Adam Wik's Blog, page 10

Is Your Inner Monologe Helping or Hurting Your Success? Four Ways to Change Your Mindset and Be More Positive

“Thoughts become things.” – Buddha

Before you begin a task or attempt to learn something new, does it make sense to first insult yourself or the subject? To tell yourself that it’s hard or you aren’t smart enough to do it?

It’s not intentional, but often people do it anyway. It’s forgivable – our brains do appear to be wired for negativity, or we remember negative experiences more often than positive ones. However, it’s not inexcusable forever. As soon as you want to do something new or need to...

Stop Fishing: Overcoming the Drug of Consumerism

Is there any more iconic symbol of consumerism?

Henry David Thoreau, one of my favorite authors, once said “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.”

I think this is an excellent reflection of the consumerism driven cycle most people get trapped in and then spend their entire lives fulfilling. Consumerism dominates modern life, at least here in the U.S. but I would wager throughout the developed world as well.

It’s a pervasive thing that really satura...

Seven Lessons Learned from 80 Days Around The World: The Epic Lives of Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland

It’s hard to find someone who hasn’t read or at least heard of the popular novel, Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. At the time Verne was one of the most popular authors alive, and the book inspired people to travel and adventure and much debate arose questioning whether or not it was in fact possible to travel around the world in 80 days.

The story of Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s competition is an obscure but fascinating tale within which are lessons I think are as amazing as...

The Single Trait That Will Make You a Better Language Learner

Spending too much time in your own little world won’t make you a better language learner.

I completely and fully reject the assertion that some people are ‘just good language learners’.

Occasionally I also hear it phrased as someone being ‘gifted with languages’ or maybe ‘having the language gene’. It doesn’t matter how you put it, it’s wrong. On top of that and far worse whenever I hear it used it’s either to denigrate the achievement of some hard-working polyglot or as a pathetic cop-out for...

Why Chinese is Easy

I’ve heard it since I was little – Chinese is THE hardest language in the world! Back then before I knew anything about the language I would stare at the beautiful characters and wonder, exactly what makes it so hard to learn Chinese? It wasn’t until I got much older and decided to tackle learning the language that I have come to think that not only is Chinese not the hardest language to learn, but that I think the reason why people say it is is because of a fear of something different.

This i...

Why You Need to Go Out And Fail

If you never even try you’re worse than a failure.

I used to have a serious confidence problem.

It shouldn’t really be surprising, I was fat and awkward and nerdy and shy. Alone those attributes tend to not contribute to being bold and self-confident, combined they made for the perfect cocktail of personality traits to absolutely destroy any chance of committing myself to anything.

As a result of that, there were tons of opportunities I missed out on my whole life because I was too scared to fai...

Want to Be Incredible? Break Your Kettles and Burn Your Boats

You have to make sacrifices to get what you want.

Timid people don’t make history.

Timid people back down when they’re faced with a challenge. Successful people are the bold ones, the ones who go all in and understand that the only two ways to truly be defeated are to quit or to die.

Xiang Yu knew this was true as early as 208 B.C. When his small army crossed the Yellow River to reinforce Julu (an area that’s now the city of Xingtai in Heibei province) he found his 50,000 men faced by a Qin army...

3 Reasons You Should Wake Up Early and How to Actually Do It

Seeing the Sun rise is just one of the perks of waking up early.

I have never in my life been an early riser.

In fact I was quite the opposite – a quintessential night owl who was more likely to be heading to bed when most others would be waking up. On top of that when you did finally wake me up I was generally grumpy, malicious and horrible to be around. For the first few hours I’d shuffle around filled with hate for everything until I woke up all the way.

That is until recently, when I finally...

How to Actually Accomplish the Stuff on Your To-Do List

Sure you can make a to-do list, but can you actually cross everything back off of it?

I am a man who enjoys his to-do lists.

There’s just something about getting out a physical piece of paper and a pen and actually putting the things I need to accomplish in a day down in ink that feels really good. It makes it feel like I have something concrete to work from, something to keep me on track and focused. When I make a really solid to-do list I feel like there’s absolutely no way I won’t get all of...

Tortoises, Seinfeld and Productivity: How to Use the Chain System

Jerry Seinfeld knows a thing or to about being consistently productive.

Yesterday I introduced my latest challenge, attempting to change my productivity style from oscillating between frantic productive bursts and long depressive periods of idleness to a nice steady stream of consistent if small accomplishments.

As I explained in the other article, I’d like to go from being a hare (someone who sprints through tasks in bursts then goes through an extended cooldown period) to a tortoise (someone...