“No Such Thing As Normal” was written by Bryony Gordon, founder of Mental Health Mates in the UK, an organization that hosts walking meet-ups to talk about mental health. I am grateful that I generally don’t struggle with mental health, but I still gained insights from this book.
**WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK OF YOU IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DO IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.**
Bryony Gordon
I wish I had read this sooner! Also, if someone tells you or shows you who they are, and you don’t like it, do NOT waste time and energy trying to make them like you. The single most important factor for your well-being is not what other people think of you; it is what you think of yourself.
Worrying about the thing is almost always worse than the thing itself. This is SO true!
Instead of asking yourself “What if it all goes wrong?” ask yourself “What if it all goes right?”
Put your own mask on before attempting to help anyone else with theirs. Take care of yourself. However, if you have time to help others, it’s very hard to feel useless when you are being useful.
Things will get better when you do the work. Exercise can be one of the most important tools for helping mental illness. How to get through bad days: make a plan for each day, contact at least one person, go outside, be patient, and think about what you CAN control.
Never say anything to yourself you would not say to someone else.
Tips for better sleep: get into a routine, read before bed, and do breathing exercises.
Most people with mental health issues have to jump through hoops to get anywhere near treatment. So perhaps we should stop marginalizing and stereotyping them as weak and instead recognize them for their absolutely mind-bending strength.
There is no such thing as normal.
There were SO many resources provided in this book. However, they were all in the UK since the author lives in the UK.
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
I recently read “High Performance Habits” written by Brendon Burchard, the world’s leading high performance coach and one of the most watched, quoted, and followed personal development trainers in history. I highly recommend this book!
The gist of this book is that, to become a high performer, you must seek clarity, generate energy, raise necessity, increase productivity, develop influence, and demonstrate courage.
Seek clarity on who you want to be, how you want to interact with others, what you want, and what will bring you the greatest meaning. As every project begins, ask yourself: “What kind of person do I want to be while I’m doing this? How should I treat others? What are my intentions and objectives? What can I focus on that will bring me a sense of connection and fulfillment? Consistently seek clarity.”
Generate energy so that you can maintain focus, effort, and well-being.
If you want to feel more energized, creative, and effective at work – and still leave work with enough oomph for the ‘life’ part, the ideal breakpoint is to stop your work and give your mind and body a break every 45-60 minutes.”
Brendon Burchard
Get up, walk around, and fill up your water.
If the demands of your job or life require you to learn fast, deal with stress, be alert, pay attention, remember important things, and keep a positive mood, then you must take exercise more seriously. If you care about your contribution to the world, you’ll care about yourself.”
Brendon Burchard
Raise necessity. For exceptional performance, know your whys – internal and external. Internal whys may include your identity, your standards, and your obsessions. External whys may include real deadlines, your social duty, and your sense of obligation and purpose. To raise necessity:
High necessity= “I feel a deep emotional drive and commitment to succeeding, and it consistently forces me to work hard, stay disciplined, and push myself.”
Know who needs your A game. With multiple priorities, consider “Who needs me on my A game the most right now?”
“Have I associated the important activities of my day with my identity and my sense of obligation?”
Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
Pablo Picasso
Increase productivity in your primary field of interest. Slow down, be more strategic, and say no more often. Take ownership of your day.
Develop influence with those around you. Develop a positive support network. People support what they create. Ask people what they want, how they’d like to work together, and what outcomes they care about.
To gain influence with others, teach them how to think about themselves, others, and the world; challenge them to develop their character, connections, and contributions; and role model the values you wish to see them embody. High performers have discovered that it is by connecting with others that they learn more about themselves and the world.
Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.
Amy Poehler
Demonstrate courage by expressing your ideas and taking action despite uncertainty. You are capable of remarkable things that you could never foretell and will never discover without taking action.” What leaps could you take now?
Passion + Growth + Contribution = Personal Satisfaction
Enthusiasm + Connection + Satisfaction + Coherence = Meaning
If you want to be a high performer, show up and bring the joy. High performers cultivate joy by how they think, what they focus on, and how they engage in and reflect on their days.
When people say “I can’t,” it usually means “I am unwilling to do the long-term training and conditioning necessary to achieve that.” Everything is trainable.
