New Direction

Another year is here, and I am knee deep in stuff that I have to study for my final exams. This is LITERAL my friends: I am KNEE DEEP with materials I haven’t even touched. Scattered all across my room are papers with different states of scribles or text on them. Some have even gotten a bit dusty too. Man, and with this, I know I can still get a minimal GPA of 3. That says a lot about my study habits eh? Sad thing is, this time next year, I would probably forget half of what I study now. So…get the grade, not the knowledge. That is a terrible philosophy by the way. One that a lot of people around me seem to follow though. It’s not like I don’t know HOW to change, or WHY to do it…I have a ton of books and information on the HOW and WHY…. It’s more that I CAN’T change it. But then, it’s not that either. It’s because I’m PROCASTINATING!!!! Damn it, I procastinate daily. I have a million different excuses on why I do it, from my environment, to my neighborhood, to my friends, etcetera etcetera, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is all MY RESPONSIBILITY!!!! Change has to come from ME!! It is ME that has to decide to make a schedule, and adhere to the darn thing. Discipline is the keyword!!!!

Though you know, this semester I’ve done not too bad. Most of the stuff lying around in total disarray in my room is because I’ve read them. And just dropped them whenever I’m done with it. I’m a bit pleased with the progress from my first year, but there is a LOT that can be improved. I need to really think hard for myself and find out what I really want with school. From there I can decide to take CONTROL of my life and really LIVE it to the fullest that I want to. And if that includes things that will make me uncomfortable and out of my comfort zone, then SO BE IT DAMN IT!!!

Secrets?

There is no secret way or short cut to doing things. Things are pretty much what they appear.

Overcoming Laziness, Inertia, And Fear

1. Accept that you’re going to be lazy some of the time
2. Do whatever you can to make the process of improvement as easy and painless as possible
3. Don’t waste too much time trying to think your way out of your anxiety
4. Come of with a plan for what you want to accomplish ahead of time
5. Gradually work your way up to the hard stuff
6. When gradually working your way up to more difficult goals, let your momentum carry you through
7. Use your environment and your natural preferences as leverage against yourself
8. Usually the hardest part is getting started

Balanced Life

Menurutku, keseimbangan dalam hidup itu hal yang penting. Beberapa hari yang lalu aku sedang duduk menonton TV, acara sinetron apa ngga penting gitu, dan aku mulai berpikir, “Apa gunanya waktu yang kuhabiskan ini ya? Menarik tidak, menambah wawasan tidak. Aku nonton ini cuma untuk menghabiskan waktu.” Aku seketika sadar, bahwa hal ini harus diubah. Masalah ini memang terkesan sepele, orang menonton TV, tapi bagiku, hal ini adalah pemborosan waktu yang sia-sia. Saat ini aku mempunyai pekerjaan yang menumpuk, aku sudah backed up di antara tugas-tugas kuliah, laporan praktikum, pembuatan proyek GIS, mempelajari sistem GPS dan sebenarnya bukan hanya ini saja, masih banyak lagi yang ada di daftar to-do-list-ku. Aku mulai berpikir dan merenungkan masalah ini selama beberapa hari.

Tanpa diduga, beberapa hari kemudian ketika aku sedang mengobrol dengan seorang teman, dia mulai bercerita tentang cara dia mengatur waktu di antara tumpukan kewajiban dan tugas-tugas yang membebaninya. Malahan, dia sebenarnya lebih sibuk daripada aku (wow…), tetapi dia mampu me-manage waktunya dengan baik. Sangat baik kalau boleh dibilang. Aku berpikir, benar kata pepatah, “If you want something done, give it to someone busy.” Aku agak tertawa kecil dalam hati, melihat ironi dari kondisi ini. Ketika aku sedang berhadapan dengan masalah, temanku tiba-tiba membantuku dengan berbagi pengalamannya padaku. Sepertinya Tuhan sedang memberi tanda untuk berubah. “Satya, ini tandanya. Berubah ya!”

Link : Changing Minds

This is a great site on human relations. You can find anything from persuasion to assertiveness. Occasionally I check back to this site to brush up on my skills. It’s like the wikipedia of psychology.

Qualifying and Justification

I really want to stop qualifying and justifying myself to other people. The next time I catch myself doing this, I will halt my thought pattern and think positively. Should that happen again, I will just freezeout OR improv. Get on it, Satya!

