Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Melissa Jane]

This is a great piece of advice. I like it. I also don't go to sleep until after 3 am, but I always wake up at around 6: 30 am.

Just to add to your strategy above, maybe they can schedule tasks that they have to do earlier. For example, if you absolutely have to , work, you can schedule your work to start at , say 7 am so you just have to wake up before that.

I used to wake up at 9:00 am, but I always felt I could be more productive if I woke up earlier, so I asked Scott to adjust my shift to start at 7: 00 am. Now I have an alarm at 6: 30 and 6:45. It was a struggle at first, but, needless to say, I usually wake up before the first alarm goes off, yet I sleep after 3: am.

In summary, schedule your most important tasks in the morning.

[Nisha DSouza]

Many nights I have pulled an all-nighter working on the computer and not going to sleep until after the sun comes up. When I originally programmed Bookshelves, for instance, I did all it all in one night, overnight. I didn't go to sleep until 11am or so, and I remember because when I woke up I had no idea what day it even was.

Wow! That is amazing!

One reason I think I developed into a night person and learned to love late nights is that I am a huge introvert. Being up very late at night, namely past midnight, makes it easy to be alone when I want to be alone. Even if I'm leaving home, I'd rather, for example, go grocery shopping at 1am than at a busy time like 5pm. Likewise, I'd rather eat at a restaurant on a Tuesday evening when it's slow versus prime-time on a Saturday when it's packed.

Yes, in many ways I am like you. I prefer going shopping, dining, and even vacationing during weekdays at non-peak hours/seasons.

I don't personally do it, but a great thing about waking up at 4am every day is that the business and social world hasn't started yet, so to speak, giving you precious quiet alone time to do what you want to do instead of having the outer world work so hard to get you to do what it wants you to do.

That is precisely why I love it. It is the ideal time to meditate, exercise, plan your day, reflect, and work undisturbed.

Here is another question from me to you: What would happen if you didn't set an alarm at all for the next week?

That's not rhetorical. My advice for you will be very different if the answer is that you would get fired from your job or your newborn child would literally starve to death while you sleep, versus if the answer is nothing much at all besides you getting extra sleep.

Either way, here's the general structure I'd typically suggest setting:

Goal 1: Catch up on your sleep debt, so that you are not sleep deprived at all, and are very well-rested.

Goal 2: Maintain that well-rested state for at least one week. In other words, go a whole week without setting an alarm, but just waking up naturally and well-rested.

Goal 3: Gradually, fall asleep slightly earlier and earlier each night until you naturally wake up at the time you want (e.g. 6am) without needing an alarm.


I suggest you don't worry about Goal 2 until you have accomplished Goal 1, and I recommend you don't worry about Goal 3 until you have accomplished Goal 2. You can even think of them as a series of "tasks" instead of a series of "goals".

Regardless, I may encourage you to adjust the plan slightly depending on what your answer to the previous question turns out to be, that question being: what would happen if you didn't set an alarm at all for the next week?




With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

The thought of not setting an alarm is scary, but it is worth giving a shot. I guess that itself will wake me up out of fear of having overslept. Not much will get affected because my husband and I work from home, and my daughter is being homeschooled. So, we don't really have any early morning obligations. Your advice is great, and I am going to do this. That I think is the only thing I haven't tried. But, I will not try this time and actually do it!

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

[Nisha DSouza]

This is a great piece of advice. I like it. I also don't go to sleep until after 3 am, but I always wake up at around 6: 30 am.

Just to add to your strategy above, maybe they can schedule tasks that they have to do earlier. For example, if you absolutely have to , work, you can schedule your work to start at , say 7 am so you just have to wake up before that.

I used to wake up at 9:00 am, but I always felt I could be more productive if I woke up earlier, so I asked Scott to adjust my shift to start at 7: 00 am. Now I have an alarm at 6: 30 and 6:45. It was a struggle at first, but, needless to say, I usually wake up before the first alarm goes off, yet I sleep after 3: am.

In summary, schedule your most important tasks in the morning.

Wow! Melissa... How do you do that? Survive on less than 4 hours of sleep each day?

Actually, when I started as an OBC reviewer, that is what would wake me up early in the morning. I was excited to check if I had received any updates like a new scorecard, or newly published review, etc. So, yes I agree, finding something to do or something that will excite you enough to get out of bed is also a great idea. Thanks.

[Rupali Mishra]

How do you overcome discouragement while working toward your dream or life's aspiration?