High performers are learners, and their belief that they can learn what is necessary to win in the future gives them as much confidence as their current skillsets.”
Brendon Burchard
Between each task in your day, remember this: *RELEASE TENSION, SET INTENTION*
Don’t bring tension to all future aspects of your day. How many times have we been guilty of having a rough morning and carrying it into all aspects of our day? Have you had a conversation or meeting that didn’t pan out the way you wanted it to and resulted in you carrying frustration or resentment toward those involved? Have you had a rough day at work and carried it into your relationships at home?
High performers have shaped their identity by conscious will and have aligned their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to support that identity.
Brendon Burchard
Superior-minded people are certain they are better, more capable, and more deserving, and it’s that certainty that closes their minds to learning, connection with others, and growth. Stay humble. If you’re going to maintain high performance, you need to avoid the traps of superiority, dissatisfaction, and neglect.
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:
“What’s New?” – Self Improvement Daily
A question that we often ask each other to catch up is “What’s new?”. The question is well-intended but the response is usually underwhelming – “Work is good, family is good, all’s good!”
Brian Ford
“What’s new?” is an opportunity to share what you’re excited about, what is changing in your life, or what you’re working on. If you’re pursuing the best version of yourself, there should always be something new going on to share.
The next time someone asks you “What’s new?”, instead of giving the same generic response, tell them what you’re working on, what is changing in your life, or what you’re excited about. Use it as an opportunity to share.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty- 6 Ways to Know if You’re Compatible with Someone + 4 Steps to Build Real Connection
Chemistry does not equal compatibility. Chemistry is like lighting a matchstick. It burns and runs out. Compatibility is like a candle that burns slowly and takes much longer to run out.
Jay Shetty
Compatibility does NOT mean the same personality. You can have a lot in common personality-wise, but have massively different expectations and input that don’t make you compatible. A lot of people want their partner to have the same exact interests as them. You aren’t trying to date yourself! “We’re so different” is not what leads to distance.
Compatibility does not mean it is easy to get along. It requires deeper understanding and knowledge, which often requires discomfort. Compatibility requires discomfort.
Jay Shetty
Compatibility does NOT require changing someone else.
Most of us believe that the way WE were raised is the right way to do things. You’ve built a home full of your ideas, and when you get into a relationship, you tend to want your partner to live in your house with your ideas and thoughts, and they want to live in their house with their ideas. Getting in a relationship requires you to build your own house together with bricks from each one.
Steps to build compatibility:
RARE:
Recognize differences. Know where that person is different. Ex: Organized vs. spontaneous
Awareness of their stance and why. Where did it come from and why are they that way? Compatibility means I know why I am the way I am, and I know why my partner is the way they are. Compatibility requires that you have an awareness of why someone makes the choices they’re making.
Respect their approach.
Express your feelings without feeling judged. It takes time and skill.
Think of this: Are you able to recognize my differences, be aware of how I think and why I think that way, respect that, and let me express myself without feeling judged? Can we do this daily and get better at it? Are we willing to do the work to be together? It’s NOT “Are we right for each other?” Instead, it’s “Do we want to be right for each other?”
Areas of compatibility:
Wealth compatibility- does not mean you have the same views about $ or finances. Do we understand why each of us thinks about $ in this way? What is the solution we want to create together?
Beauty- If you’re together, how do you feel about yourself?
Power- knowing which partner is good at what and letting them lead in that area. People often criticize their partners in public. How does your partner want to be acknowledged and appreciated?
Renunciation- letting your partner grow at their own pace. Use encouragement, guidance, love, and support, not force. Their path is different than yours.
Knowledge compatibility- trying to learn new things with each other or learning new things separately and sharing your learnings.
Harvard Business Review Ideacast- Why Some Start-Ups Fail to Scale
Common reasons why start-ups fail to scale:
Can’t source enough supply to keep up with the demand
Problems securing capital to the point where the business becomes cash-flow positive
Not having sufficiently coherent culture/efforts not aligned when increasing number of staff
Attempting to scale into a market that isn’t big enough to justify their scale/don’t have practical or feasible means to reach their target market when scaling
Start-ups need an effective way to get to their target market/market strategy, an idea of the approach to monetization, capital investment, a strategy to hit milestones that will get them capital investment, and need a plan for sustainability.
