If you want to work on a car, whether to fix, improve, or modify it, you don’t just pop open the hood on the highway and start throwing parts inside. Even if the parts you have are fantastic! You have to get the car somewhere conducive to the activity, like a garage. You have to run proper diagnostics; very importantly, you need to have a good general understanding of how cars work, and what you’d like to be different about this one. You have to have a safe place to take test drives. You can have the best components in the world, but if you don’t do these things, you can’t work on your car.

Working on yourself is no different. You can get fantastic advice, read incredible books, and even absorb daily personal improvement blog posts from incredibly handsome bloggers – none of it will do you any good if you’re just throwing this stuff at your brain while you’re moving around.

Let’s say you read a book about how to be a better parent. That’s awesome! But… what kind of parent are you now? Do you have any idea? Do you have your own “parenting playbook” documented somewhere, with notes or, at least (pardon the pun), crib sheets?

If that book has a nugget of wisdom about a parenting technique, how are you installing that behavior in your personal engine? How are you comparing it to what you already do and deciding which parts need improvement and which don’t? Do you have a safe place to test these new techniques and then re-run the diagnostic? Do you know to do that – one at a time – or do you just try to do everything you read in that book all at once and then revert back entirely in three weeks, all of it forgotten?

The next time you’re about to read something that tells you “How to Get Better at X,” stop. Before you read it, open up a document somewhere and write down how you currently do X. Call this document your “Personal Playbook” and write down your process. Understand it. Decide what you’d like to improve, and why. Then go read the “How to Get Better at X” article, armed with that context.

Did you decide that something in that article was worth trying? Maybe it was “Seven Steps to Improve How You Talk to Your Kid.” Well, push back the idea that you can try all seven steps at once. Pick one. Say, “I’m going to try this for one month.” Write down what you hope will happen. Write it down, I said. Then don’t try to improve or change anything else for a month.

At the end of the month, evaluate. Did you get what you were hoping for? If you did, then awesome! Change your Personal Playbook to reflect the new technique. Then, pick another item – or a new topic. If you didn’t, reflect – maybe you should try it again, but not every piece of advice works for every person. Try a different one, commit for a month, and repeat.

Rinse and repeat. Improve one thing at a time, in a safe “testing environment,” and then work it into an actual playbook of your best habits. Otherwise, you’re just throwing carburetors at a running engine and hoping something improves.

Fear can paralyze you. You fear a specific event or outcome, and it causes you to despair. I’ve seen this happen many times; someone gets a new job but immediately gets the sense that they aren’t going to succeed there. They’re terrified that they’re going to lose their job, but mostly what they do is hunker down and try their best to avoid notice. Then, a few months later, they lose their job regardless.

Try this instead: accept the premise. Take it as a given that your specific fear is going to come true and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Imagine that for a moment. You look around your job and think “This isn’t the right environment for me. I’m definitely going to get laid off.” And instead of being afraid, you just consider the ramifications:

“Okay, if I’m going to be laid off in two months, then those two months are important. I should start my job search process now in my spare time, and while I’m here I should use the time I have to learn as much as possible. While I do have a job I can network and make connections, pick up new skills, learn about the industry, and make a good impression on those around me so I maybe leave with a decent referral or two, and I’ll already have a head start on the next job hunt.”

Obviously, that’s a better set of actions than wallowing – sure, it sucks that you’ll lose your job, but if we take that as a given, this is a better way to respond to those facts than pretending they aren’t true. But did you notice something else about those actions? They’re also the ones most likely to lead to you not getting fired!

If you learn a bunch of stuff and impress people around you, maybe you’ll turn that ship around and save it. But even if you don’t, you’ll have done the best you could with the situation you had and used it as a springboard to a better circumstance. All because you just took your fear as a given and moved past it instead of spending all of your energy on the fear itself.

Imagine you have a pitcher with 3 cups of water in it. On the table are two empty glasses, each of which can hold 2 cups of water. With the water in your pitcher, you cannot fill both cups.

A reasonable discussion can be had about which cup you should fill and which you shouldn’t, or whether you should perhaps not fill either cup all the way, but you cannot fill both cups.

A reasonable discussion can be had about how you’re making the above decision, but you cannot fill both cups.