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

How do you overcome discouragement while working toward your dream or life's aspiration?

Hi, Rupali Mishra,

I was actually already asked that question earlier in the Q&A. Here is the link to view my answer.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

[Rupali Mishra]

How do you overcome discouragement while working toward your dream or life's aspiration?

Hi, Rupali Mishra,

I was actually already asked that question earlier in the Q&A. Here is the link to view my answer.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

Thank you for your response, and I will read it through the link.

[Zippy Kerubo]

Your inspiration has helped me a lot so far... Thank you

[hsimone]

Thank you for this space for your mentees to ask questions!

The main question, in relation to my personal goal via this program, is finding the drive and motivation (and time) to work on editing the book I wrote a while back. I want to seriously get back into this, but it's hard to find the drive and motivation to do it. Can you share your advice?

I look forward to hearing back from you!

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.


Hi, hsimone,

Thank you for your question!

in relation to my personal goal via this program [...] it's hard to find the drive and motivation to do it. Can you share your advice?

 
There are two primary ways I would typically interpret the meaning of this kind of question:
 
1. "I want X, but I don't want X; so how can I make myself want X?"
 
2. "I don't want X, but I want to want X, so how can I get myself to want X?"


#1 is a contradiction. In other words, #1 doesn't make sense. So, if that's your question, I cannot answer directly, and thus my only advice is to explore that contradiction and adjust your thinking and beliefs to eliminate the contradiction.


That leaves us with the second question:
 
"I don't want X, but I want to want X, so how can I get myself to want X?"


Your situation involves finding the motivation/drive to write a book. 
 
I can think of some other examples of situations in which a person "wants to want something that they don't want". 
 
I could imagine situations involving a participant in an upcoming arranged marriage wanting to want something they don't want. I could imagine someone saying, "I want to want to marry the spouse my parents picked out, but I don't want to marry him. How can I get myself to want to marry him?"
 
I could imagine someone on a strict diet, perhaps related to an upcoming contest at the Olympics or an upcoming weigh-in for a UFC fight. I could imagine that person saying, "I want to eat a lot of food each day. But I want to stop wanting to eat food. How can I stop wanting to eat food?"
 
I could imagine an alcoholic on the cusp of potential recovery saying, "Each night I find myself wanting to drink and thus having a drink. I want to stop wanting to drink. I want to not want to drink. I want to want to be sober. I want to not have cravings for alcohol. I want to not have a desire for alcohol. How can I get myself to stop wanting to drink?"
 
I could imagine a 16-year-old child who is gay but has very homophobic parents. I could imagine the unfortunate teenager asking, "I want to stop wanting same-sex people, romantically speaking, and I want to start wanting other-sex people instead. I want to want people who are a different gender than me so badly, but I just don't want them. How can I get myself to want them?"
 

To you and to all those hypothetical people, I would say roughly the same thing, which is this:
 
It's possible that you cannot get what you want. You want to want X, but you may not be physically able to make yourself want X. It might be like wanting to time travel or wanting to change your past or wanting to make 2+2 equal 5. It might be impossible. Sometimes you can manipulate certain feelings so that you start feeling something you don't currently feel, but sometimes you can't. I'm not saying it is impossible; I'm saying it might be. I don't know enough about your situation to know if it is impossible.
 
Even if it is technically possible, it might be extremely expensive (in terms of time and/or money and/or effort) and thus utterly impractical. You could probably make pigs fly if you invested enough time, energy, and money into it, but it can still be practically impossible for all practical intents and purposes.
 
So my important first tip is this: Take some time to very honestly, very slowly, very thoroughly, and very carefully consider if it is even possible for you to ever want X, and if so, what the expense would be (not just financially but also in terms of time, discomfort, and energy) to make yourself want X, and if that is even remotely practical. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about the cost or possibility of you getting X; I'm talking about the cost and possibility of you making yourself want X.
 
Often, when we take the time and effort to figure out that something we want is impossible, we also then stop wanting it, or at least find that desire greatly minimized. 
 
For example, one who desperately wants to change the past will tend to find that their desire to change the past mostly or entirely evaporates once they explore and then accept the fact that they literally cannot change the past.
 
In another example, a gay person who wants to stop being gay will likely stop wanting to stop being gay if they come to believe and accept that they cannot change the fact that they are gay.
 
