Habits
Athletes train every day to perform at their highest potential. Why shouldn't normal folks do it too?
These are my current habits for my day-to-day:
Everyday, ideally I will...
- Spend a few hours coding (communicating with machines is one of the most important skillsets now)
- Spend a few hours writing (communicating with humans was always one of the most important skill sets)
- Spend a few hours reading (all knowledge of humanity is at our fingertips)
- Spend time running (disciplining the body)
- Spend time meditating (disciplining the mind)
- Spend time journaling (write about why I didn't do any of the above today...)
The first three habits are training for the outter game. The next three habits are training for the inner game.
The outter game is to satisfy my monkey mind. The inner game is to satisfy my monk mind.
- My monkey mind is afraid about never having enough and cares about stuff like making money, career progression, social status
- My monk mind lives with abundance and cares about stuff like being grateful, kind, disciplined, and attaining mastery
- I seek to satisfy both monkey and monk to create the perfect inner balance. But that's kind of impossible so I just try to wing it as best as I could
Training every day is hard work. There needs to be a "why" to put in the work. My why are these sets of values that I live by every day
- Gratefulness (we are alive/bethankful of every moment)
- Kindness (there is zero downside to be nice to someone)
- Courage (without courage, it's too easy to just follow the herd)
- Discipline (stop browsing social media)
- Mastery (seek mastery in every pursuit/reduce number of pursuits)
Finally, I think habits are meant to be broken. We are our own worst critics. I would never in a million years say to someone else what I say to myself in my head sometimes.
So habits are just nice to have as railings. Having the right intentions is often already good enough. The greatest illusion is that we have absolute control over our lives.
Chill.