A reasonable discussion can be had about how you get water into the pitcher in the first place, whether you should be able to get more, and how you might do so; but with the water in the pitcher, you cannot fill both cups.

A reasonable discussion can be had about whether or not you wasted some water that was in the pitcher previously, perhaps by spilling it accidentally or deliberately pouring it somewhere else, but in the here and now you cannot fill both cups.

Sometimes – not always but sometimes – you get people who don’t want to have any of those reasonable discussions. They just want to yell about the fact that both cups aren’t full and act as if it’s happening either because the person holding the pitcher isn’t pouring harder or because 3 cups of water actually can fill two 2-cup containers if you believe hard enough.

Those people are unreasonable. Look for those who aren’t, and solve the problem with them.

People often avoid demonstrating a skill because they’re self-conscious about it. They don’t think it’s good enough or they worry about what others will think of it, so they hold it back. You may have done this.

I am absolutely, completely, 100% NOT self-conscious about my clarinet playing. You could insult me about it and I wouldn’t bat an eye. You could say I’m the worst clarinet player in the world and it wouldn’t phase me at all; I am immune to such barbs and the thought of being exposed to them wouldn’t cost me a second of sleep. Why?

I don’t play the clarinet.

It’s not even a skill I have. I’ve never claimed to have it, so no one can call me a liar. I’ve never put a second of work into it, so I can’t worry that I’ve wasted a second of work. I cannot be judged, I cannot fail, I cannot be unfavorably compared to another clarinet player.

Do you realize what that means?

It means that self-consciousness is an indicator of competence.

The skills you feel self-conscious about are the skills you’ve invested in emotionally. It has to be that way – without emotional investment, there’s nothing to feel self-conscious about. But that same investment is also likely paired with time and practice, so the very skills you’re most self-conscious of are the same skills you’ve spent the most time practicing and improving.

So if you don’t feel very confident about something – great! That means it’s probably among your best skills, and you’re well on your way to being absolutely wonderful at it. You’re certainly much better already than you think you are.

And no matter what, you’re a better clarinet player than I am.

Imagine you’re playing a trivia game. Every time you give a right answer you get a dollar, and every time you give a wrong answer you lose a dollar. Imagine your strategy for such a game. If it were me, I’d make sure I only attempted to answer questions where I was pretty sure (at least 51%, anyway) that I knew the right answer. If I started to get a few wrong, I’d adjust my confidence levels. If I had gotten a good number right then I might loosen up a little, but I’d still base my strategy on what I knew.

Now, imagine a trivia game with slightly different rules: every time you give a right answer you get a dollar, and every time you give a wrong answer nothing happens. Your strategy would be very different, wouldn’t it? If it were me, I’d buzz in every single time and I’d spout off as many answers as the rules allowed. If I could guess more than one time per question I’d just start shouting random words and phrases if I didn’t know the answer. Why not?

Now here’s the hack: Life is a lot more like the second game.

Most of the time, being “right” about something nets you some positive reward, but being wrong doesn’t lose you anything. If you ask out a hundred people and one says yes and gives you a wonderful relationship, the other 99 don’t take anything away. If you tell a hundred people that they look like exactly the person that needs to buy the widget you’re selling and one of them agrees, then you sold one widget – and the other 99 people don’t take anything away.

This is also a nasty trick if used for evil. Be aware of it. People will say things like “20 people died after getting this shot!” as if that was meaningful. You go: “Oh wow, 20 people!” But guess what? If I ask enough, I can find 20 people who died after eating a carrot, too. The eight million I asked who didn’t know anyone who died from carrot consumption? They don’t factor in, because they didn’t take anything away from my “study.” So be careful; you have to ask about the secret denominator.

But there’s the thing. For better or worse, the denominator is often invisible. We care about the number of times you get it right, not the number of total attempts. Most games allow unlimited replays, and the only cost is your time. That’s helpful to you when you’re trying to get things done; it’s hurtful to you if you aren’t aware of other people pulling a fast one.

Asking “out of how many” is good practice. For yourself, it can improve your performance, even though you should always remember your goal is a higher number of “rates per time” not a higher ratio of “rights to wrongs.” And for others, it can keep them honest – or at least keep yourself aware.