Many times, you will find the resolution to the problem of "wanting to want X despite not wanting X" is to stop wanting to want X rather than getting to want X. Both resolutions resolve the dissonance, the dissonance being that you want to want something you don't want.
 
But here's the clever beauty of this exercise: In the opposite case, meaning that after carefully meditating on it in full, you determine that it is possible to get yourself to want what you currently don't want, then you have presumably thereby found your answer to how to do it.
 
Generally speaking, you can't figure out that something is possible to do without simultaneously figuring out how to do it.
 
In other words, the path to the solution (i.e. your recommended next steps) is the same no matter which of those two solutions it ultimately leads to.
 
I can't tell which of the two solutions that path will lead you because I don't know and I can't know. You presumably don't know yet, but you can know, and by doing what needs to be done for you to find out, you will get your answer.
 
To repeat myself from earlier, what presumably would need to be done by you for you to find out is this: Take some time to very honestly, very slowly, very thoroughly, and very carefully consider if it is even possible for you to ever want X, and if so, what the expense would be (not just financially but also in terms of time, discomfort, and energy) to make yourself want X, and if that is even remotely practical.
 
I'm not suggesting you merely put it on the back-burner in your mind and multi-task by sort of thinking about that while you do other things.
 
Rather, I am saying put it on your to-do list to spend some time—perhaps one hour to start—mono-tasking solely on that one task, with no kids or other people around or distractions or multi-tasking at all, as if it were your paid job for that one hour to sit and think about that one question and do your absolute best with that hour to scientifically explore that one question and find its true full answer to the best of your ability. The question being, in short, is it even possible to get yourself to want X, whatever X is? 
 
In your case, X is finishing your book, so the question for you to ask yourself and meditate on carefully in a dedicated way is this: Is it even possible to get yourself to want to finish your book? 
 
Needless to say, the word 'want' is a synonym for 'be motivated to' or 'be driven to'.
 
 
 
Here are some slightly related topics that I think will also be very helpful for you to read (or re-read) in relation to this matter:
 
"When it comes to your choices, you always get exactly what you want, meaning what you choose."
 
Concepts of preference only make sense when it comes to your choices (i.e. what's in your control).
 
I have inner peace because I shamelessly know I do only what I want to do, and I don't ever do what I don't want to do.
 

I hope this answer was helpful! 
 
I'd be surprised if you don't have follow-up questions, so please do feel free to post any follow-up questions about this or any other questions you have about anything else at any time.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

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In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.


Hi, Nate Mosson,

Thank you for your questions!

What recommendations do you have for increasing confidence? 

 
I've already been asked that question three times before in this Q&A.
 
Here is the answer I gave to Justin:
 

 

Alright I've got one for you. What recommendations do you have for increasing confidence? Specifically, are there any practical techniques, mental exercises, or daily habits that have helped you increase your self-confidence? 

Have you read my book, In It Together?
 
I ask because my top #1 recommendation by far would be to fully read that book, from beginning to end, twice. Many readers get a very different and much deeper experience the second time, perhaps since they aren't worried about where it's going. After the first read, you will already know the details about the conclusion, which is essentially all about achieving inner peace and incredible invincible graceful confidence. So reading it a second time lets you better see the logic and path that lead to that conclusion, since you already know what that conclusion is.
 
So that's my number one top tip by far.
 
After that, this question reminds me of when people ask for help or advice, or a method to meditate better or quiet their mind. A big tip I have about those two things, as well as countless others is this that I previously posted on Twitter: If you are trying at all, you are trying too hard.
 
But, again, that's something that's explained in much more detail with much more reasoning in my book, In It Together. My book explores in detail the idea that "there is no try".
 
I think confidence and grace are interlinked, if not two words for the same thing. So I also suggest you read my short poem, What Grace [and Confidence] Mean to Me.
 
It's not different advice per se, but the same advice in a different medium with some different phrasing. For example, the above poem includes the line, "To do, without trying".
 
One way to look at it is that confidence is a symptom of free-spirited inner peace and the unconditional acceptance and love that goes with that. If you lack the true happiness of inner peace, then your day-to-day happiness or pseudo-happiness, is affected by all sorts of external things like the weather or how good an opponent is in a sports game. That dependency on the external, meaning things out of your control, begets—in some sense reasonably—an intense constant anxiety and worry about those externals.
 
When you lack the consistent true happiness of inner peace, then it's in some way only reasonable to be terribly anxious about all the luck-based different yin-yang-like externals out of your control that can affect your moods and feelings and make up your ups and downs in your bipolar way of living.
 
