How to Do Hard Things

Appears to be one giant ad for the authors ACT coaching business (I won’t bother to link it). Which has an endorsement on it from the guy who runs the site this article is posted on. Not to mention my adblocker blocks the entire page from being rendered, had to check out the article in reader mode.

The best advice related to this is that your thoughts are just your thoughts, and you can choose whether to give them importance. Reading some Eckhart Tolle helps here. As a founder I experience difficult thoughts all the time but they are just part of the game.

Think about your core values and why you are doing what you are doing, and what you want to achieve. Make some values more important than others. Everything you do should be in support towards those values.

Personally I want to build cool things and organizations that didn’t exist before, and make enough money such that I can one-up and establish egoic superiority over my neighbors, friends, and family (who hardly know anything about what I’m doing). I’m willing to push through difficult things to make this happen. I don’t want to turn this comment into a brag-fest but already reached some mild/decent success so far which gives me a lot of satisfaction.

OK, that's one way to do hard things... I was expecting something more like:

1) Look at the whole problem.

2) Split it up into smaller parts. As you do so, try to...

3) Evaluate each part on how a) basic to the rest of the problem or based on other parts it is, and b) how easy or hard it is to do.

4) Begin with the most basic parts; among those, begin with the easiest ones.

5) If some part turns out to be a big(gish) problem in itself, do the same splitting-up and ordering in steps 2-4 with it.

6) If at some point you find that you've made a mistake in your Step-3 evaluating, re-evaluate and re-order; then continue according to the new evaluation order.

Honestly, is there any other sensible way, and doesn't pretty much everyone know that already?

But yeah, this post was -- after the annoying advertisement formatted like actual content-- about something else: How to get started in the first place. Oh well, insert as Step 0?

Wtf the first part is an ad. I realized after finishing reading it. Ugh.

I read the post and really enjoyed it. I had my adblocker on, and didn't run into any issues with ads, or the scrollbar. I thought the content was thorough and well-written, and is encouraging me to explore this methodology a bit more. It seems to pull on a bunch of threads I've come across in the therapy, mindfulness, and general productivity advice. Some of the author's own anecdotes seemed a bit reductionist, but I appreciate that they tie back to business, making them feel immediately actionable. It feels like every one of these sections could be a chapter or few of a book, but I guess that's the whole point.

The section on values was the most helpful to me personally.

The best proof of any kind of methodology is in its application and results. I'd be impressed if some data were to be presented showing its effectiveness.

Excellent advice and concepts to think about further. ACT is new to me and seems very useful. After going through a difficult divorce and starting a new business some of the points seem very relevant. Connect yourself with the now and understand thoughts and not necessarily reality..

Can I just say how tremendously irritating it is that this site has no scrollbar? Why!?

Quite a dense read but looks like it has a ton of useful advice as I'm not familiar with ACT (only CBT). Added to read later!

In my experience ACT is most useful form of therapy if you want to live a meaningful life and not just do emotional management

I avoided reading the article. Haha.

The advertisement is at the top of the article and I was reading about flat file first before I realised I was reading an ad instead of the article. Annoying layout

work hard