I use the labs to enable  ”Send & Archive” so that when I reply, it disappears – the ball is in their court, and I effectively forget about the topic until it bounces back in my inbox.

What happens when you ask someone for some information, and they reply – what response do you send? It’s one thing to just leave your email in your inbox, but to actually hit “archive” just seems rude. Sure, they don’t know the difference between the two, but I know that means I will not be sending back any reply. The conversation was done… but I hadn’t thanked them.

But an email saying “thank you” seems kinda silly to me. It’s just one more in their long list of emails, and doesn’t really convey any information… it may signify the end of the discussion, but they probably already felt it was finished.

I started this post having in mind to ask what you thought (if you get this by email, feel free to reply or use the forum to post a comment). While about to start, I had an idea… instead of sending an email that basically says “Thanks for the reply [end of discussion]“, to really thank them, and make them feel good.

Forget any basic thank you letters – I just searched for a few and they seem far too rigid and sterile. Perhaps a few ingredients from this list, as appropriate – it doesn’t have to be long, just keep it real:

• Thanks for taking the time to respond – especially if they did some research or a bit of writing for you
• If it was a quick response, mention it!
• If the information was very good/timely/helpful/useful, say so – and why! e.g. “It was good you said that, because I was about to try the opposite.”
• Mention why you asked them – most likely it’s because you think they know about the question. So compliment them on being that person “in the know”. e.g. “Thanks for the help, you always seem to have the answers to these questions!”

With some of those ingredients, I don’t think I’ll feel any disease about sending a short email, and also should make them feel appreciated reading it.

So go ahead and clog up people’s email boxes spreading the good cheer!
Similar Posts:

None Found

No video? View the video about managing emotion about your goals here.
Similar Posts:

None Found

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that most people can figure out what they want to do with their life, right now, without any more information or experience. I think deep inside you know, but most people haven’t given themselves permission to let it out. You may think it is just a fantasy, not believing that it is possible for a number of reasons: you don’t think you can do it, it’s not possible at all, or it’s not financially feasible.

However, I think it is rather silly to kill the idea of what you really want to do with your life before you even speak it out. You can at least do something towards what you want, on a smaller scale. Also, once you speak it out, your idea may not be so daunting. Even if it is, nearly anything is possible if you are willing to put in the time and effort. In short, don’t kill the idea before it even sees the light of day!

These questions should help you express what exactly you are interested in, by getting you around those limiting criteria. Use these questions to help you brainstorm and dream a little!

•          What would you do if you were guaranteed that you couldn’t fail?
•          If you had 100 million dollars, how would you like to spend your time?

Answering these questions aloud or by writing – it forces clarity. When brainstormings, keep producing ideas without pausing, and don’t judge ideas until you finish. Don’t kill the idea about what really interests you before it even comes out of your mouth!

You may have lots of societal norms and expectations floating in your head that may cause you to answer that you want to become a ceo, be rich, live in a huge mansion, or travel around the world. Yey, yey, but then what? Or, why? What do you want to do as a CEO, a doctor, or a roshei yeshivah? When you find the core reason, you can approach it in a much more flexible way. If you want to save people as a doctor, you may question if that means only physically, or spiritually and mentally also, and may expand or find something that actually better suites your goal.

What do you really care about?
Similar Posts:

• Can’t Figure Out What To Do With Your Life? Explore!
• Do You Know YOUR Potential? Or, Why You Shouldn’t Try To Be Moshe
• Finding More Time, Part 2: Delegating/Working With Others
• Find a passion!
• The Power of Passion – Are You Involving Your Heart?
• You Only Need Discipline When You Have A Choice

Most people can figure out a direction for their life if they ever stop to think about it. However, many people have told me that they have no idea – so how can they make a plan?

My answer: plan to make a plan. You must have a destination you are trying to reach. If not, then your destination should be “figure out what destination I want to reach”. This plan is something that you do, not just sitting around. Plan to do whatever you need to do so that you can make a plan for life. What is holding you back? If you don’t have enough information about what your strengths, passions, and interests are, then find out! If you don’t have enough experience, then go get some – explore anything that interest you. Don’t sit there, go do something!

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” –  Theodore Roosevelt

Don’t be afraid that your plan isn’t perfect – it doesn’t neet to be. The point of the plan is that it makes you take action. Once you start taking action, you get results, which will help you determine if this is something meaningful to you or not. If not, you can quickly move on – plans help things move faster.

