Author: alearningaday

The 4 minute mile was considered impossible until Roger Bannister ran it. Once he did, many followed suit.

For more than half a century, finishing a marathon in less than 2 hours was considered an insurmountable barrier. This weekend, Eliud Kipchoge did a Roger Bannister and proved that it can be done.

While it remains to be seen if his achievement will have the same effect on marathon runners as Roger Bannister did, it did make me wonder about how often we limit ourselves by setting arbitrary mental limits on how much we can do.

It probably happens more often than we think.

Two commitments to make to ourselves over the weekend –

1. If we have the option, we’ll disconnect from work and spend time with ourselves and those we love

2. When we spend this time, we’ll do so by paying full attention. Not the “I’ll check my phone every time I have a spare minute” sort of attention. Instead, it’ll be the “I have no idea where my phone is right now” sort of attention.

Time and attention is the truest manifestation of our love. Here’s to making sure we give plenty of that to ourselves and those around us this weekend.

Much of figuring out how to change behavior is to stop attempting to change behavior and to start understanding the incentives driving that behavior instead.

It is easy to spend many hours in the pursuit of trying to set the record straight with others.

Over time, we come to realize that such pursuits are useless because, it turns out, we don’t have to set the record straight with everyone.

We just need to do so with ourselves.

We moved into a new place a few weeks ago. On the night before our move, I went over with a few bags of stuff. And, as I turned on the lights, it struck me that the place felt eerie and quiet.

It still felt like a house – not a home.

We moved in the next day. And, within 24 hours, the same house underwent a transformation. The house felt like the home we had decided to move into.

I had two reflections from this experience.

The first is that home is where the people are.

And, the second is a point Nassim Taleb makes in his book “Skin in the Game” about how rich folks are sold on the idea of buying houses that are far too big for them. As a result, these houses only make them feel lonely and unhappy. As highly social creatures, we love warm spaces that we can share with people we love. So, homes with just enough space to enjoy spending time with the people we love are the way to go.

There’s something to that.

Confidence doesn’t arise in the absence of insecurities or a lack of awareness of the challenges in our way.

Instead, it arises from attempting to make progress despite these insecurities and challenges and from the knowledge that “this might not work… and that’s okay.”

On occasion, I find myself going down the rabbit hole of “what will she/he think of that embarrassing mistake I made?”

I make progress when I remind myself that she spends as much of her free time thinking about my embarrassing mistakes as I spend thinking of hers.

Which is to say.. not much.

So, as a friend once advised – “keep going, keep growing.”

Here’s to that.

On most days, there are plenty of reasons to be down about something.

There’s no dearth of depressing news – something messed up is happening somewhere. There’s probably someone at work who’d rather not have you around. There’s that friend or family member who is busy stirring up unnecessary trouble.

Any one of these things can linger. A cocktail of these mixed with some unexpected bad luck can easily ruin a day.

The opposite is also true of course.

There’s positive news – progress is often being made on the things that matter. There are folks at work who adore you. And, there are family members and friend who are grateful for your presence. There’s also that beautiful flower that just bloomed nearby and the smell of that fresh grass that’s intoxicating. And, lest we forget, those special hugs from those we live with.

We wake up every day with the ability to choose where we want to direct our attention. So, our day is whatever we make of it.

Let’s make it worthwhile.

One of the powerful things about our ability to hold two conflicting ideas in our mind is that it is possible for us to say to ourselves that – “I feel unsettled” – and – “I can make progress” and know that both can be true at the same time.