Some Quick and Dirty Resources for YOU to Start Getting Your Shit Together

If you're like me, motivation and habit building can be a bit of a chore.  Keeping focus is one of my biggest challenges.  Luckily we live in exciting times.  So exciting people have begun to deconstruct habit, motivation, incentives, etc.  There are absolutely incredible resources available to help educate and increase understanding.  Luckily, if you don't have time for that, you have the Bastard.  The Brilliant Bastard.

(A quick disclaimer, I am in no way affiliated with these links, I will receive no cash if you end up buying these books or clicking on these blog posts)

If you don't read you will always be Gutenberg.  You will never be Ted Danson or Tom Selleck.  How can you even live with yourself?

First off, you better be reading, and I would hope after reading this piece that you get excited to read this book (and not just take my dinky summary as good enough).  A book that was both incredibly eye-opening and engaging was "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business" by Charles Duhigg.  It is an incredibly powerful and interesting book about how habits are formed, redone, and generally operate.  One of my favorite portions was deconstructing the process Alcoholics Anonymous uses to reform an alcoholic's habits. The big lesson here is that habits work in loops: cue, routine, reward and around and round they go.  The idea is simple you have a cue such as your mouth feels unclean, so you go to the bathroom to brush your teeth, and you receive your reward in minty fresh breath.  As you continue to follow these cues, routines, and rewards the habit becomes much more concrete to the point of a sense of yearning can develop.  Arming yourself with this knowledge can help you form your habits quicker and easier to help improve your life.

I'm about to help you bridge Final Fantasy and you're actual life.

Now, along with habit you're also going to need something more.  Some motivation and incentive to help bridge that gap till your new habits become second nature.  One of the big buzzwords that has been circling around is "Gamification" or "Incentivizing."  This Lifehacker article really explains the process very nicely.  The big draw here is making certain tasks you want to complete easier, taking less willpower and increasing the chance you will do them consistently by giving you more reason to do them.  When this article was published websites like Habitrpg.com didn't exist yet.  Luckily we don't need to start building spreadsheets we can start using this wonderful website to do the work for us.  The only thing you need to do is stick with it.  Now, that's not the only site I know of, if you're into working out I would also highly recommend www.fitocracy.com. (you can also follow me on Fitocracy with the link in the top right corner).  This is habitrpg.com ramped up a few years of development and wholly focused on the gym and exercise aspects.  They've done an absolutely brilliant job of working on the features of the site including groups, titles, iPhone/Android apps, the whole shebang (I've been around since alpha, trust me what you're seeing now is countless hours of hard work).

I'll be posting more websites, books, and articles that I've found interesting to help you with your goals.  Stay tuned!