In contrast, when you find the consistent true happiness of all-loving free-spirited inner peace, you have no reason to worry about such things. You know you will be happy regardless, in the sense of having that all-loving free-spirited inner peace.
 
It's unreasonable to have confidence if you worry about the proverbial cards you are dealt. In that case, there is no path to that conclusion because it's an unreasonable—and impossible—conclusion.
 
In contrast, when you unconditionally accept the proverbial cards you are dealt, and find your happiness in playing the cards you are dealt to the best of your ability, then you know you will always be happy. And from that comes a graceful and invincible confidence, as surely as 2 + 2 equals 4.
 
For more on that, I also suggest you read the following topic of mine, which explicitly discusses confidence:
 
Transcending all worry & anxiety about the future— Find the happiness in doing your best, and you will always be happy.
 

For a different angle on confidence, which includes a very wise quote about confidence that I've heard others say, please also see my topic:
 
Dualism is an illusion. We are truly one. In terms of the real you and the real me, I am you, and you are me.
 
Here is an excerpt from that topic:
 

 
In terms of the real you and the real me, I am you, and you are me.
 
There is no real other to compare yourself against.
 
My book liberates you of the stressful, lonely, and egoistically competitive illusion of separation.
 
From that, there comes an incredible confidence, an invincible loving inner peace, and an empowering grace.
 
I've heard it said that, "Confidence isn't walking into a room thinking you are better than everyone else; it's walking in and not having to compare yourself to anyone at all."
 
[Read Full Post]

 
 
 

*** 
 
 
 

I would also appreciate your thoughts on how to measure progress in this area. Thanks in advance!

I don't think I'd recommend attempting to measure it at all.
 
As the quote from the other post that I gave above explains, confidence is, in part, not having to insecurely compare and measure yourself against others as such at all.
 
Moreover, and perhaps more to the point, most often that would seem to me to put the cart before the horse. The confidence you will have is almost merely an incidental and even accidental afterthought that happens to come along with the true happiness of all-loving brave free-spirited inner peace.
 
If you had to choose between being confident or being truly happy, which would you choose? In a way, I'd say the latter, but it's a false question because confidence comes as a symptom of that invincible unwavering true happiness that is inner peace. When you know you are going to be happy no matter what, then you are also confident because you know you have nothing to worry about.
 
Regardless, the instinct to measure it seems like it would typically itself be a symptom of insecurity and lack of confidence, one that can exacerbate it with a self-perpetuating feedback loop, like a cancer.
 
In analogy, it's like constantly asking oneself verbally while meditating, "How clear-minded am I? Am I doing a good job at meditating? How can I quiet my mind more?" Doing that stuffs yet more loud thoughts into an already very crowded and very loud mind.
 
Trying harder to not try has the opposite effect.
 
Likewise, measuring your confidence might just give you another thing to be unnecessarily insecure about. One might say, "my confidence sucks! I am not confident enough! I wish I was more confident like all those cool confident people I've seen!"
 
If you are going to measure anything, I say measure the root issues that manifest as confidence, such as bravery, spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline), and practicing the principle of fully and unconditionally accepting what you cannot control. Measure how unconditionally accepting you are of the cards you are dealt, versus how much of your limited time and energy you take away from playing those cards to resent the cards or otherwise engage in nonacceptance of the unchangeable cards.
 
In short, I suggest striking at the root rather than the branches.
 

I hope my advice on this was helpful! If you have any further questions, please do let me know.
 

Thank you,
Scott

 

***
 

And here is my reply to Meghan's question about imposter syndrome:
 

 

Regarding life coaching, what advice can you give to someone suffering from imposter syndrome?

In general, my advice for such a person wouldn't be different than my general advice for anyone, which is partly because those kinds of feelings are so very common. Almost everyone could benefit from having even more confidence and being even more confident. Generally, all humans suffer from anxiety and from irrational fears, especially when it comes to social situations and work and their career or job. It's no more avoidable than hunger or sexual attraction.
 
I find some psychological terms are a bit like horoscopes. They are practically always applicable because they are so broad and describe the near universality of the human condition.
 
In a way, I think almost anyone could be construed as having imposter syndrome.
 
Arrogance isn't confidence, but rather the opposite, so even the most seemingly arrogant people are the ones perhaps worst suffering from low self-esteem, for which they drastically overcompensate. The most seemingly arrogant people might not say even privately to themselves that they have imposter syndrome, but they may nonetheless actually have it most of all, hence all their desperate overcompensating.
 
