Stephen’s Self-Assessment Arcade

Mental Inventory

Information Feeds

Ask yourself these questions:

How much do you seek out information that challenges, rather than confirms, your existing beliefs?
How do you gather information about the world around you?

Let’s Talk

How much thought have you given to what you talk about? Here are some points to consider.

Self-Talk

Listen critically to the words you say to yourself. Some examples:

When things go wrong, do you find yourself thinking of sentences with the word again in them? This is a sign that you expect things to go wrong.
What is the first thing that comes into your mind when you come upon an unexpected problem? Don’t discount the responses you have when you are stressed; these are the most important. For example, do you think:

What am I going to do about this?
It’s not fair!
Why does this always happen to me?

When you make a mistake, do you criticize yourself over it for days?
Do you need to convince yourself that your setbacks are the fault of someone else?
What kind of future do you visualize for yourself?

Talk to Others

When you talk to others, what do you talk about? Are you usually:

Complaining?
Disparaging people who are not present?
Confirming one anothers’ previously held beliefs?

When you are confronted with an unfamiliar conversational subject, what do you do? Do you just listen? Do you tune out? Do you try to steer the conversation back to ground of your choosing?
What makes you laugh? In order for something to be funny, does it have to be at the expense of someone else?
What are you enthusiastic about to others?

No Talk

Do you have a need to fill dead air? How do you handle silence during a conversation?

The Walls Talk

How long can you be alone in your home with no TV or music before the quiet begins to bother you? How often do you need to have the TV on, even when you are not watching it, just to fill the room with human voices?

Mental Clutter

It is impossible to keep your mind organized if junk is being dumped into it from other sources. Here are some popular sources of junk to fill up your mind.

Television News

During the late 80’s, an author (whose name I do not recall) described the 11 o’clock news as “violent wallpaper.” Ask yourself how many of the news stories:

Are treated in sufficient depth to allow you to understand what’s going on?
Contain information that will help you make decisions in your life?
Contain information that will allow you to act as a resource to others, helping them make decisions in their lives?
Contain information that allows you to be a more effective citizen?

Music

What kind of music do you like to listen to? Does it have words? If so, what are the words about? How many of these themes show up frequently in the music you like:

Someone out there will make me happy without my having to take any initiative.
I trusted someone and I was taken advantage of.
Life is unfair.
Life is futile.
We are the victims of others having (economic, political, social, ...) power.
Nobody understands me.
I wish I were dead.

Before Calling It a Night

Personal productivity experts advise that you plan the next day during the prior evening. This gives your subconscious mind all night to work on them. From this it follows that the things you think about before turning in will be the things in front of your subconscious all night.

What do you think about before going to sleep?

Last modified Monday, 14-Jul-2014 16:38:18 EDT