Case example: Wayfair. Wayfair started with multiple specific websites for each type of products. They eventually realized that, in order to have repeat customers, they needed to merge into one website: Wayfair.
Taken from Wayfair.com:
“Niraj and Steve jumped in, looking at what people were searching for and building destinations for those products. Soon they had launched CSN Stores, a collection of more than 200 sites with everything from bar stools to bedroom furniture and birdhouses.
In 2011, we brought everything together under one roof and created wayfair.com: a single site where people could find millions of products for every part of their homes.”
One of my favorite television shows is Shark Tank. I love to get an inside look at entrepreneurship and venture capital, and I find it fascinating to learn about new products, successes and challenges, and negotiations. I often find myself evaluating whether I think a product is going to become useful and popular, whether it is a product that allows the company to have repeat customers, whether I think the entrepreneurs should give up a certain percentage of their company to investors, etc. Many entrepreneurs on the show have issues sourcing supply to keep up with the demand, problems securing capital, difficulty trying to become cash-flow positive, and attempting to scale into a market that isn’t big enough.
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
“The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It” by Jennifer Moss was among my top 20 favorite books I read in 2022. Jennifer Moss is an award-winning journalist, author and international public speaker.
Packed with insightful research and data, this book examined what causes burnout and what organizations can do to prevent it, how companies can build an anti-burnout strategy, and how leaders can measure burnout in their own organizations. I will note that this book surprisingly focused more on organizations and leaders instead of the typical self-care ideas.
There are 6 causes of burnout:
Workload
Perceived lack of control
Lack of reward or recognition
Poor work relationships
Lack of fairness
Values mismatch
Leaders should ask themselves “How do we create a better, healthier workplace for people so they don’t burn out?” “Empathy drives great leadership. If that tenet is at the root of our decision making, we are more likely to prevent burnout because the pro-social payoffs are plenty.”
Jennifer Moss
MOTIVATION factors include challenging work, recognition for one’s achievements, responsibility, the opportunity to do something meaningful, involvement in decision making, and a sense of importance to the organization.
HYGIENE factors include salary, work conditions, company policy and administration, supervision, working relationships, and status and security.
“Often, employees don’t recognize when an organization has good hygiene, but bad hygiene can cause a major distraction.”
Jennifer Moss
Tips for leaders to help avoid burnout: focus on strengths, increase training, provide resources and support, give everyone a voice to share concerns or ideas, recognize hard work, and check in frequently but don’t micromanage.
Perfectionists (me!): stop trying to control everything, understand the difference between self-knowledge and self-awareness, accept help, and take care of yourselves so that you can take care of others.
In cases of workload burnout, ask yourself: “Is what I’m doing helping or harming me? Do I continue to raise my hand even though I know I should focus on accomplishing my current workload? Do I communicate to others when I feel like it’s too much? Do I delegate well? Have I identified what gives me energy and what drains me? Do I manage my distractions? Do I have outside interests or do I give my life to work? Do I have a close friend at work I can lean on for support?”
Working from home at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic was tough. I was suddenly working and quarantining in my small one-bedroom apartment at the time, and it was hard to separate work life from my home life since I was always home. The couch I sat on to read or watch tv was the same seat I sat on to work all day. As client demands increased, and training a colleague from home was not an option, my workload continued to pile up. There were many times I worked all day, took a break for supper, and then worked at night to keep up with the new demands. Without a social life or many hobbies, and with businesses closed, my work was my life. Some days I felt like I didn’t do anything exciting or anything for MYSELF; when I reflected on my day, all I could think about was work. My perception of my day was solely focused on my reflection of work that day.
I knew I needed a change, so eventually, I started focusing on daily habits or doing something for myself each day. I started with reading every day, later added listening to a podcast each day, and eventually added exercising each day. With businesses closed, I started walking on a walking path near my apartment to exercise each day, and on the walking path, I made a nearby friend who happened to work at the same company as I did! We were able to meet and go on walks for 3-5 miles most evenings. Getting out in nature while socializing quickly became the best part of my days and the best form of stress relief.