Even if it's more figurative than literal, we can, in a sense, say to the arrogant person doing arrogant things: Who are you really trying to convince—me or you?
 
Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, “You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”
 
My point isn't to point out the obvious folly in these feelings, but rather to point out that they are so incredibly common as to be essentially universal for humans.
 
I suppose my primary advice to someone who feels they are suffering from imposter syndrome is to simply let go of any sense that you shouldn't be suffering from it, or that it's abnormal or even bad.
 
My advice is to embrace it as a very common aspect of the human condition. Do your best not to expect to not feel those feelings. If and when you are hit with those common fears or insecurities, look at them like rain clouds passing by overhead. Notice it, and allow it. Treat it like you would hunger when you don't want to eat, or a sexual urge when you don't want to act on that, maybe because you are busy at work in a professional environment. It's simply part of having a human body. Or, in other words, it's simply part of the human experience.
 
Fear, hunger, anxiety, discomfort, pain... You will feel these every day. We all do.
 
You cannot get rid of them. Period. Full stop.
 
You can make huge amounts of money, become absurdly famous, and achieve incredible professional success in your career. None of that will give you inner peace and confidence, and none of it will get rid of the unavoidable feelings we all feel every single day, such as fear and discomfort. True confidence comes from inner peace and from loving acceptance (especially loving acceptance of yourself and of the human condition in which you find yourself), which doesn't come from money, fame, professional success in your career, or material comfort. But that's good news because it means you can have it now. You can have your inner peace, and the brave graceful confidence that comes with it, now. It costs $0 and requires no diplomas or career accomplishments. There's no external authority or external source of validation from whom you have to ask for it. Nobody can say no or deny you that because you need nobody's permission, except your own in your unique present.
 
This is all similar to something I wrote in my book on page 100:
 

The ego is as empowered by low self-esteem as it is by arrogance. Someone with excruciatingly obsessive low self-esteem is as egotistical as any full-blown narcissist, if not more so. In the same way the ego is inclined to say, “the world revolves around me because I am so great,” the ego is equally inclined to say, “the world revolves around me because I am so awful."
 
[...]
 
Allow the ego, like all things that are, to be.
 
Allow the fleshy human, with its feelings and instincts whatever they happen to be, to be.
 
Allow your hunger, your anger, your jealousy, and your fear to be. These are like fleeting clouds floating by. Hating or condemning them in no way banishes them. Unlike real rain clouds, when you yell at these rain clouds to go away, they just get bigger. They can and will feed off your negative attitude.
 
To fight an undeniable reality is to lose. You lose not only the fight itself, but also your inner peace by the fighting itself.
 
If you don’t fight, then there is no fight to lose, and your inner peace remains intact. And the rain clouds—both real and metaphorical—float by.

 

 

***
 

Specifically, are there any practical techniques, mental exercises, or daily habits that have helped you increase your self-confidence? 

That is a double-edged sword. You can build some clever habits to help increase your confidence, but there is also a risk of proverbially cutting yourself accidentally with that sword. It can easily become counter-productive.
 
The reason is this: The more recurring daily goals you set for yourself, the more you set yourself up for failure. Even if you hit all your daily goals, you still might be setting yourself up for lots of stress, for that feeling of being spread too thin, for that feeling like you aren't doing things well enough, and so on.
 
The more you juggle at once, the more likely you are to drop everything. Even if you succeed at the juggling and don't drop any of the proverbial balls you are juggling, you may not feel nearly as confident when juggling twice as much versus juggling half as much. If you are just barely managing to juggle it all without dropping anything, you probably don't feel very confident about it. You will feel more confident juggling if you juggle fewer things at once.
 
That all goes into the section of my book titled, "Do Less Better". I do recommend you re-read that section often.
 
Another recommendation is to utilize micro-habits and to avoid taking on any new big habits (or even mid-size habits). For building confidence, among many other valuable things, it's often better to succeed excellently at a few goals than anxiously fail at many. On that subject, you can read this post about micro-habits and these two tweets:
 
Working hard before you've mastered consistency is usually counter-productive. 
 
Build the micro-habit first, then the rest will be shockingly easy.
 
In short, for confidence, my suggestion is that you remove things from your daily routine rather than add any new ones. If you can think of a big habit you've been working on developing and failing to develop into a habit, then reduce that to a tiny micro-habit.
 
