Hey Reader,
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Hope you are having an awesome weekend.

You might be familiar with these four principles as critical ingredients for goal achievement:

1. Directed thoughts. 💡
2. Unrelenting desire. 🔥
3. The power of belief. 🌟
4. Persistent action. 💪

These principles or qualities have been endlessly written and bandied about throughout the personal development world and even in various spiritual teachings like the Law of Attraction as a major part of the formula for creating whatever you want in life.

This is widely referred to as “manifesting.”

Often characterized by the idea “thoughts become things” — and while that notion is often misunderstood, there is indeed a science behind how setting a goal will automatically put your brain to work in achieving that goal.

🧠 Your brain is built for goals!

This essay has been a long time in the making, aims to provide a simple overview of how those four components of thoughts, desire, belief, and action come into play when it comes to goals from a neuroscience perspective at the most basic of levels.

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​Why it’s Hard to Set Boundaries: The Yes Autopilot​
​Anne-Laure Le Cunff | 6 mins

Setting boundaries can be hard. As we grow up, we are taught to be kind, helpful, and generous, but sometimes we just want to tell people "No."

In this post, the author points to a few reasons why we sometimes stay on “yes autopilot”

• Social conditioning​
  We tend to link our identity with how much we are needed or called upon by others. Helping someone means we’re kind, being available means we’re a good friend, organizing an event at work means we’re a team player.
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• Perfectionism
  ​We often want to be our absolute best to everyone and everything we set out to do, even if it means extra stress for us.
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• Upbringing​
  If your boundaries were not respected as a child, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to set boundaries for yourself and for others as an adult.
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• Lack of focus​
  If your own goals and direction for your life are not clearly defined, it may feel easier to say yes to everything as a way to keep busy and distract yourself.
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• FOMO​
  Your fear of missing out may prevent you from setting clear boundaries. What if something important happens while I’m not there? What if people bond during an event and I’m not here?

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​This Is How We Develop Anxiety…And Here’s What To Do About It ​
​Amy White | 8 mins

Some good snippets from this post:

• The main reason we worry is due to our awareness of our inherent lack of control. And somewhere deep down in our primal psyches lies the belief that if we worry hard enough…nothing bad will happen.
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• According to Britain’s top therapist Marisa Peer, "we are WIRED to think and act in certain ways which are often counterproductive’, ‘but once we’re aware of how the human mind works it all gets quite simple in terms of turning it all around."

​Read the post​

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​Use Positive Feedback Loops To Achieve Your Goals​
​Zen Habits | 9 mins

We have all been there. We make a plan to start a new habit or do a particular task consistently as part of achieving a goal we have, but life happens — we get distracted, interrupted, or we flat out don't feel like doing it. Then right on cue, we start to feel bad about it.

And if this happens again over the next few days, we feel completely undisciplined, discouraged, and like a failure.

This is the negative feedback loop at work.

Instead, we want to consciously employ POSITIVE feedback loops that give us some kind of reward or positive feeling regularly when we do the task or habit.

This post breaks down the principles behind designing a positive feedback loop to help keep us motivated and encouraged as move towards our goals. It's a damn good post.

​Read the post​

Over the past few weeks, we have seen an influx of new readers to the newsletter and I just want to welcome everyone and extend my gratitude for joining. I appreciate you being here!

Here are some popular content from recent editions:

• ​7 Lessons To Build Extreme Resilience by Srikumar Rao​
• ​What's Your Purpose? It's Hiding In Plain Sight​
• ​The Fallacy of Overwhelm: 9 Ways To Stop Feeling Overwhelmed​

Hope you enjoy!

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Thanks for reading.
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If you have any questions, feedback, or want to share some of your own insights, feel free to hit reply and let me know. I read and reply to every email.
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​As Always, Keep Creating,

Anthony V. Lombardo

https://anthonyvlombardo.com
Download my Life Visioning Workbook
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