In 2022, I had focused extensively on forming daily habits. It was a life-changing year, and it helped me to cultivate passions outside of work. Sure, work was very stressful at times, but I took pride in looking back on my days knowing that I had done several things for ME. Through some career changes, I am also grateful to have found an organization that is invested in preventing employee burnout.
Some things are out of your control, but YOU can and should take action on the things that ARE in your control to prevent burnout.
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:
Ted Health- How to Manage Your Stress Like an ER Doctor
When people ask how others have been, “crazy busy” is a common answer. “Crazy busy” mode means you are less capable of handling the busy. The truth is, you can be as busy as an emergency department without being crazy busy. Instead of “crazy busy,” ready mode means you are ready for whatever comes at you, and you are capable of handling it.
Just as ER doctors do, we need to relentlessly triage. Crazy busy involves reacting to every challenge with the same response. Ready mode involves triaging and prioritizing by degrees of urgency. Individuals who react to everything with the same response have double the level of stress hormones.
Triage:
Red- immediately life-threatening
Yellow- serious, but not immediately life-threatening
Green- minor
Black- for patients for whom there is nothing ER doctors can do. We must move on.
We each have our own black tasks in our lives – items that we must take off of our lists. If you try to do everything, you have no hope of saving your “reds.”
Part of the problem in crazy busy mode is that you are reacting to everything as if it is red. Start by triaging. Know your “reds.”
To avoid burnout, design your life to make tasks easier to do. Find ways to reduce daily decisions, such as meal planning and prepping for the week during the weekend. Automate any recurring bills. Habit stack (ex: listen to a podcast while getting ready for work, clean or do dishes while your food is in the oven, etc.) Time block for single tasks and eliminate distractions.
Own the busy, but stop calling it crazy.
Self Improvement Daily- Setting the Tone for the Day
“When you snooze and delay starting the day, you’re giving yourself permission to allow your emotions to affect your decision making. This often causes you to start the day running behind, which then is an energy that affects how you show up to everything else.”
Self Improvement Daily Podcast
Pre-determine 5 minutes of activity that begins the second your alarm goes off, don’t check your phone, and avoid social media right away in the morning. Instead, stick to a pre-planned routine to set your intentions for the day. I have also heard in a different podcast that sitting up and drinking a glass of water while in bed right when your alarms goes off aids in waking you up quickly.
I have been snoozing the alarm regularly lately, and I will be trying these tips soon!
7 Fat Loss Tips We Can Learn From Bodybuilders- Optimal Health Daily
Protein should be first priority! Choose lean meats.
Replace more complex carbs with fibrous veggies.
Do cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.
Hydrate adequately. Getting enough water is essential to obtaining your fat loss results. Water should be 90% of the liquid you drink each day.
On Purpose Podcast with Jay Shetty- 6 Scientifically Proven Ways to Improve Work-Life Balance
Build skills and learn more to create more meaning from work. Are you realizing your potential at work? Skills result in increased productivity and effectiveness and therefore decrease stress.
Flexibility and autonomy generate satisfaction with work-life balance. Look for roles that offer flexibility and autonomy.
Take time to do things that are refreshing. Do something for yourself each day. Get outside in nature during the day, and if you can’t, go to a window and look outside often.
Switch away from to-do lists and toward time blocking to focus on individual tasks without distractions.
Focus on the relationships at work as much as the work itself.
Runner’s World Magazine article- Run 26.2 Miles on a Glacier by Elizabeth L. Silver
I learned about the 7 Continents Marathon Club, which currently consists of 407 members! From the website (icemarathon.com): “The Club is unique, reserved for athletes who have run a marathon within the Antarctic Circle on the Antarctica continent, as well as on the other six continents.” The Antarctic marathon costs $21,500 alone + some travel expenses, so many runners are sponsored by athletic apparel companies.
I also came across this YouTube video in which marathoners run 7 marathons in 7 continents in 7 days, starting with Antarctica!
I have never run a marathon, but I found this inspiring and fascinating.
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
“Embrace Your Almost” written by Jordan Lee Dooley was one of my top 20 books of 2022. Jordan is the host of the SHE podcast and owner of SoulScripts, a words company known for its phrase “Your brokenness is welcome here.” Using examples such as growing a garden, pregnancy loss, closing a business, moving, and a change in career, this book contained helpful perspectives about the almost-but-not-quite experiences we face.