Change and Blind Faith

Basically, in changing or in the process of making yourself better, there are two strong fundamental principles that have been taken into account. These points are used and implemented as a sort of mantra so that they can have one hundred percent focus on the task at hand, rather than doubting themselves whether or not this will work. What are these principles?

The first one was popularized by Anthony Robbins. It goes something like this, “If you always keep doing the same things, you will always get the same results.” Now, this principle has been accepted by almost everybody in the self-help community world wide. The reason is that this principle, in its simplicity, is very true. Take two people who want to get in shape and a better, healthier body. One of them just THINKS about exercising, while in his daily routine nothing much has changed. He keeps doing the same stuff without any regard to his goal of a healthier body. Now, the second person, after deciding that he will focus his life on a healthier lifestyle, he incorporates the basic principles of health and fitness into his life. He goes to the gym every two days, he does aerobics every other day, and he eats healthier. See the difference? Can you guess who, in three months time, will be in a better shape than the other? This is the basic of the first principle. When something needs to change, something inside you has to change as well to get to your goal.

The second principle is an old saying. “In changing something, you need to have faith and keep going, no matter how small the improvements may seem. It’s like chipping at a rock. At first, it will seem that nothing has changed. But after a long while, after continuous effort and discipline by keeping at chipping on the rock, the rock will shatter because of the tiny miniscule cracks combined.” Long analogy, I know. A shorter version would be one of an Indonesian saying. “Little by little and in the end you have moved a mountain.” Now, the second principle here focuses on the fact that you must have blind belief in doing something. You may not know the ins and outs of the work at hand, but you just keep doing it and have faith that in the end this will turn out the way you want it. Here is where this principle can go badly. What if someone, who read some method on the internet on how to lose weight by buying a device which jiggles the fat on his stomach. So, for months he keeps doing this, but he’s still fat. Why? Is it because he didn’t have discipline? Or because he didn’t have the motivation? No, it’s because the method and system that he chose was wrong. He should have gone and got a gym membership instead of buying a ridiculous and useless device. So, is this principle flawed then? Absolutely not. This principle is amazing that it helps people to just DO IT instead of wondering around and postponing it. With this principle, people can let go of any self doubt and believe fully that the method will work. To get anywhere, though, somebody has to have a tested and successful method to implement. You can find a million methods on how to lose weight on the internet, but to get anywhere, you have to do your research and find one that others have taken, used, and achieved success with. You’ve also got to have feedback by other people who are sharing the experience with you by doing the same things. In this way, mistakes can be corrected, predictions can be made, and motivation can be given.

Although I’ve made a long and pretty detailed analysis (if I do say so myself) on the two principles, I’ve had trouble implementing these principles into my life. Change is hard, I know, and even more having blind faith in a system. Sometimes I feel that I need to know everything about everything something has to offer before I can dive in. For example, programming. In my first year of Electrical Engineering, I couldn’t even make a simple PHP program due to the fact that I was always reading about PHP, instead of just plunging myself and doing it. Sure I got a ton of knowledge about PHP and its theories, but what good is it if I can’t even make a simple program? Now I’ve learned my mistake, and every time I spend too much time researching on the Internet, and contemplating on doing something, I just take a deep breath and do it. This has been very hard for me to do, as I have always been pretty lazy about change. But I’ve realized, that if I want to get better, then I need to change my habits.

State of Mind

 

I’ve been self monitoring the way I think to myself these past couple of weeks. Not continually, I sometimes slip and let my mind doze off for a little while. Most of the time though, I try to keep my mind in check.

What I’ve found is pretty cool. It turns out that the way we talk to ourselves (you know, that little voice inside your head) makes a very big impact on our outlook of things. It’s like the old saying, where somebody sees the glass half empty and somebody else sees it half full. To be happy, you gotta take the positive outlook on life. Now, how does this relate to conversations with yourself? Well, since it’s your head, you can control EVERYTHING that your inner dialogue tells you. If you fail, and that voice says what a stupid loser you are, you can just say “HEY! Wait a minute here. Yes, that was a stupid mistake. Yes, I did fail. But I also learned something from that mistake. And with that new knowledge, I’ll be able to prevent this from happening again. Or at the very least I can learn how to expect it and manage it propely.” See the difference? One is negative, and the other is positive, with a very prospective outlook.

There’s probably a lot of books on this already, and there is. The ones I have read are :

1. Awaken the Giant Within – Anthony Robbins
2. 7 Habits – Stephen Covey

So you have to control that inner voice inside your head. Whenever you think negatively, say STOP and change your thought pattern to something else.