#Things to consider
- Write down five things you want to do today, and five things you eventually want to do as part of your morning journal.
- Be on the quest to be better today than you were yesterday.
- List every question that comes to mind when preparing for a conversation or going over a research subject. Keep writing out the questions as they naturally arise. This exercise primes your mind on the topic.
- Reflect and understand what a life well-lived looks like for you.
- If you’re getting up five minutes earlier today to work on your mental fitness—celebrate and be proud!
- Put the word “imagine if” in front of your statements. For instance: “Imagine if my bills were covered each month.” This starts a new internal programming for your mind.
- If you’re struggling to get up in the morning, do five pushups or air squats, and watch your body and mind come alive.
- Your morning walks are for gathering fuel.
- Keep a list of people that inspire you. Think about who you need to study.
- Send people texts when you think of them—it’s a perfect gratitude system.
#Reading log
2024-11-28: I’ve had a good time rereading this book over the last week. It’s not a long book and going over the different profiles in it primes my mind in a motivating way. It has also encouraged me to go over more books to reread again. I’m thinking about 📚 Ikigai, 📚 The Art of the Good Life, and 📚 Happy to name a few. I think I like the profile on Naveen Jain the most.
2022-05-21: Stumbled on the section about listing down the questions of the people you respect. How come they reached those results? I have a list of those people, but I have not taken the time to write down notes for each one, asking myself the question on why I respect and how they reached what they did. I see the value in doing this.
2022-05-23: The book reminds me a lot about the structure I’ve seen in 📚 Tribe of Mentors, 📚 Daily Rituals and 📚 Tools of Titans. It features profiles of inspiring people and frames those profiles in a lens of questions. What were the questions on those peoples minds? I find the book not as mature as the other books I listed. But it has sparked some ideas. Would be worth to go through the book once more when I’ve finished and skim the highlights.
2022-05-29: Gave me the value of prompts to reflect on. It ended up being one of my most influential reads in 2022. This book helped me to learn and settle on the term “mental fitness” as a category for doing mindfulness work, meditation, reflection, journaling etc.
#Think about your mental fitness practices
Meditation is a way to slow my mind down, and exercise takes me out of my mind. Sometimes I just need to get out of my own head. The more we train our minds with practices like journaling, meditation, and mindfulness walks, the more we can access the present moment as we enter various situations. Journal on what you consumed and how it links to your life today. Pause, reflect and implement the learning into your life. Combining meditation and journaling is a self-awareness super routine. Meditation slows your mind while journaling unpacks it. Meditate twice a day, exercise, take gentle walks, implement no-phone Sundays, get out of the city once a month, never work after dinner. These are some excellent self-maintenance strategies to implement.
#Spend 80% on creation and 20% consumption
I like the concept of 80% creation and 20% consumption. But how do you do it in practice? Maybe the only way would be to track time? Do I need to get back in time tracking mode. It’s not the first trigger that I’ve had recently. Maybe it’s an essential piece to my system. To know what I’m doing and that I’m not over-consuming. You can’t create without inspiration, but too much consumption will get you nowhere. And make sure that you are consuming quality content. Prioritize time to read, learn, think, and fuel your mind with the highest quality mental nutrition.