Alexandersmap

    Tag: James Clear

    • Unvisited Tombs

      “…for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
      ― George Eliot, Middlemarch

      We may be inspired by the occasional brilliant life that changes the world, or puts a dent in the universe, as Steve Jobs once said. Most of us will never be Steve Jobs, will never ascend to levels once unimagined in humble beginnings, will never have all that much of a ripple at all. And yet we may have a verse.

      Perhaps this blog has been my verse, but more likely than not, it’s but a small footnote in a life lived. We are more than the things we write, after all. Even the most prolific writers have far more in their lives than words written on a page. And yet those words dance with infinity, while we humans have a shelf life.

      I borrowed the quote above from James Clear’s weekly newsletter. I thought immediately of people in my life who have passed on, who lie interred in graves not all that far from where I write this, whom I haven’t visited in some time. I owe them a visit, just as I owe a visit to those still living. At the very least, perhaps a phone call to let them know I’ve been thinking about them. We tend to wonder about the impact we’re having on other’s lives when we don’t ever hear from them. ’tis best to let them know while they’re still around just how much they’ve meant to us.

      I’m under no illusion that I’ll ever be famous. I’ve never aspired to fame, or even fortune. My only goal is to make a positive difference in the lives of the people I care about the most, and to have enough FU money to completely disregard the bastards who would otherwise grind me down. Call that an aspiration if you will, or simply a general guide for living.

      This blog, over the years, may in fact be my way of revealing what is otherwise largely hidden. There’s no doubt that some people in my life follow it closer than I ever expected them to (while others follow it far less than I ever hoped they would), but the vast majority are people I will never meet or interact with. Were I to stop today, life would go on as it usually does, and that’s okay. Because for now at least, mine will too.

      This blog has been my way of dangling who I aspire to be in front of me in a futile attempt to reach personal excellence(arete). I won’t ever reach those heights, but I’ve reached higher than I would have otherwise. My legacy will not be some engraved granite atop a plot of land, but the contribution I made to make the world better than it might otherwise have been. And that, friends, is something to rest in peace with.

    • The Forever Regimen

      “21 days? 30 days? 66 days?
      The honest answer is: forever. Because once you stop doing it, it is no longer a habit.
      A habit is a lifestyle to be lived, not a finish line to be crossed. Make small, sustainable changes you can stick with.” — James Clear

      James Clear had it right; the answer is forever. At least when the question is about how long we should do something for it to be deeply-engrained in our identity. This applies equally well to fitness and nutrition, writing, reading, disciplined action at work or any other habit we wish to sustain for the rest of our lives.

      Nothing affirms this more than taking a break from our routine for more than a few days. Suddenly what was simply who we were and what we did becomes a task we must add back into our day. Nature abhors a void, and the time we spent doing a weight circuit or writing a blog post is seized for reading a book or watching Schitt’s Creek. The new habit dominates our muscle memory and we have to force ourselves back on track.

      The regimen is who we are, forever. Until we stop, and then we are this other person who used to be more consistent with that positive habit we’ll one day we wish to get back to. Begin again today, if we must. But stick with it this time. We’ll thank ourselves later.

    • Between Mediocrity and Excellence

      “But why diminish your soul being run-of-the-mill at something? Mediocrity: now there is ugliness for you. Mediocrity’s a hairball coughed up on the Persian carpet of Creation.”
      ― Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

      Holy Crap (with a capital C), is the year already over?! In a year packed with experiences, did we experience enough? Is the bucket list half full or half empty? Did we reach the promised land of life satisfaction or will we once again carry over unfulfilled dreams to tomorrow?

      To live an average life is fine. Fine could surely be worse. Fine is better than many people wake up to. We should offer our due respect and gratitude to fine, appreciate it for getting us here and acknowledge it for all that is. But we know there’s another side to fine, because when someone offers that response when we ask them how they’re doing we know we have a problem. An ignore it at your peril problem. Fine is fine for linen, but not for people. We ought to elevate our game beyond fine.

      The trick, I think, is to return our focus to our routine. Now, we know the very word routine infers something akin to average. And average may be a notch below fine on the scale of how the heck are you? But our routine is what we make of it. And a few strategic, small changes to our daily routine bumps the average up just enough to offer dividends over time. This is the basis of James Clear’s Atomic Habits, which is a good book to return to when we’re thinking about making changes in our life.