“Every struggle and setback along the way made me the woman I am today. Without almost-but-not-quite experiences, I might never have slowed down, reconsidered what matters to me, developed deeper empathy, and refocused on my priorities.”
Jordan Lee Dooley
Years ago, I was in an extensive hiring process for over seven months for a career I was very excited about. I spent seven months envisioning this new life moving across the country, working long hours, and being in an honorable position. The role didn’t come to fruition, and I was heartbroken and frustrated. After having read and learned more about it, I frequently reflect about my experience and am grateful that it didn’t work out. The setback allowed me to slow down, reconsider my priorities, and prioritize what is best for me and my family. I now have a job I have wanted for years, a great work-life balance, and was able to stay in Minnesota with my husband and family.
Sometimes when we find ourselves stuck between where we started and where we want to be, we focus so much on the life we WANT to have that we fail to appreciate the one we DO have. We can be successful and create beautiful lives EVEN when a specific goal or dream takes longer to achieve or doesn’t work out exactly how we planned. We just have to look at success differently.
Life is more like a garden to tend than a game to win. One of my favorite quotes is “Bloom where you are planted.” In the face of disappointment, ask yourself: “What do I truly want? Why do I want it? How am I going to steward it?” If you’re letting go of a dream, identify what matters most and why, evaluate and seek counsel, and make a plan for the open space on your plate. Are there things you’ve always wanted to do but never had time for?
Maybe the secret to contentment isn’t found when we get something we want easily and on the first try. Instead, maybe contentment grows in all the hard moments that break us down along the way.
Jordan Lee Dooley
Unexpected gains come out of difficult experiences:
empathy
patience
clarity (pause and reconsider what matters)
discernment (what’s worth your time/which options align with your values/who you’re willing to trust or listen to)
intentionality
Do you ever believe the lie that when you get “here” or “there,” you’ll finally be successful – only to realize you’re chasing a moving target? Do you ever have a hard time discerning which dreams are truly yours, which just sound fun, and which are the result of pressure that society or someone else has put on you? We often only get clarity through adversity. Sometimes what looks like a setback can actually be a setup.
It’s easy to fall into the comparison trap. We see people are “ahead” of us in terms of marriage, children, home ownership, careers, finances, health, etc. The author discussed with her friends and found “just as I felt behind in one area of life, women all around me felt behind in another area.” This is eye-opening. Plus, the sense of having it all and having it all together can shatter in the blink of an eye.
The comparison trap reminded me of a podcast episode I recently listened to, Your Mind Matters. The episode was titled “You are on time for your own life.”
“Just because your life doesn’t look like someone else’s doesn’t mean that you are falling behind, doesn’t mean that you aren’t accomplishing enough, doesn’t mean that you are doomed, doesn’t mean that you are setting yourself up for failure. It just means that someone else’s journey doesn’t look like yours and that’s okay.”
“Your Mind Matters podcast”
How boring would it be if your life looked exactly like everyone else’s? How boring would it be if you got exactly what you wanted when you wanted it? You would get bored so quickly! You are on time for your own life. Someone else’s life timeline and accomplishments have nothing to do with you.
This resonates with me. Growing up, I had determined timelines in mind for when I would get married, when I would have an established long-term career, when I would have kids, etc. I didn’t meet any of those timelines and fell into the comparison trap because others I grew up with or graduated with had accomplished those things. I felt behind in life. After reflecting, I am grateful for the timing I have experienced. I had different priorities than my preset timelines and experienced exponential learning and personal growth along the way.
This was an eye-opening Christian book that caused me to reflect on some of my almost-but-not-quite experiences and how they shaped who I am and brought clarity to my life and priorities.
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
One of my favorite books from 2022 was Tribe of Mentors by Timothy Ferriss. Tim tracked down more than 100 experts to navigate life and included nearly 600 pages of their recommendations. I have always tried to take away at least one thing from one person (the author) with each book I’ve read, so having over 100 people offer input in this book was amazing!
One piece of advice that SO many mentors gave that changed their lives was to learn how to say NO without guilt, pressure, or obligation. This is relevant to work, social outings, opportunities, and every other aspect of life.