Lots of things in the world are dangerous. In virtually every case, the only way to make them less dangerous is to get exposure to them.

Driving a car is dangerous! We definitely shouldn’t take someone who has never even seen a car before and stick them behind the wheel on a busy freeway. And yet, people do get behind the wheel on busy freeways all the time. How do we manage? By getting small doses of exposure to the danger of driving in safe(r) environments.

It’s the same with literally everything. The wild, unconstrained internet can be a dangerous place for the uninitiated. So… initiate them. Small doses, careful training. Progressively larger cages until freedom.

The freakin’ stove is dangerous, man. Crossing the street is dangerous. Driving a forklift is dangerous. Handling chemicals or snakes or guns is dangerous. It’s all dangerous.

Life is danger. It’s constantly trying to kill you. The path to survival is exposure to it.

Here is a framework for thinking about larger projects, the kinds that often take extended periods of time and different sub-projects to complete.

First, figure out the individual “buckets” that need to be filled in order to complete the project. For example, if you’re trying to plan a party, you might need a “Manage the Guest List” bucket, a “Plan the Activities” bucket, a “Purchase Supplies” bucket, etc. The party doesn’t happen unless each bucket gets filled.

The “bucket” system is helpful because it helps you not only organize actions, but it helps you eliminate them. If you think of some activity you feel like you “should” do, you can ask: “What bucket does this help fill?” If you can’t immediately figure out which bucket it is, then you have to ask a second question: “Does that mean I missed a bucket, or does that mean I shouldn’t do this thing?“

(It is very often the latter!)

Next, for each bucket, there are likely barriers. Things in the way of you completing your task of filling that bucket. We’ll call them “rocks,” because they make the bucket feel heavy and full, but they aren’t what you actually need. The “Manage the Guest List” bucket might have a big rock in it labeled “Janet and Bill really don’t get along.” It might have a small rock in it labeled “I don’t have Mirabel’s new phone number.” But these rocks all have to be removed.

It can be tough to figure out which rocks need the most immediate attention, but here’s an easy question: “If I don’t remove this rock, what happens?” It seems obvious, but whenever a task seems like it should be done, we frequently skip that question. Many little pebbles won’t hurt your overall effort, but some of the biggest rocks will completely derail you.

If you start a project by labeling:

1. Which buckets need to be filled?
2. What activities fill them?
3. What rocks need to be removed?

You’re well on your way to staying clear and focused.

With every interaction you have with another human, you’re plunging them into a mystery.

You begin with a statement, and now the other person has this puzzle to solve: “Where is this coming from?”

Remember, in order for you to take the initiative to talk to another human, a whole lot of things had to happen. All of those events, questions, thoughts, and feelings that strung together to inspire you to go talk to Bob from Accounting or your Aunt Susan or whoever? You witnessed and experienced them. The other person did not.

So the other person has no idea what’s happening, they don’t know the context. And when humans don’t know something, they assume.

These assumptions are often uncharitable!

Masting the art of “providing context” is mastering the art of effective communication. If you want a little extra practice, consider asking yourself a few questions just before you start a new interaction with someone else. Imagine they ask you, right away, “Why are you asking/telling me this?” How would you respond? Build that explanation into your original statement and you’ll save a lot of time and effort.

A second practice question involves assuming resistance. What if they say: “I don’t have time to help you with this. Why should it be my priority?” Give that one a lot of thought, and build your response in as well. This one is extra good because it also helps filter out conversations that don’t value the other person’s time!

Try these exercises this week, and watch your interactions grow in effectiveness. Don’t let them just drop out of the blue.

My yard was full of children today, an event that always brings me great joy. I genuinely love the hours when my home is the center of people’s fun. I love gathering friends around a table for a meal or for games, I love having children running through my house as they play, and I love when family laughs within these walls.

Joy is, almost always, chaos. I don’t love chaos – I love my orderly neatness, my quiet control. But I love these joyous moments of chaos more, all the same. I wouldn’t give them up; in fact, I work hard to foster them.

The beautiful thing about the joy of others is that it becomes your joy by simple proximity. All you have to do is let it wash over you, and you can have it all without diminishing it in others. That’s worth making the time for.