      “Making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits

      As we approach the New Year, we can focus on big, hairy audacious goals, because BHAG‘s are fun to imagine, and delightful to achieve. So schedule the trip, sign up for that marathon, write the first page of that novel today, or file for that Limited Liability Corporation you’ve dreamed up. But when that’s done, return to the little things we can do today to make the experience of living right now far better than average. What will we say yes to today? Often that begins with what we’ll say no to. Incremental progress is the name of the game, and it begins with discipline and the smallest of wins.

      We know the expression, what gets measured gets managed (usually attributed to Peter Drucker). So what are we focused on and what are we tracking in our daily lives? To step on the scale every morning won’t trigger weight loss, but it’s a lagging indicator of whatever we did yesterday. Maybe that pound we gained (or lost) is enough to trigger a different decision today. Maybe our lousy sleep score this morning leads us to look at what we ate and drank yesterday and serves as the prompt to make meaningful change today. Measuring isn’t necessarily going to lead to effectively managing, but it does serve to keep us from straying too far off the path to progress.

      We all have different goals for our lives at different stages of it. What do we want to be exceptional at now? To be a good spouse or parent? To rise to the C-suite? What stage of life are we in anyway? What is really meaningful right now that didn’t mean a thing to us in that last stage (or won’t mean much in the next)? To live a fully-optimized life we ought to know where we are now and what will make now resonate as one of the very best stages of our life sometime then, should we be lucky enough to arrive there one day.

      Some things apply to all stages of life, and ought to be part of our core daily ritual. We ought to build and maintain a healthy, vibrant body, mind and soul, that we may thrive now and grow later. Health ought be our foundation and not quicksand pulling us to our demise. If health is our primary goal, what other goals rise to meet that level of urgency? Knowing we can’t do everything, what are our two or possibly three most important things?

      A change in the calendar is nothing but a reminder that the future is calling, and asking what the heck we want to be next. Don’t we owe it to ourselves for that to be something beyond the average we’ve lived with up to now? We may only focus on goals once a year (I hope not), but the entire process is about lifestyle design. Decide what to be and go be it, but know that we can’t be everything.

      What does personal excellence (arete) mean to us now? Choose to rise towards excellence in the few things that will make the greatest difference in our lives, and learning to accept mediocrity in all the rest. We may hate the idea of being mediocre at anything, but we can’t be excellent at everything. So what is worthy of the climb? What is worthy of our precious time? Finding the answer offers a clear path between mediocrity and excellence.

    • Task Tackling

      “Where your fear is, there is your task.” — Carl Jung

      There are a millions ways to avoid doing things. I’ve managed to skip my hardest workouts for two weeks now, not because I didn’t have the time, but because I got very creative in finding ways to use that time for other things. It’s not the easy workouts that I’m talking about (the walks with the dog continue uninterrupted), it’s those zone 4-5 workouts that I practice active-avoidance with.

      The answer is to do the hard work first, before the day gets away from us. Whether it’s a hard workout or a conversation we know we have to have with someone or sitting down to a blank screen and attempting to fill it with something timeless, the task is apparent. Feel the fear and do it anyway, as Susan Jeffers once recommended. The only way to is through (funny how these old affirmations just roll right off the tongue like classic song lyrics).

      The thing is, the mind favors comfort. We know this to be true because it’s been our worst enemy for years. We may anticipate the excuses and reinforce the habits we aspire to do through disciplined action. Or we can let our reluctance to do uncomfortable things dictate what we actually do in our lives.

      “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits

      To be very fit and healthy isn’t a mystery, it’s a discipline with a clear outcome. The same can be said for writing a novel or acing an exam or keeping a marriage thriving after a few decades. Discipline equals freedom (there’s another one—thanks Jocko) and the choice is ours to make. Just who do we want to become anyway? Tackle that task already. Tomorrow will be easier for having done the work today.

    • The We In Me

      “Who’s living in you? It’s pretty horrifying when you come to know that. You think you are free, but there probably isn’t a gesture, a thought, an emotion, an attitude, a belief in you that isn’t coming from someone else. Isn’t that horrible? And you don’t know it. Talk about a mechanical life that was stamped into you. You feel pretty strongly about certain things, and you think it is you who are feeling strongly about them, but are you really? It’s going to take a lot of awareness for you to understand that perhaps this thing you call “I” is simply a conglomeration of your past experiences, of your conditioning and programming.” — Anthony De Mello, Awareness

      The we in me is a collection of characters from all parts of my past, whispering their opinions, goading me on, knocking me down. We’ll never get past them until we’re aware that they’re there. These characters live in the past—part of who we were, but also part of who we are. They don’t have to have a say in who we become.

