Where's the change?

"You know, you've changed a lot..." --- a friend of mine

I always had this weird belief that when change happens it makes me feel different too. Almost like those blinding moments of self-revelations that changes your life forever. I now realise that those moments are pretty rare and requires A LOT to incite anything that radical. What I found was that change happens in bits and that those bits amount to large scale change.

Small Changes about to a Big Thing

It's funny how I only realised how much I've changed after my friend pointed it out to me, which made me wonder how much I really have changed. I found that it's been a lot of little things that made me change in a big way. I also found that because these changes are so small that we tend to miss them.

So how do you measure change if we tend to miss it? By asking our friends. You'd be surprised how quickly your friends pick up on changes in you and some might even be quick to point it out (like my friend above - you know who you are). Be careful of some friends though, because some changes might upset them to the point of trying to force you to change back. It's more a reaction in concern for you, than for themselves and maybe they just need time to get used to the idea.

Another nice way to keep track of changes in your life is to use a change log (plug for previous post :P), which is also great for the motivation to continue changing (since you have a long list of successful changes right in front of you).

In life it's the small things that have the biggest impact in life and the same goes for large scale change: It happens in bits, but all those bits surmounts to something big.

Developers Productivity Toolkit

Change should be logged.

This is the thought that recently hit me while I was working on some code. Programmers use many ways to keep track of their progress and boost their productivity while working on projects. These ways can be useful for future developers to continue work on abandoned projects and to help the current developers not to step on each others toes. Basically, these productivity tips work and it hit me that they can also be applied to many things other than just programming.

These ways are usage of the Change Log and the TO-DO list.

The Change Log

This is how programmers keep track of changes they've made to a program since they've released it and it normally features bug fixes, added features, removed features and modifications made to the code. The benefits of this is that they can see how far they've gone with something and how many improvements they've made within that program.

I've modified it a bit to work and log changes I've made within my life instead - call it a shortened journal entry to keep track of my accomplishments. I started off adding to it daily by writing down what I've archived for that day and which changes I've made by adding, removing or correcting things within my life. This is also where the TO-DO list comes in handy, because what you remove from there, gets added to your change log.

The TO-DO list

This is how programmers keep track of things they're yet to achieve, add, fix or remove with their program. It's also keeps programmers from working on the same problem at the same time, because a programmer can 'claim' it and only once they fail to do it, can it be passed on to the next programmer to attempt. This is also a very different kind of TO-DO list than those you normally use, because of the fact that it includes future and current goals.

I applied the same principles with my TO-DO list. My list comprises of future and current changes I want to make in my life with a few rules on how to do them. The first rule I have is that once it's done, it goes straight to my change log for that day, the second rule is that once I take on something on my TO-DO list, that I keep going for it for that day until I either achieve it or fail to do it at which point it goes back on to my TO-DO list. The third and final is rule is you can keep adding to the list, but once you decided on what you're going to do for that day, you cannot add more things from for yourself to do for that day - this also works vice versa, were if you take on too much for a day, you can drop it back on to your TO-DO list. See the third rule as reward for a day of being productive and once you're done with your goals for that day, that you can relax. However don't use the third rule as a excuse to move things on to the next day, because you're TO-DO list will only get bigger while your Change log doesn't.

The Aim of the TO-DO list is to give you a idea of your current and future goals, while the change log is to remind you of the things you've succeeded in and hopefully motivate to keep succeeding. The trick to both these methods is realistic goals and the commitment to them.

Hopefully the DPT can be as useful for you as it has been for me. At the moment, it's still a work and progress and I'll expand on them a bit more in the future and maybe even start a series on them. I wish you all the best of luck with them.

Stop living in the past

"The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour" - Dr. Phillip C McGraw

This is one of Dr. Phil's famous sayings that has made him such a iconic figure in selves-Help circles today. It's also really bad advice when used out of context. It seems that it's one of many excuses for people not to try at all, but give up because they've failed in the past at it. We all figure that the best way to move forward is to keep avoiding our past failures and hurts to which our past becomes our yardstick to which we measure our current success or failures. It's a vicious cycle which can easily destroy our happiness or any joy that may comes into our lives. The only cure to this is to learn to let go of our past, forgive ourselves and choose to live in the present.

There are a few benefits to not living in the past and they are:

1. We stop measuring our happiness by our past.
2. We free ourselves from regret.
3. We take more risks.
4. We allow ourselves to be more present.

We stop measuring our happiness by our past

We've all seen it happen, our best friend gets broken up with and suddenly their ex becomes the perfect man or woman. What happens? They ruin every relationship they have after that by comparing their current with their idolised (as in imagined) view of their ex. This might be a extreme example, but we all do it to some degree and the outcome is always the same: dissatisfaction, disillusionment and destruction of our happiness.

The funny thing about memory is that it's subjective, so we only remember what we want to remember and our brains has the amazing power to tweak our memories to fit out expectations of them. So that perfect person we've created in our mind is just a illusion, a mix of what we wanted them to be and who they really were. The reverse is also true when it comes to making a ex the reincarnation of the evil, they may have been a coward, they may have freaked a bit, but their still pretty much human, like you and me.

Ultimately, letting our past have a say in our present only ruins our happiness. So by letting go of the past we allow ourselves to forgive ourselves, move on and find ourselves again. It opens us to the joy and love of today's moments, which is the building blocks of true happiness.

We free ourselves from regret

Regret is a terrible thing to have to live with and like I said before, our memory is subjective, so the thing we regret doing seems worse than it really was. I think regret is pretty useless, it makes us feel worse for something we've done wrong, which messes up our happiness and makes us less incline to risk it again. I deal with regret differently. I take it as it is, figure out how it went wrong, learn from it and then move past it. The only function regret has is to teach us; other than that it's pretty useless. We cannot change what happened and if scientists can be trusted, we'll never be able to go back in time to change it. So let's learn from our mistakes, accept them and move past them, anything else is just a waste of our happiness.

We take more risks

Bad experiences have a crippling effect on our ability to take risk, they make us give up before we succeed and make us act irrationally with fear when having to face them again. Taking risk is how we grow and succeed in life and by fearing past failures repeated, we stop ourselves short of winning in life. Helen Keller once said that the bold gets hit just as much as the careful, which means that failure is part of life, if we take risks or not. Haven't you ever noticed how the one thing you try to avoid happening, you ultimately make happen?

What is the difference between the bold and the careful? The bold expects failure and have prepared themselves for it, while the careful, believing themselves safe, have not. Risks may lead to failure, but they also lead to success. Learning from our past failures makes the chances of us succeeding greater next time around. Letting go of our past mistakes and learning from them, makes risks much easier to do and ultimately allows us take more of them. The matter of when we'll succeed, then just becomes a matter of time.

We allow ourselves to be more present

Living in the moment is the key to all success, because we grasp at the moments that make our lives and the opportunities that present themselves. Living in the past does the exact opposite. We constantly regret moments we forget to grasp and opportunities we missed, which in turn blinds us of those moments and opportunities presented now. Do you see the vicious cycle living in the past creates?

Letting go of our past frees us from this cycle by allowing our attention to focus on the now rather than the could-have-been's. Living more in the moment makes us instantly aware of the things that can help shape our future, the risks needed and the opportunities that come from it. It's like waking up after a bad dream to a wonderful warm spring day, life just seems more promising and it becomes easier to let our past rest in peace.

I won't say I have all the answers yet, because I'm still learning to live in the present too. What I have found is that my life seems like a much happier place, I'm doing what I enjoy, I speak my heart and mind and opportunity is just a risk away. Living in the past only messes up our lives, but living for the moment might just save it.