This is a lesson that so many people could find useful. In the past, I had often felt overwhelmed with obligations, and now I am more careful with how I spend my time and energy and whom I spend my time with.
“Busy is a decision. You don’t find the time to do something. You make the time to do things.”
Debbie Millman
This was a lesson increasingly evident with the COVID-19 pandemic. Finding ourselves with extra time due to the lack of social events, commute, and, for some, their jobs, did not always result in doing the things we had been procrastinating on that we had always said we would do “if we had more time.” I think COVID-19 really taught us what our priorities are with our time.
from Debbie Millman- Career questions to ask yourself: Am I spending enough time on looking for, finding, and working toward a great job? Am I constantly refining and improving my skills? What can I continue to get better and more competitive at? Do I believe that I am working harder than everyone else? If not, what else can I be doing? What are the people who are competing with me doing that I’m not doing?
from Arianna Huffington- “Burnout is not the price you have to pay for success.” When we prioritize our well-being, our performance goes up across the board.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, ask yourself these questions: Sleep? Exercise? Healthy food? Am I resentful because I’m not setting or holding a boundary?
Brene Brown
from Leo Babauta- “Don’t try to find your passion… if you continue to optimize your mastery, you’ll eventually arrive at your passion.” “Make yourself proud.” We spend too much time trying to please everyone and we forget that it’s all already within.
from Jerome Jarre- “Promoting unethical or unhealthy companies for $ is not success. It’s corruption of your belief system and legacy.” He turned down a $1 million Snapchat series contract to promote Sour Patch Kids!
This is admirable. It bothers me when I see influencers promote items that they likely don’t personally use. Going against your belief system and promoting products you don’t use but are paid to promote is not influencing; it is dishonest and inauthentic.
“Don’t let the weight of fear weigh down the joy of curiosity.”
Jerome Jarre
from Mark Bell- “Either you’re in, or you’re in the way.” Often, we chase after people who aren’t “in” and don’t fit into our lives or business. We waste time with these people when our focus should be on the people who are in.”
“Think of your time like a jar, your priorities as rocks, and everything else as pebbles or sand.” Are you going to fill it with your rocks or let others fill it with theirs? Schedule specific blocks of time in advance for your rocks. Learn to say no. You don’t owe anyone lengthy explanations.
David Houston
from Scott Belsky- “I am always surprised by how lazy people are when making serious decisions about their careers. Join a team not for what it is, but for what you think you can help it become. You must seize the opportunities when they present themselves, not when they are convenient or obvious. The only way to cultivate your own luck is to be more flexible (you’ll need to give up something for the right opportunity), humble (timing is out of your control), and gracious (when you see it, seize it!). Life’s greatest opportunities run on their schedule, not yours.”
This really resonated with me. We often wait for the “perfect” time to make a change: the perfect time to change jobs, the perfect time to have kids, the perfect time to start a hobby or start working out… The perfect time will never arrive. We need to make sacrifices and take opportunities as they come.
from Dr. Gabor Mate- “Just say no” is the least helpful advice one can say to a person caught up in any addiction. If you want to help people, ask why they are in so much pain that they are driven to escape it through ultimately self-harming habits or substances. Then support them in healing the trauma, a process that starts with non-judgmental curiosity and compassion.”
I highly recommend this book! The best outcome is that everyone will find different things that speak to them!
One of my mentors is my former college professor/advisor/work study supervisor, Dr. DeWitt. He helped guide me through many challenges of college and helped me in my career discernment process. He really shaped who I am today.
Wit from Dr. DeWitt: Dr. DeWitt ended every class with “Any questions, concerns, or editorial comments?”
Although many of us found this ending to be solely entertaining, I also found it to be a sign of a great leader. With this ending, he showed that he was open to questions, he was open to feedback, and he was open to learning or being corrected with editorial comments. We should all strive to be open to questions, feedback, learning, and being corrected, and this remark has resonated with me since I first heard it.
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
My intention is to post a Thoughtful Thursday column each week and share some of the insights I have learned in the past week. Here are some of the things I’ve learned this week:
A ship’s primary purpose is to stay afloat. “Ships don’t sink because of the water around them. They sink because they get water in them.”
