Book notes
by Meredithe · 43 things on Twos
- The power of TED
- All of life’s experiences are teachers in some sense, challenging us to grow and evolve. Although the Persecutor certainly provokes a reaction, the Challenger elicits a response by encouraging the Creator to acquire new knowledge, skill, or insight. Both roles provoke change, but in different ways.”
- “The way you talk about yourself and your life—your story—has a great deal to do with what shows up in your day-to-day experience. Your thoughts create filters through which you view your life.
- The Procrastination Equation accounts for every major finding for procrastination. As the deadline for any task gets pushed further into the future, Delay increases and our motivation to tackle the tasks decreases. Impulsiveness multiplies the effects of Delay, and so impulsive people feel the effects of time far less acutely, at least at first.
The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours.
- “You must match time’s swiftness with your speed in using it, and you must drink quickly as though from a rapid stream that will not always flow.”
- In other words, you must live with a sense of (grounded) URGENCY!!
- “Just as you must not force fertile farmland, as uninterrupted productivity will soon exhaust it, so constant effort will sap our mental vigour, while a short period of rest and relaxation will restore our powers.”
- Meditations by Marcus Arelius
- The-worse YOU feel, the more you’re going to see the WORST in others. So, if you’re getting all snippity-snappity with people around you, you might want to check in and see how you’re feeling about YOURSELF and quit projecting all that dislike onto everyone else. (Just sayin’.)
- Happiness wasn’t something you chased after. It was something you PRACTICED every day—making a habit out of it.
- How?
- By integrating tiny Optimizations and living just a little bit more in integrity with your highest self. Working on your happiness the same way a master craftsman worked on his craft.
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- 80/20 Rule - Richard Koch
- —> “The main gift that these people have is the same one we all have—the adaptability of the human brain and body, which they have taken advantage of more than the rest of us.”
- Because if you’re seduced by the idea that some people have “it” and some don’t, you may too quickly decide that you (or your kids, friends, etc.) *don’t* have it and then give up—not even TRYING to go for it and, as a result, proving yourself right.
- Simply doing something again and again does NOT lead to adaptability and improvement.
- We need to be purposeful + deliberate about it.
- So here we have purposeful practice in a nutshell: Get outside your comfort zone but do it in a focused way, with clear goals, a plan for reaching those goals, and a way to monitor your progress. Oh, and figure out a way to maintain your motivation.”
- What’s exciting is that, if we push ourselves out of our comfort zone, our bodies respond by overcompensating in pursuit of creating a new, higher level of
- This is a REALLY exciting feature of the human body and brain. In fact, it’s our greatest gift. We need to use it wisely. Remember: Get out of your comfort zone. It’s the only way to grow.
- I’ve often thought of it like a spiderweb. I started with one little thread. Then another. And another. As I immerse myself in the field, striving to get better and stretching myself, I find that the “web” is getting stronger and stronger and certain Ideas I’ve seen + taught before make even more sense and fit into an interconnected whole. It’s one big mental representation game.
- Imagine your life in 5 years. All your hard work pays off and your life is amazing. What’s it like?
- It is much discussed and celebrated, and it is somewhat important at school and in the workplace, but a high IQ is not essential to a good life. However, hope is like oxygen. As I saw then and continue to see every day, we can’t live without hope.”
- Alright. Let’s start by differentiating three different ways we can think about the future: fantasizing, dwelling and hoping.
- Fantasizing = Pure big shiny awesome. It’s all (unrealistically) perfect kinda thing.
- Dwelling = All the things that can go wrong. It all kinda (unrealistically) sucks.
- HOPING = Combining the best of those—we’re fired up about an exciting future AND we’re aware of the inherent challenges to making that future a reality
- The hopeful share core beliefs that set them apart from others. Two of them are:
- The future will be better than the present.
- • I have the power to make it so.”
- Goals. You need to have a future “there” that fires you up!
- Agency. You need to believe that you have the power to make that future a reality.
- 3. Pathways. You need to know that there are a bunch of ways to reach your goal (aka to go from “here to there” and that none of those paths will be free of obstacles.
- Hope is created moment to moment through our deliberate choices. It happens when we use our thoughts and feelings to temper our aversion to loss and actively pursue what is possible. When we choose hope, we define what matters to us most.
- We ALL (!) have little (or big) weaknesses. A spectrum of slightly sub-optimal —> seriously stupid things we do when our willpower is depleted and we’re a little tired/stressed/wobbly.
- What songs do those seductive Sirens whisper in YOUR ear?
- This is worth reflecting on and writing down.
- These are some of the sweet melodies Sirens sing to me:
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- The research is unequivocal about this. When you set a new goal or create an assignment for yourself, get really clear on WHEN (and where) you will do it. (But only if you want to 2x the odds of doing it! hah)
- btw: This is why systems are so powerful. They’re like PERMANENT when/where plans for your most important stuff.