What’s stopping you from making plans? Make a plan to overcome it!

For more about the importance of and how to set goals, listen to podcast #8.
Similar Posts:

• What Do You Want To Do With Your Life? (Including Questions To Help You Figure It Out!)
• Do You Know YOUR Potential? Or, Why You Shouldn’t Try To Be Moshe
• What Does It Mean to Grow? How Do I Grow?
• How to Enjoy Lectures/Classes/Speeches (or At least Stay Awake)
• Being on time
• Podcast #1 Getting Started

But you generally resist it. It is hardly an enjoyable experience.

As much as you put in the effort, you may wish you weren’t there. That’s hardly conducive to doing your best! Just check most classrooms and work environments. America is spending more money than ever on education but getting worse results than before. It isn’t just about technical expertise of the teacher or the material.

What if you are excited about something? What happens when you jump into a project that looks interesting? Start learning a sugya or a book because it sparked your fancy or is immediately applicable?

It hardly seems like work and happens rather quickly. Your energy level jumps through the roof. You want to keep putting in time and effort. If you care about something, you will use much more of your resources willingly- both physical and mental. You put in more energy than you are required to. You will think about it even when you don’t need to. That’s what getting your heart involved does. There is no comparison between someone that enjoys what he is doing and someone who is just doing it because he has to.

Certain things energize us. We don’t have a fixed amount of energy for each day – some things that are objectively “work” can be incredibly stimulating and enjoyable. We may be tired but will perk up and put lots of effort into them.

The power of being interested, passionate, or simply caring is amazing. I notice a HUGE difference between something that I feel strongly about or find very worthwhile compared to just something on my to-do list. Passion pours on the energy and helps you overcome procrastination, lack of energy, and doubts. Organizations prefer volunteers rather than paid workers because you can only hire someone’s body. You can’t hire their heart and their mind, which is what a person volunteers.

Because of this idea, the Netziv said to learn what interests you. R’ Hutner says that isn’t just a nice idea, but that this is the way to learn. When we follow what we feel attracted to – such as which sefer in tanach to learn or what type of job – we are happier, put in more time and more effort. We improve our skill, and that makes it easier and more satisfying. It starts a tremendous upward spiral!

What percentage of people in school, work, or learning do you see enjoying themselves?

When R’ Yaakov was asked how he pushed himself to learn so much, he responded: “If you knew how much pleasure I got from learning, you wouldn’t be asking that question.” He clearly put his heart into his learning, and didn’t just regard it as “something he had to do.”

Don’t let your learning or growth be routine. Find what you feel strongly about and throw yourself into it. Your learning, your middos, anything! To really give something all your efforts, you have to be emotionally invested in it. You have to care. You may be learning gemara, but feel you should be focusing on Rashi. So focus on Rashi! You don’t need to leave the group – just have your own reasons for putting in more energy.

How do you relate to your schedule now: “Another boring day” or “Yey! Fun, interesting things!”? What do you care about?
Similar Posts:

• Find a passion!
• What Do You Want To Do With Your Life? (Including Questions To Help You Figure It Out!)
• Overcoming the Final Hurdle: Remembering Your Goals
• Four Benefits from Scheduling Play Time
• Can’t Figure Out What To Do With Your Life? Explore!
• Why Your Rosh Hashanah Kabbalos Haven’t Worked (And How to Fix Them)

If you flick the light switch but it doesn’t go on, do you keep flicking it back and forth? I hope you would quickly realize that you should look for another problem.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
-Albert Einstein

(See my podcast on Doing Things Differently.)

The answer I have often heard is to choose something small to work on, and then halve it. And then to halve it again. That way you will have something that will stick. I know I am far more ambitious than most people, but doesn’t that sound like a tiny goal to set for you entire year of growth? The Vilna Gaon said that if we aren’t working on improving our character traits, then what is the point of living?

It isn’t because you are trying for something too large, or that you can’t grow that much at once, but because the only thing you have changed is your commitment. In the secular world, it is called a New Year’s Resolution – something that you resolve to do – focusing on discipline. Focusing on discipline only helps short term. After a few days, all the problems mentioned before start up again. Trying to discipline yourself more when you haven’t improved your discipline won’t help you. “This year I am really going to improve my davening!” will yield the same results as last year! You don’t need a Rosh Hashanah Resolution, you need a Rosh Hashanah Plan!