      Some days this chorus of conditioning tells me to stop writing and do something else with the time. To stop being such a drag and have a drink. To grow outraged at the state of the world and watch some video mocking the other side. To be angry and distracted and spun up. Because misery loves company, and the worst character traits within us hate to be unheard.

      Habits help quiet the chorus within. When I’m swinging a kettle bell around or trying to maintain a split on a long row I don’t have the time to linger with doubt. I’m too busy taking action and voting for the type of person I wish to become, as James Clear put it. Habits create distance between what we were then and who we are becoming right now. We want to close some gaps while increasing other gaps. We want to be the person who does what they tell themselves that they’re going to do.

      Who do we trust the most in our lives? It’s the people who follow through on the promises they make. To build what Charlie Munger called “a seamless web of deserved trust“—those people we know to be reliable and dependable. Shouldn’t we feel this about ourselves first and foremost? If we want a network of strong and trusted allies, we must be one ourselves.

      When we fill our lives with increasingly stronger voices, we find that the weaker voices from our past get lost in the background, where they belong. This naturally builds upon itself, for as we grow stronger we attract more like-minded characters of strength and determination. We are the sum of all that has happened in our lives, all those voices from our past play their part. It’s up to us whether that is a bit part of a defining role in who we become.

    • The Hardest Stroke

      “The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.” ― James Clear, Atomic Habits

      In rowing, 2000 meters for time is the standard identity test. Instead of asking, “What do you do for a living?” the question amongst rowers passion level is, “What was your time?” Meaning, how long did it take you to row 2000 meters. It’s a way of quickly gauging how one person’s personal best stacks up against another’s. And outside of a competitive athletic event it doesn’t mean a damned thing beyond ego stroking.

      Most of us move on from that level of intensity after college and perhaps a little club rowing. Some keep at it for life. For me, rowing is that habit I fall into and back out of again and again. One moment I’m building a streak of days and watching my splits come down to respectable levels, the next moment I look back and realize it’s been months since I sat on an erg.

      And once again I’m getting reacquainted with the erg. I began rowing again, beginning with my least favorite workout; 10,000 meters. Why begin with one’s least favorite? Isn’t that a recipe for failure? Sure, I could have done intervals, which break up the monotony and lend urgency to every stroke. I might have hopped on the bicycle and ridden one of my favorite loops while the weather was nice. Or I might have taken the pup for a long walk on the rail trail, but each of those are workouts that help me avoid the one I’d been dreading. We must face our demons, and mine is an extended stay on a rowing ergometer that doesn’t care a lick how long it’s been since I last used it.

      We are either reinforcing our desired habits or straying away from them. Long steady-state rows can get a bit tedious. They can also be pretty uncomfortable when you aren’t conditioned for them. The trick is to push through those feelings and finish anyway. The time doesn’t matter, but finishing what we told ourselves to start matters a great deal. We are building a life-long system of health and fitness, and it always begins with following through on that next promise we make to ourselves to do what we said we were going to do.

    • Dismantling Our Walls

      “Change is freedom, change is life. It’s always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don’t make changes, don’t risk disapproval, don’t upset your syndics. It’s always easiest to let yourself be governed. There’s a point, around age twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities. Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I’m going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I’m going to go unbuild walls.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

      I used part of this quote a few months ago, but wanted to revisit it using Le Guin’s entire challenge. And it is a challenge, isn’t it? We must decide what to be and go be it, or fall in line with all the rest of the compliant souls marching to their ends with their hopes and dreams and potential to make a dent in the universe unfulfilled.

      We’re a few days into the new year now, so how are those resolutions going? Are we moving in the right direction? Walls take time to build, but once built they’re equally hard to unbuild. We know that what brought us here won’t get us there, so we must get busy building or dismantling our walls.

      Change is rarely a leap to the summit but a steady climb built today upon the work of yesterday. Our lifetime is a story written over thousands of days. We must remember this and focus on the direction we’re going and not the failings encountered as we close out any given day. Turn the page and start writing the next.

