SIG - Self Improvement General

## SIG - Self Improvement General
/SIG/ Self Improvement General.

How have you improved yourself this week/month/year? Lifting isn't life, a well-balanced human being is productive, has hobbies, pushes him/herself to succeed, is charismatic, and strives to live the best life they can. Share your successes, failures, methods, and everything in between.

The sticky is divided like so:
>Recommended Readings.
>Some tips to get your life back on track.
>Study and Career.
>To-do list habit.rpg (If you’re TOTALLY Lost. Start with this one)
>Focus and meditation
>Finance

Basic Recommendations:
>Have a productivity Framework that is flexible. A mindset that gets you going.
>Use a calendar, like google calendar. Hours and shit for things YOU WILL DO.
>Learn to focus.
>Meditate.
>Do routines for things you should do periodically/daily, this should cover daily things or weekly  chores such as laundry, cleaning, shopping.
>Identify and Eliminate conflicts within yourself.
>Focus on identifying the time wasters in your life and eliminate them.
>Focus on the essentials. If you try to do everything at once you’ll burnout. Little by little.

Resources:
arcitea.com/
>This is a good ‘sticky’ for self-development
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/blog/
>This one is a good blog for resources of this kind. I’ve seen annons give good feedback.

>Framework
http://youtu.be/b-a1jXgAsQI
http://youtu.be/3Ao7rZ8-HWo
http://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY
>Motivation
http://youtu.be/ZtMm0swu5i8
http://youtu.be/WxOFvpplvAM
http://youtu.be/ix4xSzkqwhk

>If you think there is material that should be added (Or taken off). Please say so.
>There is no central authority for the /SIG/, everyone could copy, modify and upload the info here in a latter post.
>To future curators of the /SIG/. Stray away from PUA, and avoid Fedora stuff please.
>If you try monetizing with this, I’ll cut you.
>I’m looking to expand the ‘how to focus’ Area. If you believe you can help out/have tips. Please share.

——————recommended readings

Material reading can be tricky. There will be trash here and there as we're not /lit/.

But we have to trust others.
Image related has a detailed list that an Annon provided on a thread a while back. If you got time to kill, click on the image, and read the descriptions

As time goes, the /SIG/ has had a couple of books recommended. I’ve done my best to try to get talks of the authors of such books so you can get a ‘piece’ before you commit.

Google a bit about the book, if you think you can get something out of it, watch the talk.
In my opinion, try getting the books “for free”.
If you read it and get something out of it, consider paying for the book.

>Michael Mauboussin, "The Success Equation”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JLfqBsX5Lc
>Quiet: The power of Introverts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0KYU2j0TM4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85s9wJlzkrk
>The Brain That Changes Itself - Norman Doidge
https://vimeo.com/14551296
>Antifragile - Nassim Taleb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4MhC5tcEv0
>One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way - Robert Maurer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWUDV6xJRPc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMQb5FJrop8
>Mentally Tough - James E. Loehr & Peter J. McLaughlin
>Practicing the Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

> http://pastebin.com/x7BbYimv
Reading material needs to be added/edited

The Way of The Seal
The Code of the Warrior - Rick Fields
The Story of Civilization - Will Durant
The Story of Philosophy - WIll Durant
Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein 1959 (actually has a lot of really powerful character building stuff in there)
Bravo Two Zero - Andy McNab
Immediate Action - ^
Seven Troop - ^

Also, Project Gutenberg has Thousands of free books.
You could do lot worse than browsing their top 100
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/scores/top


———————Life under your control

>Freedom is having control of your life

You should at least have 3 hobbies/activities.
-One that will pay the bills, gets food on your table
-One that will keep you in shape. (lower you faggot)
-One that you're passionate about and might be able to develop into a career.
--------

If you're into lifting, taking the tips to better yourself should be simple; as you already have built some self-discipline.

Make peace with yourself and the way things are right now.
Stop thinking the world owes you, how destiny ‘fucked you over’, how those guys have it easier.
Accept things as they are, realize that life is cruel and your circumstances are the ones you were given. You can’t do shit about the starting point, but you can move forward.

Don’t focus in what was given to you, focus in what you’ll achieve.

Eliminate the things you dislike about yourself, about your life. Is as simple as, do you enjoy your job? No? Take steps to change the feeling.
How are you gonna make that? You either make your job more enjoyable, or you change jobs. Simple.
You want a girl? how do you plan to achieve that? Are you too socially inept? Work on that.
Are you piss poor and can’t afford a decent living? Work on that too.

No matter who you are, where you are in your life, or how fucked up you think you are.
You can improve your life. Take control. Move forward.
Dreams keeps us alive, fighting for them makes us feel alive.
About 5-7 years ago, I was a fucking train-wreck.
Right now, I'm doing fairly well.

Get some discipline, set some goals and a way to achieve them.
Cultivate yourself, learn stuff, get your shit together.

And realize, understand. None is coming to save you.
You got to make your way through.
You NEED to take CONTROL.

———————Study

If you're still in School. For fuck sake pay attention.