A few days ago, I wrote about 3 Critical Steps To Pursuing Growth, which I encourage you to read (print it if you don’t have time now). Those are critical steps, and while they may be enough for working on character traits, they aren’t enough for something like scheduling more learning time.

Just because it’s Rosh Hashanah doesn’t mean you can magically add an hour of learning to your schedule! There is a reason (or many!) you haven’t done the learning until now, and you have to overcome all of them. You need a plan to overcome any reasons that may stop you from reaching your new goal.

Take out a piece of paper and list all the possible obstacles to making this happen, including any reasons why it hasn’t worked in the past. They may include not having time, being unsure of where to learn, not knowing who learn with, or things coming up that seem urgent. This list will be unique to you.

Now, what will you do to make it different this year? Address each obstacle. If you don’t know, ask a friend, your spouse, or daven for inspiration. You don’t need to know that it will work, but you need a new approach. After trying for a few days, you may find a better way.

Some things that may help:
• Find a partner to hold you accountable.
• Schedule your learning early in the morning so nothing can come up to derail it.
• Choose something you want to learn.

Go do something right now! Give your partner a call, and schedule your first time. Go ahead and blame me, tell him you read an article that said not to wait until you saw him next. Visit the bookstore and buy whatever you will need.

Don’t rely on your motivation to last – leverage it. Use it to make commitments to others you won’t want to break. Use it to disrupt old patterns and to start new ones. Use your motivation to set up the environment to push you to keep going. Once you do it for 30 days, it will hardly seem as hard as it did in the beginning.

If there has been a lot of resistance in the past, don’t just find ways to overcome obstacles, obliterate them with overwhelming force. Take your actions to the next level. If this problem (e.g., not getting out to learn) were a fly, what would be a sledgehammer? Perhaps… commit to teaching a class, ask the Rabbi for a learning session so you will feel worse about cancelling, tell your learning partner that you will give him $20 if you miss. Be creative – and set that up NOW. Leverage your motivation!

Rosh Hashanah isn’t just that yearly time to guilt us into doing something. Rosh Hashanah is an amazing opportunity to daven for help. Go into Rosh Hashanah with a smile on your face and tell Hashem (your loving father) that you actually have a plan this year and you just want some help.

Of course, if anyone asks why you seem so happy, don’t hesitate to tell them to about this blog. In fact, you should probably sign up so you can get updates by email, to keep you thinking about growing.
Have you decided what to focus on and made a plan? If not now, when? -Hillel

p.s. I encourage you to send this post with a link, or just the link, to your friends. Show them you really care!
Similar Posts:

• You Only Need Discipline When You Have A Choice
• To Grow, Ask “Why?”
• How to Find (And Cure) What Is Really Holding You Back
• What Does It Mean to Grow? How Do I Grow?
• The Power of Passion – Are You Involving Your Heart?
• How To Work On Your Character Traits

What Exactly Are You Trying To Accomplish?

The more clearly you know where you are heading, the easier you can pursue it. If you want to become a nicer person, you must have a real, tangible idea of what that means to you. Ultimately, any growth opportunity will change our thoughts, feeling, words, and actions. Abstract ideas are hard to grasp because they aren’t related to a physical, concrete thing. If you can’t understand it, how can you act it? Take your goal – for example becoming a nicer person – and make it more tangible. What would your thoughts, feelings, words, and actions be when you reach your goal? Take inspiration from all that you have read and any people in particular that you know. Use your imagination to get a tangible idea of what you are reaching for.

Some examples:  
• Thoughts - What will I be thinking when I see another person, or during a conversation? “How can I help him?” or “What can I do to make him feel more comfortable?” are both good thoughts.
• Feelings - How do I want to feel? “ahavta lireacha kimocha – love your friend like yourself ” seems particularly apt. What does love feel like to you? Recall loving or empathetic moments with family and feel the same emotions now.
• Words - What words will I use? “Good morning!”, “I hope you are doing well!”, “Thank you!”, “That was great!”, “Go for it!” all sound very appropriate.
• Actions - How will I act? Will I hold open the door for people? Smile and wave enthusiastically? Say “Good morning!” to everyone I walk by?

