uncertainty. It occurs to me when I think about my bigger goals and my dreams. I try to find excuses not to do it, although I have this high motivation and dedication to do it. And mostly, I tell myself that I do not feel ready yet. This sounds familiar to you, doesn’t it? Over the past few days, I have realized that there is really no perfect time to start; the perfect time to start is now. And for me the quote – start now and learn get perfect later – is feeling now incredibly true. Last week I uploaded my first video although I still have not the perfect video shooting, cutting and editing skills and no real experience in this field. Nevertheless, it feels great that I did my best for this first video and that I now have time to improve: From video to video I will improve, create better content and have a steep learning curve. It just feels great that I did not hesitate to start my channel. Currently, I am still telling myself excuses that I am not striving to get my first founding experience. I have a dream to start my own company/companies and I am 100% dedicated to this dream. However, I am still deluding myself that it is not the right time yet since I want to get professional experience and the network first (what is supposed to be in five years). From today on, though, I will change my mind. It will be most likely that I will not have access to the right people and have not the necessary skills yet. Still, I am quite sure – from now on – that I do not need to be perfectly ready to search and strive for opportunities to get my first founding experience. I am convinced that I am able to found a company despite it might be a big failure. In the end, though, I can only win and gain invaluable experience what accelerates my personal development at an exceptional speed. And this is with everything in life: There is no perfect time to start. Start now. Fail now. Fail better. Eventually, you will be much more experienced and competent at the time you thought you would be ready. Start with your new hobby, start following your dreams, do not let the misconception that you’re not ready to stop you. You really can only win if you are looking for experience. I really hope you enjoyed this week’s issue. Let me know if you have feedback. All the best to you and yours, David