MORE than half of actually doing good in school is attending, the other half is paying attention in class. So then do it.
Or stop it altogether.
If you’re in college and you’re not feeling it, take a semester to think things through.
If you’re in high school, don’t think YOU NEED to enter college to be successful. There are other ways…
Google just started hiring people who never went to college.
WATCH this talk:
http://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY

Some learning resources, focusing in code since I’m an ‘IT’ guy:
>duolingo.com
First and foremost. Free language learning tool with a really robust app. THIS IS A MUST. Learning a new language will help you out no matter who you are.
>codeacademy.com
Teaches you the basics, from the ground up.
>codeschool.com/
Similar to codeacademy.
>youtube.com/user/thenewboston
Personal favorite. This guy step by step, learns a shit-ton of programing languages. Give this a check and start watching something you’re interested in.
>codeeval.com
This one I really like, once you get your shit going, it puts you ‘objectives’ to solve through code, last batch are really complex.
>coursera.org
It’s a really nice online-course platform. There are really good things here as well.
>openprocessing.org / processing.org / codepen.io
These sites display some really cool stuff, where you can also check the source code and modify it to see what happens.

As for career options.
Choose anything you want, If you want to go into Philosophy or Social studies, That's fucking great. As long as you’re passionate about it, you’ll find a way.
You can always become a teacher or a writer.

BUT BE FUCKING AWARE THAT YOU WILL HAVE A HARD TIME MAKING MONEY. Don't get a loan to study shit that will be expensive to repay.

Other than that, don't enter into something soulless just because 'I'll get money'.
You only got one fucking life, don’t waste it doing something you hate.

————-habbitrpg.com
You must have a to-do list, it's pretty essential.
As for which, there are several options
Google Keep, Evernote or whatever suits you.

But currently I suggest you use:
https://habitrpg.com/
There’s even a /fit/ guild created to keep us in check.
https://habitrpg.com/#/options/groups/guilds/eeb30614-2936-4f1c-9713-117248d10149

It’s certainly geeky as fuck. But Gamification has been proven to work when applied to certain aspects of human psyche. Helps you stay in check and keeping your eyes on the trophy.

Stupid trivial things I used to do, I stopped once I placed them as ‘Bad habits’.
It also has a mobile app, while it’s a bit limited and on construction, it is free.

There are three main categories.
>Habits. These are things you do by impulse, not under a schedule. Can be good or bad.

+Go for a jog
+Sleep early/on time Sun-Thu
+Walk the dog
+Go for a ride
+Cook something new
+Go out and socialize
+Spend time at the shelter

-Smoke
-Drink soda
-Drink beers
-Eat Junk/Dirty bulk
-Stay up late Sun-Thu
-Fap [?]
-Play 1.5+ Hours vidya a day
-Shitpost

>Dailies are things you ALWAYS do. Every day or certain days of the week. Planned, they are only good.

+Lift (m - w - f)
+Eat your macros(daily)
+Buy Groceries (Sa)
+Read 30 min (daily)
+Practice the Guitar 30 Min(daily)
+Study Video Editing 40 Min (daily)
+Cook (We, Sa)
+Do your daily points in duolingo

>To-Do are, well, things you must do. You can have a checklist within one To-Do.

()Fix the shelf
()Go to the post office and send the package
()Buy the ticket to the concert
()Pay the landlord
()Organize my trip to the moon
—()Get the rocket tickets
—()Get the reservation for the moon Hostel
—()Buy some moonars to have some local money
—()Buy a map of moon city

Seeing the numbers go up (or health go down) is a weird sort of motivation. I can vouch for it. Give it a try, if you have no idea where to start, This is a good one.

Fill your bad habits, put the to-do’s and take it from there.

_______________ Meditation and Focus

U N D E R   C O N S T R U C T I O N

____________ Serious /biz/ness

To get started, you obviously need to get an income sorted, now, there are 2 main ways to make money, work for somebody else, or earn money yourself.

Working for somebody else is self explanatory, you go out and get a job, busting your balls, normally for peanuts if you don't have a great career, and doing that day after day, year after year. Is this always a bad thing? No, most people start here in fact, it tends to be a good, at least consistent way to make money. People do it there whole lives, and that's up to them.

BUT SHIT FINANCEBRAH, I DON'T WANT TO BE BUSTING MY BALLS TO MAKE SOMEONE ELSE A LOAD OF MONEY, I hear you say.

Earning money for yourself.

Again, there are two ways to do this. Firstly, is ACTIVELY earning it, creating a business, that you work at and it provides you with profit, and PASSIVELY earning it, meaning you put money you already have to work.

I can't possible cover off every single way to actively make money in 1 post, but if it interests you, look into it. You can start an online business while you already have a job, if you still want the security. You can start a side gig on the weekends, you can import and sell at markets or online.You can jack it all in, and start a physical business (please don't do that without serious thought) Actively earning money is one of the most rewarding things you can do, IMHO

>Earning online
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/money/24-easy-ways-make-money-the-internet.html

>Low start up cost businesses/part time
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/201588
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/50-side-businesses-you-can-start-on-your-own/

There are hundreds of articles out there, have a look, see what you think, and do your research.