The daily goal I would suggest you add to your routine for confidence is this: Keep a daily gratitude journal. You can start with a micro-habit of writing down just one short tiny thing—even just one word—each day that you are grateful for. It will take you less than 30 seconds to do it each day. It can be as simple as writing "my kids" or "that tasty pizza" or anything, no matter how seemingly small or vague. I suggest setting an alarm and doing it at exactly the same time each day. It's two birds with one stone: First, gratitude will give you inner peace, which will give you confidence. And, second, succeeding at this micro-habit will make you feel accomplished, successful, and confident. Little things add up, and even at one word per day, your little notebook will fill up fast. Before you know it, you will literally have pages of successfully keeping the habit staring back at you each day. 
 
Once you have built that habit and kept it every day for at least 21 days, you can optionally add to it. You could expand your goal to write a full sentence each day in your journal instead of one word. You could expand it to include adding a daily goal each day or some kind of meditation sentence. But I strongly advise you to resist the urge to jump into that larger habit right away. Make sure you get at least 21 days of 100% success with the tiny micro-habit before expanding to something that will take you longer than 30 seconds.
 
Going straight from 0-seconds-per-day to 5-minutes-per-day is a recipe for failure and getting stuck at 0-seconds-per-day. Get 30-seconds-per-day with 100% success for three weeks, and you can move to 5-minutes-per-day and then 5-hours-per-day easily if you want. The first 30 seconds are going to be the hardest. You will get more confidence from those first 30 seconds than you will from the next 3 hours.
 
 
 
 
 

I would also appreciate your thoughts on how to measure progress in this area. Thanks in advance!

That is another double-edged sword, at best. Measuring your progress in that way is often a symptom of a lack of confidence, and it can exacerbate any feelings of inadequacy or desperation for external validation. Feeling like you aren't confident enough can easily become a pathological insecurity in itself. It's okay to want more of it, but I say look at it like good sex or free money; it's okay to want more, and in some senses you always will want more or at least be happily willing to accept more. But if your goal is to get so much that you don't want more, you will almost certainly never reach that goal because it's impossible. As my book explains, unfulfilled desire is a part of the human condition because fulfilling desires cause the desires to be replaced with new desires; it doesn't cause desire itself to be eliminated. You can see my more elaborate explanation in this post.
 
My book teaches that everything is exactly as it should be. Everything is okay. You are confident enough. I'm sure you would love more confidence, but confidence is like money: After you get more, you'll want even more.
 
For confidence, set goals you can achieve, and being so confident that you don't want any more confidence or couldn't possibly be any more confident is not an achievable goal. More broadly, the goal of not having any unfulfilled desires (i.e. suffering) is impossible; to be human is to suffer (i.e. to have unfulfilled desires). So I recommend you do your best to avoid setting such logical impossibilities as your goals.
 
I leave you with this:
 
"Confidence isn't walking into a room thinking you are better than everyone else; it's walking in and not having to compare yourself to anyone at all."


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

Confidence isn't walking into a room thinking you are better than everyone else; it's walking in and not having to compare yourself to anyone at all
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In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.

[jeminah28]

I need some ideas on what to do when you're parenting alone between work and caring for the children. My husband will pursue his studies next month, so oftentimes I and my two toddlers are left at home. We are living away from any relatives.

[Prince Oyedeji Oyeleke Jayeola]

Lately I have been down trying to figure out what and what to do to be financially stable. I have tried different things but it seems they are not enough. What do you do when you have tried your best but it isn't enough?

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

If you haven't already, you can sign up to be personally mentored by Scott "Eckhart Aurelius" Hughes at this link.

I need some ideas on what to do when you're parenting alone between work and caring for the children. My husband will pursue his studies next month, so oftentimes I and my two toddlers are left at home. We are living away from any relatives.

 
Hi, jeminah28,
 
Thank you for your question!
 
This is something to which I can relate well. When my son was 4 and my daughter was 2, I was a full-time single dad. I had them seven nights per week, and it was just the three of us living in a small two-bedroom apartment. They each had a bedroom, and I used the living room as my bedroom and office. 
 
It was one of the things that motivated me to give up my job as a bartender: putting them in daycare would have cost more than my income. So taking the risky jump to work from home made sense since I could work from home and take care of my kids at the same time. 
 
