Bookstores & Self-Improvement
If you’re anything like me then our literary dreams seem to, almost without exception, fall flat.
Bookstores
A bookstore: galore with shiny, polished hardcovers, and hipsterish employees, is a Mecca of future possibilities: strolling through it, one thinks of all that could be accomplished just as soon as a book becomes theirs.
Though we don’t realize it in our moments of browsing, bookstores are a parallel to goal-setting for most of us.
There’s Bookstores… and Then There’s What Actually Happens
It’s always more appealing to dream about the future things we’ll do: the workout regimen followed, the project completed, the foods eaten, than to actually do them. It’s always more appealing to watch glossy, vibrant covers: imagining the growth to come in their pages, than to actually read them.
We subconsciously, and rather foolishly, believe, regardless of past experience, that with one simple action: the swipe of a card, the rest will follow: the action will follow, the improvement will follow.
In reality, though, for the vast majority of book buyers those same shiny, manufactured covers transform into nothing more than sculptures on our shelves: stationary objects to be marveled at and displayed.
The Pit We Lead Ourselves Into
What happens oftentimes is that, after we’ve acquired all the proper materials, we put off accomplishing our goals: at first, reasonably, but as we go on with usually little-to-no action, reasons to postpone our goals become increasingly amorphous and irrational, and the pressure: the weight of whatever it is we’ve conceived to do, builds to a manifested unrealistic, insurmountable level and the covers of books we once thought were soon-to-be-read became, not appealing signs of their intellectual value, but, titanium walls, with titles morphed into locks: impossible to open, confining daunting knowledge.
In personal experience, when I’ve delayed progress, progress that is stifling or starting a habit, or starting on a goal, I feel guilty of a believed-to-be irreconcilable crime to myself and, invariably because of my self-pity and guilt, when the time of me not improving, or rather not trying, steadily balloons, I give up entirely.
I make myself think that if I want to start it again, or at all, I have to begin the habit, goal, or activity by performing the absolute most I can muster to make up for lost time.
This backwards thinking brings me further into a hole of lethargy surrounding anything I’d like to accomplish, until, of course, a new goal: a new, sleek book cover, is found and I forget all about previous pursuits and naively suppose that just because of my self-credited ‘willpower,’ something will change.
Willpower Is For Losers
(I borrowed this title from a great YouTube video on the subject, go check it out)
Supposed self-improvement gurus (*cough,* *cough,* David Goggins) may tell you, “It’s all about your mindset, man!” “Willpower, brother!” and whilst they aren’t entirely wrong, -willpower is absolutely part of improving- it’s not, as they state, the entirety of the equation by any means.
What’s more important is, however clichéd at this point, consistency.
Flossing one tooth is leaps & bounds better than not flossing at all.
Flossing one tooth, or eating one piece of lettuce per day, trains your brain to habitually accomplishing it: considering it as the norm.
From there, flossing every tooth, or eating a whole salad every day, becomes a cake-walk.
These photos are pointless but I’m trying…
Mental Barriers
A while ago, it felt…—how do I say it?—more rugged and manly to pick up a habit, especially an unusually strenuous one, and go head-first with no trial period nor nothing to ensure success.
But, after nearly two years of doing exactly that and, in retrospect: stupidly, being clueless to my own unproductivity, I now recognize that rather than prioritizing being a macho man with no returns, or unhealthy intervals of burnout, I must prioritize consistency and progressively increase my load of doing: progressively floss another tooth every couple of days.
More Mental Barriers…
At points, even now, I and others may subconsciously consider ourselves too grand for these brain-hacking techniques—rather, we may think we can ‘freestyle’ productivity. However, it’s vital to not regard yourself as an exception in this: at least in my experience, it never leads to anywhere near the tried-and-true results of consistency and progressive overload. (I may have coined this—in self-improvement—though I don’t know.)
Concluding
I find that this way of productivity: consistency, consistently leads to building good habits, achieving goals: and doing what I’ve always wanted to do.
In conclusion, consistency and progressive overload are the ways to make sure of achievement.
Pretty coolio ngl