      “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” — James Clear

      What is identity but a series of days built around behavior and habits? Each reinforces who we are, or corrodes our set beliefs over time. Our lifetime work is to embrace our peculiarities and make something special out of them. The alternative is to fall in line with everyone else, marching through time to their inevitable end, living the lives of quiet desperation that Thoreau warned us of. That’s not us, friend. When we find that our walls are blocking us from any direction but the one in front of us, we’d better like that direction or we must get busy dismantling walls.

    • Our Vehicle to the Future

      “Small habits don’t add up, they compound.” — James Clear

      What happens when the routine becomes, well, routine? We must change our habits in order to course correct towards something more desirable. We’ve got to disrupt what was once our normal and create a new normal. And yet we know from looking around at the world that just because a normal is new doesn’t make it desirable. Habits that once worked for us seem to conflict with the person we’d like to become. Life can feel complicated in this way.

      The leap into the unknown will happen in January for millions of people with those ambitious resolutions. We know how that will work out for most. It’s not that the goal is wrong, it’s that the desired outcome hasn’t been designed properly into our lives. Lasting change is realized through a daily reckoning with habits. James Clear would point out these habits are rather small, but compound as they become a part of our identity. Writing this blog is one of mine, and it’s survived a lot of challenging days thus far simply because not doing it on any one day would break a streak I don’t want to see broken. And here we are.

      If the pup could write she’d point out that our evening walk is another habit that must not be broken. We aim for a mile, sometimes overachieve and sometimes do half as much, but it’s our routine. And at this point in our time together, she wouldn’t have it any other way. When I travel I know I’m breaking my part of the deal and try to make it up to her with a longer walk next time.

      Habits are like contracts. Just as an athlete signs a contract and puts on the uniform of that team, we assume the identity of our collection of habits. Our interests, compounded, are who we become. But when we become interested in changing, we must turn against the current of habits that brought us to who we are now. No wonder it seems so difficult to change. Just like any of our investments, we ought to be very deliberate about where we want to be when we arrive and create a system that compounds over time. Small habits aren’t just our behavioral pattern, they’re our vehicle to the future.

    • Action is Identity

      “Creators create. Action is identity. You become what you do. You don’t need permission from anybody to call yourself a writer, entrepreneur, or musician. You just need to write, build a business, or make music. You’ve got to do the verb to be the noun.” ― Chase Jarvis, Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Succeed in Work + Life

      If action is identity, so too is inaction. What we say yes to and what we say no to are each a part of who we are. It’s inherently obvious, yet so easy to forget in the day-to-day demand for our time played to the soundtrack of the well-meaning who only want the best for us (thanks a bunch for that). We must pause a beat and get our bearings, then get back to the climb to our potential.

      If I could offer a bit of unsolicited advice to myself, to my children and anyone else paying attention, it’s to simply follow the call for as long as we can get away with it until we meet that person we envisioned. The only way forward is to do that thing. To write, to build, to make: action is our identity. It’s that vote for the person we wish to become that James Clear reminded us of.

      And so a bias towards action is the not-so-secret way to reach the promised land. Hitting the lottery is a fool’s game, hitting our stride by doing the things we know we need to do is how we live fully. We’ve been gifted with being born at a time and place where possibility flows. The people telling us that this is a time of scarcity are getting wealthy with words. There’s an audience for everything, even that thing that we’re telling ourselves to go be. Decide what to be and go be it, as the song goes.

      We ought to give ourselves a gift these last few months of the year. Do the creative work and put it out there for the world to see. Make a bold statement in who we will be today, and build on it in our following days should we blessed with enough of them. Tempus fugit: time flies. Do it now before it all slips away. If action is identity, just what will we think of ourselves if we don’t act now?

    • Beyond Intentions

      “Live less out of habit and more out of intent.” — Amy Rubin Flett

      “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits

      Going with the flow is nice until we get flushed down the wrong stream. Winging it is nothing but guesswork on the fly. We must have some clear sense of direction to set a general course, that we may navigate to in a confused sea. Otherwise what are we but rubber ducks set adrift in the current of time?

      There’s nothing wrong with adaptability. It offers resiliency in a chaotic and unpredictable world. But pivoting must have some intention to it for it to lead us anywhere. A Simone Biles floor routine would be fraught with danger if she had no sense of where she was going to land. Bouncing around can get us points or detract from our entire routine.

      We need both strong intention and great routines to carry us from here to there. We aim for a higher plane and develop a practice that transports us there. I’m no Olympic gymnast but I try to know where I’m heading in this and for the rest of my years, and build a lifestyle that helps me arrive there.