Thanks for checking out the Monthly Learning Roundup. These bite-sized, monthly posts are designed to give you a quick hit of interesting learnings and articles I came across this month.
It’s a motley assortment of tips, resources, and links that will hopefully give you a bit of inspiration for the upcoming month. Enjoy!
What I’m reading —
What I learned about productivity while reinventing Google Calendar by David Kadavy
David has some great actionable insights on how we can become a bit more sustainably productive. The keys? Awareness, tiny habits, and weekly routines.
Cultivating the Skill of Figuring Things Out by Scott H. Young
I was taught in school from a young age that there is a correct answer to each question. In school it might make sense, but in reality? “Figuring things out” is an important skill and Scott walks through why some people are better at it than others — and it’s not innate talent.
How to Make Friends When You Don’t Have Play Dates by Miriam Kirmayer
Friendships become even more important during adulthood as we don’t have the built in opportunities to spend time with friends we had earlier in our lives. Here are some great suggestions on how you can still make new friends into adulthood.
Books, documentaries, or podcast episodes that I enjoyed last month —
One of my favourite new podcasts. The host’s love of philosophy and practical applications from the diverse school’s of philosophy makes this podcast entertaining and actionable.
The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey
Don’t let the title fool you. This is a fantastic book on how to manage your inner self in all situations. If you feel you might be holding yourself back in some way, this is a great read for you.
Quotes that are inspiring me —
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
— Michelangelo
It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
Looking at things from other people’s point of view is practically the secret of success.
— Paul Graham
Behaviour change of the month —
Shifting my internal mindset (Part 2)
Last month, I shared my behaviour change goal which was to read myself a personal commerical every morning. I’m happy to say that I was able to accomplish that daily habit 88% of the time in October.
In terms of impact, I felt like there was a subtle shift in my behaviour. Specifically around the topic of fear, my thinking process shifted to lean more into situations that make me feel fear, or at least recognize moments that I felt scared about something. Once I recognized it, I was able to decide how to take action on it. That thought process is a small win for me there.
I also felt really good every time I read “Peter, you’ve got enthusiasm and positivity. So let that shine through to others.” I felt like I was bringing out a better version of myself and could make a small difference for others. This is worth me thinking about on a daily basis and perhaps expanding upon in future versions of the daily commerical.
I’m continuing to read my daily commercial in November so I’ll report back in a few weeks time with more progress.
“ah-ha!” thought of the month —
Aim for bigger goals.
I’m generally a pretty conservative person when I’m setting new goals. If we look at SMART goals, aside from “measurable” I’m the biggest fan of “realistic”. It’s not that I consciously set goals that are unambitious. It’s that I like to have some sort of control over the outcomes.
When you look at some of the greatest achievements in history, however, we can quickly see that impactful achievements didn’t come with any semblance of control for those pursuing them. Consider JFK’s push to get a man on the moon – there was absolutely no certainty that could happen. There had to be a lot of “figuring things out” to even know if it was possible or not.
The beauty of the goal JFK laid out is that even if we didn’t end up landing someone on the moon, we still would’ve learned so much from that process. Those lessons learned can contribute to future missions or maybe even have valuable insights into fields totally unrelated to space exploration. Even getting to 70% of the goal would’ve been a success for all the learning.
When we set goals, are we setting up goals that excite us, scare us, and sound like a lot of fun? I sometimes get stuck in this step-by-step, measurable process in goal setting that I don’t set these big, shiny, exciting goals that make me want to keep going even when I’m tired, exhausted, and discouraged. If we can all set bigger goals and stop holding ourselves back, we might make the world a better place.
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As always, thanks for checking out this Monthly Learnings Roundup. Follow me on Twitter @peternakamura to see all the articles that I share on a daily basis.
Peter Nakamura 