Hello and welcome to the twenty second day of the June 30 days writing challenge. If you want to know all the details about this specific challenge, have a look at the introductory post. In short, I will be posting every day a short tip, or technique, or opinion, something that you can call a "life hack". Feel free to join the challenge and post your own life hacks. I will do my best to upvote each day at full strength (about $3 at the current STEEM price) 3 posts tagged #challenge30days (leaving a link to your posts in the comments will also help).

When In Doubt, Improvise

For a long time I thought improvisation is an immutable, innate quality in people, just like, I don't know, the color of the eyes. I was well over in my thirties when I realized improvisation is actually a type of response that can be trained, just like you train your body for a marathon, with really great benefits. It helps especially in stressful situations, when the mind seems to see no solution and grips, resorting to "fight or flight" responses.

About that time I started to frequent improvisation shows and I even had a one year long streak of weekly attendances to a local impro show. The actors even befriended me and I got to learn a few tricks.

One of them was: "In impro, you never answer with a No, even if you have no idea about the thing you're supposed to say. You always answer with a Yes, but. If you go straight to No, it just kills the show, because there's nothing left to chain to."

It really makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Instead of saying "No, I'm not good at blogging", you could go like "Yes, I do have some writing shortcomings, but... I can address them".

Or, to take it up a notch, you don't have to say "No, I'm not a rich person", because you can always replace this answer with "Yes, I don't have a lot of money right now, but... I'm working on it".

Replacing the No in your life with Yes, but... is really a powerful technique to improve your standard responses to stressful situations and to increase your ability to improvise. A few years later, when I started to take tango lessons (eventually I became a tango teacher and even lived off of it for almost a year, oh, the good times...) this "impro muscle workout" really served me well. Argentine tango, although it has a fixed set of steps, is a highly improvisational dance, and that's what really makes it so unique.

All in all, the life hack for today is: "if you don't know the answer, just go for Yes, but...".

I'm really curious to read about your life hack today. Leave a comment with a link to your post, if possible.

Previous Posts In The Challenge

• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Twenty First: Decluttering - Set A Lifespan To Every Object You Own
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Twenty: Creativity - Go From A To B In 5 Mental "Fractures"
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Nineteen: Write A Short Story About Your Future Self
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Eighteen: Pop Out Balloons Fast
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Seventeen:Replace Re-Action With Action
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Sixteen:The 5 Minutes Meditation Box
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Fifteen: Create - And Maintain - A Morning Phrase
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Fourteen: Improve 1% Per Day
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Thirteen: Get Rid Of TV. For Good.
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Twelve: Save 10% Of Your Income - No. Matter. What.
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Eleven: Set - And Keep - A Monthly Personal Expense Budget
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Ten: Set A "Main Task" For Each Day
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hack - Day Nine: Keep A Journal
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Eight: Keep An Activity Log
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Seven: Implement A New Habit With A 30 Days Challenge
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Six: Put It In Front Of The Door
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Five: The Pomodoro Technique
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Four: Keep A Clear Mind By Unloading Ideas Immediately
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Three: Intermittent Fasting
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Two: The "2 Minutes" Time Management Rule
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day One: Avoid Fighting With A Simple Visualization Technique
• Announcing The June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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