This also applies to you and the influences of your life. “Like a ship on top of water, you must navigate the danger, temptation, and vices around you without letting them affect you.” You must keep the negative influences out of your life if you want to stay afloat.
I am currently reading High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard. One concept that really resonated with me is that when switching between tasks/meetings/rooms, we need to remember to pause and RELEASE TENSION, SET INTENTION.
Don’t bring tension to all future aspects of your day. How many times have we been guilty of having a rough morning and carrying it into all aspects of our day? Have you had a conversation or meeting that didn’t pan out the way you wanted it to and resulted in you carrying frustration or resentment toward those involved? Have you had a rough day at work and carried it into your relationships at home?
RELEASE TENSION, SET INTENTION.
On Purpose Podcast with Jay Shetty- 3 Ways to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
Frames of mind that hold us back: “We have always done it that way.” “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
What are your blind spots? What is it that challenged you before that you have now conquered? What is the area in your life where you’re getting comfortable and complacent where you don’t want to be? How many of your best moments came from something that was uncomfortable at first?
The European Union has banned aspartame, which is one of the primary sweeteners used in the United States for diet sodas and sugar-free items.
Potassium bromate is banned in Canada, China, and the European Union, but is found in the United States in some breakfast sandwiches, pizza rolls, wheat breads, and other items using bleached flour. Potassium bromate has been linked to kidney and nervous system damage, thyroid problems, gastrointestinal discomfort, and cancer.
Olestra is a synthetic cooking oil used as a calorie-free fat substitute in various foods, such as French fries and fat-free potato chips. It is banned in Canada and the European Union, and it inhibits your body’s ability to absorb vitamins.
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
Year after year, I set lofty new year’s resolutions, such as going to the gym 6 times each week, even if I hadn’t been going regularly prior to January. I was often feeling disappointed and ashamed by March. In 2022, I decided to focus on forming daily habits and use a habit tracker (I used the habit tracker found in the Silk&Sonder monthly planners).
Each month, I tracked habits, reflected on which habits were no longer serving me, and sometimes added more habits to strive for. By the end of the year, I was focusing on several daily habits: taking my temperature at 5 a.m. every day for future fertility tracking purposes, reading 22+ minutes each day, listening to a podcast each day, playing brain cognition games on the Lumosity and Elevate apps each day, doing a 10-minute ab workout + 10 pushups each day, 22+ minutes walking/running each day, doing dishes before bed each day, writing in my One Line A Day journal each day, and completing my Silk&Sonder daily affirmation/writing prompt.
Honestly, it was a life-changing year, and although I wasn’t perfect every single month, I managed to complete some habits every single day of 2022: reading 22+ minutes each day, walking/running 22+ minutes each day, listening to a podcast each day, Silk&Sonder daily affirmations, doing dishes before bed each day, and writing in my One Line A Day journal each day. Here is a sample of my habit tracker:
I surprisingly didn’t read Atomic Habits by James Clear until November, and it was very educational and helpful! James Clear is an author and speaker focused on habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement. His website (www.jamesclear.com) receives millions of visitors each month, hundreds of thousands subscribe to his newsletter, and he speaks at Fortune 500 companies and is the creator of The Habits Academy.
Your habits can compound for or against you. Productivity compounds. Stress compounds. Knowledge compounds. Negative thoughts compound. Relationships compound. Outrage compounds.
Ultimately, it is your commitment to the PROCESS that will determine your PROGRESS. The process of building a habit can be divided into simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward. The 4 laws of behavior change are: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. One effective way to build a habit is to try habit stacking: after I (current habit), I will (new habit) OR get two things done at once.
Ex: listen to a podcast while driving/cooking/getting ready for the day/cleaning/working out.
Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on WHAT they want to achieve, which leads to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits, which focus on WHO we wish to become.
Ex: The goal is not to read a book; it is to become a reader. The goal is not to run a marathon; it is to become a runner.
Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity. What you do is an indication of the type of person you believe that you are – either consciously or unconsciously. You have the power to change your beliefs about yourself and change the identity you want to reinforce today with the habits you choose today. You become your habits.
Consider this: “Does the behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be? Does this habit cast a vote for or against my identity?”