It wasn't easy. I don't know how old your kids are, but if they are around that age, then I can speak from experience: You can't even so much as leave them for 5 minutes to walk to the corner store and grab some milk. They require 24/7 supervision. It's a 24/7 job.
 
Here are some possibilities to consider, but I am only suggesting you consider these options, not that you do any of them. I don't know enough about your unique situation to recommend any of these; I can only propose that you consider them as an option for you:
 
1. Don't work while home alone with your kids if they are awake. Get your work done while the kids are sleeping or while someone else is taking care of the kids.
 
2. Avoid multitasking. Instead, monotask as much as reasonably possible. A great book that helps address this topic is The Smartest Person in the Room by Christian Espinosa.
 
3. Make sure you and your child's father are splitting responsibilities 50/50. That doesn't mean each task is individually split 50/50, but rather that the sum of all tasks and hours worked is 50/50, including both the time it takes to care for the kids and the time it takes to make the family income combined, as well as any other household tasks or chores such as doing dishes or laundry or such. This also goes hand-in-hand with monotasking because if you juggle three things at once (i.e. multitask on three different tasks at once), you tend to walk yourself into being expected to do three times as much of the work with one time the credit. It's fine if one person wants to be the sole breadwinner and the other wants to be the sole one doing childcare and homemaking, especially if you are both working the same number of hours total at your respective tasks, but you can run into trouble when one of those things is split 50/50 and the other is not split evenly, which thus means the total split is uneven.
 
4. Don't undervalue alone time and downtime. Think of things like getting a full night's sleep and taking some quiet alone time to meditate or taking a relaxing walk or such as very important and high-priority tasks that are a crucial non-negotiable part of taking care of your kids and making money. Even just in terms of money-making, I'll make more money total if I sleep 8 hours and work 16 hours than if I sleep 4 hours and work 20 hours. In other words, 20 hours of work on 4 hours of sleep is LESS than 16 hours of work on 8 hours of sleep. To me, I think of things like my sleep as a part of my work, and a very major and absolutely necessary part of the work. The job cannot be done correctly without sleep. This is even more true when it comes to things like parenting and being a good father, versus the petty simple task of merely making money.
 
5. Test out a rule for yourself of not doing any career or money-making work at home at all. This applies mostly only to people who have a work-at-home job or who are self-employed or who run their own business or who want to start a business (which includes things like writing books or wanting to start a career in music, etc.). Sometimes it can be as simple as working on your laptop from a library or coffee shop and never at home. Other times, it may call for renting a small office or a desk at a co-working space. You can find one of those for less than $100 per month. The best way to understand the reasoning may be by analogy: If someone is having trouble falling asleep at night and asks for advice on that, one of my suggestions would be to avoid doing anything but sleep in bed. A common example is not watching TV in bed and not scrolling through social media on one's phone while lying in bed. It's easy to accidentally overlook the habits we are training our bodies to adopt, and it's easy to underestimate the incredible power of habits and habituation. If you train your body that your bed is for things other than sleep, then it will listen. If you train it that it is only for sleep, it will listen. The same goes for productive focused work on one's laptop, be that work in a more straight-forward money-making job or be it more personal or creative work such as writing a novel or a business plan. It goes for the value of treating your time at home with your family as your time with your family. Kids learn by example, and many parents curse their kids with the misery-inducing habits of (1) non-presence in the present and of (2) destination addiction (a.k.a. the false idolization of the future). It can be a huge and relatively effortless lesson that one ingrains deep within one's children to avoid even looking at one's phone or laptop or TV while the kids are present. 
 
As much as reasonably possible, this is a big part of my advice for anyone who wants my advice about anything:
 
When you are at home, be at home. When you are at work, be at work. When you are with your kids, be with your kids. When you are with a romantic partner, be there with that person. When you are breathing in through your nose near some flowers, be there smelling those flowers. Wherever and whenever you are, be there then.


And the above also helps illustrate why I strongly give everyone this advice: Never take any advice from unhappy people.




With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

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In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.

[Mehul P]

I wanted to know some books for self confidence building. I've got a little brother and he's not really confident of himself. He could maybe read it and who knows, benefit from it.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Mehul P,

Thank you for your question!

I wanted to know some books for self confidence building. I've got a little brother and he's not really confident of himself. He could maybe read it and who knows, benefit from it.

For confidence specifically, my top recommendation is The Maestro Monologue by Rob White.

However, all the other books in my Reading List for Mentees will help with confidence as well, as it is a key ingredient in achieving incredible success of any kind.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott