Tag Archives: Life Lessons

Habits and goals

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I know setting goals works. I have a few fitness goals and they inspire me to work harder. But I’ve never really been someone who sets a lot of goals and I am not overly goal driven. I can remember teaching students SMART Goals and watching them create goals that I just knew they wouldn’t hit… SMART or not.

Habits are what get you to your goals. Habits are the repeated patterns that lead you to improvements. Goals are just lofty ideas until you build systems and habits that move you towards them.

A career goal doesn’t happen if you haven’t built solid habits and routines to consistently do your current job well.

A diet weight is a goal you want to hit. A habit of regular exercise and a habit of eating well are what get you there.

Goals are important, but it’s the habits you create that get you to those goals.

An attitude of gratitude

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Sometimes the universe sends you the message you need to hear. I was listening to my meditation app this morning and it asked me to think of three things I’m grateful for. I thought of family, a friend, and my body. The first two are obvious. I thought of my body because only a year ago I was waking up in agonizing pain every day, and now I’m in such a better place.

The meditation ended suggesting an ‘attitude of gratitude’, and my mind drifted to a Facebook post from my friend and former professor, Al Lauzon. He shared this beautiful post of appreciation, which ended with,

“…I look out the window and see the blue sky and the nakedness of local deciduous trees, I feel an overwhelming emotional response. Despite the challenges we collectively face, the world is both a beautiful and mysterious place and for that I am filled with gratitude. Perhaps take a couple of minutes today and look so that you too might feel the gratitude I do as you take in the beauty and mystery of the place we are privileged to call home.”

It’s easy to forget the beauty of the world, to take for granted the things and the people we should value and appreciate. It’s also easy to frame your thinking around gratitude… to take a minute , or five, to appreciate that we are sentient beings in a vast universe filled mostly with emptiness, and that conscious thought is a rare and beautiful gift. A gift given to only our species for thousands and perhaps millions of light years in every direction.

We are alive, we are on a beautiful planet, with beautiful people. There is a lot around us to appreciate, to enjoy, to delight in. An attitude of gratitude costs nothing, but the rewards are tremendous.

Ego in the way

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This is one of the most enjoyable graduation addresses that I’ve ever heard. Rick Rigsby’s “Lessons from a third grade dropout” shares some wonderful insights with a delivery that leaves you wanting more.

Two ‘truth bombs’ that he delivers are the following quotes:

“Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity.”

And,

“Pride is the burden of a foolish person.”

I see it more and more, people’s egos and their pride get in the way of many things ranging from being a lifelong learner, to being a decent human being. Rick got to experience the wisdom of a 3rd grade dropout who was one of the smartest people he knew. That’s a gift, an opportunity for insight.

We often see social media posts where someone mistreats or underestimates a person with lower social stature, and then learns the errors of their ways when this person is smarter or more helpful than expected… or that ‘lowly’ person outwits the more affluent or pompous person.

This ‘underdog as hero’ message is prevalent in movies too.

The other message in these stories is ‘don’t be a jerk’.

Despite all these social media and movie ‘lessons’ we see shared, there seems to be no shortage of egotistical and pride filled people in the world. In fact many people think you need this to be great. Where would some of the most noted (and notorious) athletes, movie stars, and politicians be without there inflated egos? You don’t get attention when you are selfless. Maybe you can, and maybe if more people did, this would trend more, and the big egos would get less attention. Maybe.

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But there’s a lot more to this speech than just those two quotes. There are also valuable lessons on failure.

“Wisdom will come to you from the unlikeliest of sources. A lot of times from failure. When you hit rock-bottom, remember this: while you’re struggling, rock-bottom can also be a great foundation on which to build, and on which to grow.

I’m not worried that you’ll be successful, I’m worried that you won’t fail from time to time. The person that gets up off the canvas and keeps growing, that’s the person that will continue to grow their influence.”

Truth.

Watch the video and enjoy this inspirational speech.

James Clear on hats, haircuts, and tattoos

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I love this! James Clear has a weekly email, 3-2-1 Thursday, with 3 ideas from him, 2 quotes, and one question. I have shared this a few times because I think this weekly email is one of the only subscriptions I read every single time I get it.

A couple weeks ago this was one of the items from him:

“I think about decisions in three ways: hats, haircuts, and tattoos.

Most decisions are like hats. Try one and if you don’t like it, put it back and try another. The cost of a mistake is low, so move quickly and try a bunch of hats.

Some decisions are like haircuts. You can fix a bad one, but it won’t be quick and you might feel foolish for awhile. That said, don’t be scared of a bad haircut. Trying something new is usually a risk worth taking. If it doesn’t work out, by this time next year you will have moved on and so will everyone else.

A few decisions are like tattoos. Once you make them, you have to live with them. Some mistakes are irreversible. Maybe you’ll move on for a moment, but then you’ll glance in the mirror and be reminded of that choice all over again. Even years later, the decision leaves a mark. When you’re dealing with an irreversible choice, move slowly and think carefully.”

How often do we think of hat decisions as if they are haircut decisions, or haircut decisions as if they are tattoo decisions? I think that we tend to overdramatize or exaggerate the consequences of small risks or decisions, and this holds us back from a lot of opportunity for adventure, growth, and learning.

Try some different hats on… and don’t worry so much about the ones that don’t fit.

If I never fail…

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I’ve written a lot about failure. Just click the ‘failure‘ tag under this post and you’ll see my most recent thoughts (including this one).

But today I actually share the words of someone else. I saw a video clip of Adam Grant on LinkedIn, where he said the following:

If I never fail, it means I’m not challenging myself. I actually set a goal that I would start at least one project every year that didn’t succeed. And let’s be clear, I’m not aiming for failure. What I’m doing is creating an acceptable zone of failure to know that’s going to motivate some risk-taking and some experimentation and hopefully some growth. If you succeed on 90% of your projects, that should be a hugely successful year. If you succeed on 100%, I think you’re aiming too low.

Brilliant!

This is what I said in a post a few years back, about how even ‘A’ students should have tried at least one epic thing and failed:

Every student will encounter failures later in life, ‘in the real world’, so if we don’t challenge them in school, we have not given them the tools to face adversity later on. The question we have to ask ourselves is, “Are we challenging students enough, so that they are maximizing their learning opportunities?” 

Two sides of the same coin. But I like Adam’s framing of it a lot better than mine. I prefer to think of it as failure brings growth and inspires new experimentation rather than failure prepares you to face even greater failure in the future.

Bad choices

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We all make bad choices. The collective ‘we’ do so in so many categories: Food, exercise, sleep, relationships, procrastination, gaming, social media, alcohol & drugs, even hygiene… Did you know that flossing your teeth can increase life expectancy?

The operative word in ‘bad choice’ is choice. Choice suggests that we have power, we have control, and we can make other choices. That’s easier said than done. It’s easy to skip a workout, to buy a fast food meal, to distract yourself with attention seeking media, and avoid doing something harder, even if it’s better for you.

For me, that’s where my healthy living calendar comes in handy. I can see my progress, and I can see when I’ve made a mistake. I can see the bad habit repeating itself… and I can actually stop it. I’ve missed two daily mediations so far this year. I’ve chosen to take just 2 days off from working out so far (which is still an average of more than 6 days a week). I’ve written every day. I don’t lie to my calendar, and my calendar doesn’t lie to me.

But I have other goals, other good habits that I want to implement, and a few bad habits I want to reduce. I’ve put the dental floss in front of my toothbrush, so I actually have to move it to brush my teeth, but I still don’t floss regularly. I’ve put a mid-week 30 minute time limit on TikTok… my version of watching TV, but I’ll often end up distracted watching similar videos on other platforms. Easy entertainment and also an easy distraction from some of the other things I want to do.

I still make some bad choices. I still distract myself with everything from watching videos to work emails. I still stay up way too late and still get up early to start my routine. I’m writing this late at night, past my bedtime goal. Like I wrote yesterday, the impediment becomes the way. But when I wrote that I made it sound like I had my shit together… I really got the point of the book, and I was living by the quote, “It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than think your way into a new way of acting.”