The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. There will be days when you feel like quitting. Professionals stick to the schedule. Amateurs let life get in the way. Professionals know what is important to them and work toward it with purpose. Amateurs get pulled off course by the urgencies of life.
I have found habit tracking to be useful. It creates a visual cue that reminds me to act, it is motivating to see my progress, and I don’t want to break the streak. There were many days in 2022 that I didn’t feel like walking, reading, etc., but I knew that I had a perfect streak with those habits and did not want to ruin it.
I also periodically check in to see if my habits are still serving me and consider which habits to add. For example, one month, my goal was to get 10,000 steps each day. I achieved that goal, but after reflecting, I felt that I was so focused on achieving a random number and did not dedicate as much time or energy to other areas of my life, so I decided that habit was no longer serving me.Life is constantly changing, so you need to periodically check in to see if your old habits and beliefs are still serving you.
Your actions reveal how badly you want something. Actions establish priorities. Reward is on the other side of sacrifice. The secret to getting results is to never stop making improvements.
***If you want to learn more and are an auditory learner, I highly recommend the following podcast episodes:
Hi! I’m Amy and I love to read, learn, and share. I have always enjoyed reading, but I did not always make it a priority in my adult life. In 2022, I focused on forming daily habits, one of which was reading for 22+ minutes each day. I read 76 books in 2022 (mostly non-fiction and personal development) and reviewed all of them on my personal Facebook account. Another habit I formed in 2022 was listening to a podcast every day, and I learned SO much about a variety of topics.
One of my core values is life-long learning, and I have created this blog to reach a wider audience and share book reviews (mostly non-fiction and personal development), information I’ve learned from podcasts, and other insights I want to share related to forming habits, cooking, fitness, my favorite products, and much more! I intend to start off by posting book reviews (both past and present) one or two times each week, as well as a Thoughtful Thursday column, in which I will share some insights I have learned along with some of my reflections from the past week. I am writing this blog to captivate readers with educational information, encourage people to read and learn, and hopefully persuade readers to read books I have reviewed.
Here is some information about me:
-I live in Minnesota and am married to my best friend, whom I am slowly convincing to love reading as much as I do. 🙂 I am passionate about many things, including reading, life-long learning, faith, family and friends, fitness, health, justice, clean eating (most of the time), personal development, and finance.
-To decide which books to add to my list to read, I scour best-selling lists, lists of books that are recommended based on books I have read, books recommended in other books I have read or in podcasts I have listened to, and lists of new personal development books coming out soon, and I perform searches of books on topics I am interested in learning more about.
-I regularly read two blogs, neither of which are book-related. My favorite blogs are: seths.blog and gabethebassplayer.com
Seth Godin’s marketing and business blog comes out every day and has more than one million readers. Gabe Anderson’s insightful and reflective blog covers the underlying theme of making time spent in the music and entertainment business worthwhile. Gabe offers unique perspectives about life.
-I listen to a variety of podcasts, none of them completely faithfully. By that, I mean that I pick and choose which episodes I am interested in and want to listen to. Among my favorite podcasts are On Purpose with Jay Shetty, the Jordan Harbinger Show, Sad to Savage, Hidden Brain, Work Life with Adam Grant, Finding Mastery, Self-Improvement Daily, the One You Feed, and Stuff You Should Know.
-Of the 76 books I read in 2022, my favorites (which I will share reviews for) are:
-Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
-Out of Office by Charlie Warzel & Anne Helen Petersen
-Financial Freedom by Grant Sabatier
-Do Nothing- How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving by Celeste Headlee
-Getting Away- 75 Everyday Practices for Finding Balance in our Always-On World by Jon Staff
-Broke Millennial Takes on Investing by Erin Lowry
-No Such Thing as Normal by Bryony Gordon
-How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
-Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
-Keep Showing Up: How to Stay Crazy in Love When Your Love Drives You Crazy by Karen Ehman
-The Story of You by Ian Morgan Cron
-The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It by Jennifer Moss
-Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths That Are Destroying Your Prosperity by Garrett B. Gunderson
-Unwinding Anxiety by Judson Brewer, MD, PhD
-Atomic Habits by James Clear
-Embrace Your Almost by Jordan Lee Dooley
-Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD
-Tribe of Mentors by Timothy Ferriss
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing with you soon!
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