{"id":1817,"date":"2015-04-01T10:41:25","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T14:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=1817"},"modified":"2015-04-01T10:41:25","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T14:41:25","slug":"talent-and-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=1817","title":{"rendered":"Talent and stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

My weird and often late work hours prevent me from falling into any sort of groove lately; my sleep schedule is all over the place and I can’t seem to get into any sort of routine. Not that I really need one, but I’d probably be more productive with one. I’m still working on writing things and programming musical things, but progress is slow on everything. The days seem to be flying by; every day feels like only a few hours. Suddenly an entire week is gone, and then the entire month. My mind is clearly shrinking.<\/p>\n

\"Talent<\/p>\n

I bought a book last week (or was it the week before?) called The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills<\/a>\"\" by Daniel Coyle, which is basically a book of tips (52 to be exact) about how to… improve your skills, I guess one could say. It’s a quick and easy read and full of great little nuggets of wisdom about how to practice skills productively. I have yet to try putting them to the test (especially as I was feeling pretty sick all through last week), but one tip stood out to me…<\/p>\n

From page 112:<\/p>\n

Tip 51: Keep Your Big Goals Secret<\/p>\n

… Telling others about your big goals makes them less likely to happen, because it creates an unconscious payoff — tricking our brains into thinking we’ve already accomplished the goal. Keeping our big goals to ourselves is one of the smartest goals we can set.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Definitely one I’ll have to try. This very blog is riddled with my blathering about goals I never seem to reach. So I’m going to try just shutting up about them and see if that helps at all. (It’s not my only problem, I know, but it’s still worth trying.)<\/p>\n

Other interesting tips from the book include:<\/p>\n