What I'm Learning 8/31/2021

Always be learning, whether that's books, podcasts, videos, articles blogs, conversations, or any other method. Whatever works best and is most effective for your growth! Articles, blogs, and podcasts are my preferred methods, and I want to start sharing the resources that have the biggest impact and takeaways. It could be a quote, an idea, a tactic, or a question to ask yourself. I hope people feel spurred to check out some of these resources in depth for themselves, and I'd be happy to discuss any of them and the knowledge they're communicating. When you discuss and explain something with another person you get to learn it twice! Here is what has been most interesting to me in the last week:

Question for the week: How do you feel about yourself when you're by yourself? Are you proud of where you are headed, and do you feel good about the effort you are putting forth to get there? Or if you were to be totally honest are you half trying in important areas of your life? Are you slacking on the habits and actions that are needed for you to become your best self?

Quote for the week: Sometimes in life, we need a few bad days in order to keep the good ones in perspective." - Colleen Hoover. If every day were amazing then we wouldn't appreciate them as much. Humans naturally adapt to whatever our "normal" is and start to notice it less. The contrast between the good days and bad days shows how we must treasure the good ones and not take them for granted.

How to use your calendar to achieve the big things

Carl shares his experience in using scheduling things in his calendar to increase their productivity and actually accomplish their goals for the year. Often we have many things we want to do one day but until we actually get them scheduled into our calendar one day keeps getting pushed off into never actually going to happen.

Getting back into shape

This article talks about how to restart a working out habit if you have fallen out of it for a period of time. It offers good advice on how to slowly ease back in and that you cannot immediately jump back to your previous level of fitness. It also talks about giving yourself patience as you work back to the health or strength you used to have. It will take time but the biggest obstacle is getting started.

How to Create Mental Space

1. Stop reaching for your phone every time you have a spare second
2. Don’t beat yourself up for not always trying to please others, it’s OK to focus on yourself sometimes
3. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that working on small meaningless tasks rather than your most urgent and important tasks is productivity. That’s another form of procrastination
4. Comparison will most likely only lead to shame or self deprecation
5. How many good or empowering decisions have you made from fear?

Success requires failure, just start

It’s hard to reach contentment because our sense of success changes in the future every time we hit whatever success used to be. So quickly we’re on to the next goal. Failure is not the end and not a sign to pivot to something else. If you do that you’ll never develop the mastery that is needed to excel. Taking action and starting is a prerequisite to moving toward any goal you have.