This may seem inauthentic to you. “OK, I should smile at people. But how do I really become a nicer person?” If you think how nice people think and do what nice people do, then you are a nice person. The Ramchal says that your external actions affect you inside – acting like a nicer person makes you a nicer person. With repetition, the actions and thoughts become part of your personality. The Rambam says if you are trying to work on any trait, go to the extreme of what you are aiming for. This helps remove all the shortcuts in your brain that reinforce the old behavior.

Finding Motivation

You may feel raring to go work on your growth opportunity. If you don’t, think of why you should be! It’s great to be motivated today, but how do you make the excitement last?
Find the reasons why you are excited, and why you could be excited, and keep reminding yourself. You may want to ask other people for ideas. You are a salesperson trying to convince yourself to pursue this growth. What is so great about this goal? What are the benefits? Write as many as possible! Having powerful reasons will keep you going.

One of my next areas to focus on is thinking appreciatively and gratefully (one of Rabbi Pliskin’s 9 Happiness Principles from Conversations With Yourself.)
The motivation for this shouldn’t be too hard. It will cause happiness. Happiness also leads to better learning (mitzvah!), accomplishing more, and better health (mitzvah!). I will be thanking everyone around me for their help, so everyone involved with me will feel more positive (mitzvah!) and want to help me more.
Wow, that sounds amazing!

Continuous Thought

If you forget about being a nicer person, or you forget to remind yourself of how great it would be, it won’t help you at all. You can spend as little as 5 minutes a day with this great way to keep yourself reminded.

Get a notebook (or anything!) and write:
• A short summary of what you trying to achieve (“Be a nicer person”)
• The best reasons why it is important to you (“I love seeing other people smile!”)
• The longer explanation (the thoughts, feelings, words, and actions)

Every morning and every night right before sleep, enthusiastically or joyously read what you are trying to achieve and why. The emotion really locks in what you are working on. Picture yourself acting the way you want to think, feel, say, and do. In the morning, write some ideas for how you can apply this today. At night, reflect on the day and see how you succeeded and what you would do differently next time. At the very least, rewrite the goal. The more time and emotion you put into reviewing your goals, the faster your progress will be.

For most people, the only way to make sure you do this review is to put the notebook on your pillow and not go to sleep until you spend the few minutes reviewing. In the morning, don’t leave until you do the review. Each 2-minute review gets your brain involved for many hours! Reviewing at night lets your brain work on the idea the whole night!

Final Thoughts

Plans never survive their first encounter with the real world. Look for what works, and what might work better next time towards achieving your goal. Celebrate any success to keep you motivated to keep working!
Similar Posts:

• Growth While You Sleep!
• What Does It Mean to Grow? How Do I Grow?
• Stepping Back – Living Your Values
• Overcoming the Final Hurdle: Remembering Your Goals
• Your Thoughts: How To Think Positively
• Why Your Rosh Hashanah Kabbalos Haven’t Worked (And How to Fix Them)

If you can’t play the audio, click here .
Similar Posts:

• Podcast #10: What is Brainstorming? How Do I Do it WELL?
• Podcast #4: Do Things Differently
• Podcast #7: To-Do lists – Love or Hate, Here’s How to Make Them
• Podcast #5 – Mindmapping… Like a Map of My Mind…?
• Podcast #3: Stress – Why It’s SO Bad and How to Prevent It
• Podcast #6: Oh no, Public Speaking!

If you don’t, let me tell you what you are missing!

If you can’t play the audio, click here .
Similar Posts:

• Podcast #8: Are Goals Really Important? How Do I Set Them?
• Podcast #3: Stress – Why It’s SO Bad and How to Prevent It
• Podcast #5 – Mindmapping… Like a Map of My Mind…?
• Podcast #4: Do Things Differently
• Podcast #6: Oh no, Public Speaking!
• Podcast #9: Outcome Focus

• Podcast #5 – Mindmapping… Like a Map of My Mind…?
• Podcast #4: Do Things Differently
• Podcast #8: Are Goals Really Important? How Do I Set Them?
• Podcast #7: To-Do lists – Love or Hate, Here’s How to Make Them
• Podcast #3: Stress – Why It’s SO Bad and How to Prevent It
• Podcast #9: Outcome Focus