However, while it’s easier to act your way, rather than think your way, into doing better things, it’s also easier to embrace the impediment: To live in the status quo and continue to make bad choices. I’m not beating myself up about it, I’m just admitting that it’s hard to change, it’s hard to make good choices when the bad ones are so easy and even attractive. Still, I’m winning a lot of battles. I write every day. I exercise and meditate almost every day. I feel fit, healthy, and even happy. Yeah, I’m still going to make some bad choices, I’m just not going to make really bad choices, and I’m not going to let the bad choices define me. The good things I’m doing are pretty good, and pretty good is a pretty good place to be.

The impediment becomes the way

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I’m re-listening to Gary John Bishop’s book, ‘Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life’, which has a very stoic approach. One quote that speaks to me from the book is from Marcus Aurelius:

“The impediment to action advances action.
What stands in the way becomes the way.”

On a positive note, the obstacles to learning can become the impetus to new learning, like this example from a student at Inquiry Hub… where a roadblock to continuing a project led to new, creative approaches and learning.

But often the impediment or obstacle becomes the block to new learning, or new approaches, or different, better ways of doing things. The impediment becomes the way, it becomes what you do, or rather what you do to avoid change, or worse yet what you use to define yourself. “I can’t” becomes the mantra, the limiting thought that makes not changing, not improving easier than doing what’s best. “I’m too tired, too lazy, too fat, too stubborn, too ‘insert-excuse-here’ to change. You continue to do what you did before, or you try something new, but decide that what you are already doing is either easier or more comfortable than the thing you had hoped to do. What stands in the way becomes the way. Inaction becomes the action.

This reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, attributed to Jerry Sternin, but I read it in ‘Surfing the Edge of Chaos‘.

“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking,
than think your way into a new way of acting.”

We often convince ourselves of things we should not do, we talk ourselves out of trying new things, and we limit ourselves by thinking something is too hard… we think our way out of acting differently. The reality is that we are quite good at that. Our thoughts themselves become the impediment. The trick to overcoming this is to act… to actually start doing regardless of the thinking. Start small. Start really, really small but start to ‘do’ the thing we want to do. We are far more likely to achieve our goals if we act our way into doing them rather than trying to convince ourselves that we can do them.

Our thoughts can impede us, or our actions can push our thoughts forwards so that the thoughts (eventually) follow our actions.

“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking,
than think your way into a new way of acting.”

Otherwise, the impediment to action advances (non) action.  Start small… but start now.

The right tool for the job

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Last weekend’s Coquitlam Crunch walk was cold. We were the only ones in the parking lot at 8:30am.

We walked about 1/3 the way up then we put on our grip-on cleats, and the cold air was a lot more difficult for me to tackle compared to the actual walking conditions. Still, we usually do the walk in 55 to 56 minutes and it took us 1 hour. A four minute difference.

Today was another story. It started the same with just us in the parking lot, but the lot was very slushy and slippery and so Dave and I put our over-shoe cleats on right away.

Walking conditions this time were much harder to tackle. One thing that added to the challenge was that we had to stop at least 10 times for Dave to adjust his cleats, which kept slipping off of his shoes. I don’t think Strava counted all the adjustment stops because when I stopped my timer it said 1 hour and 14 minutes, but it saved the time as 1 hour and 11 minutes.

That’s a significantly slower time due to the slippery, slushy conditions. We don’t mind, it wasn’t a race, and we love the opportunity to be together, get some exercise, and also feel the accomplishment of ‘just doing it’ even when conditions are less than favourable. But one thing that was quite clear was that my cleats provided a much better experience than Dave’s. In essence, my cleats were a tool that I used, but didn’t have to think about, didn’t have to manage. I put them on at the start, they did their job, and I took them off at the end. Dave’s cleats needed his attention. They took away from the flow of the experience… they interrupted our walk.

Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a big deal, it didn’t ruin or walk or anything like that, they simply required our attention. On the way down Dave suggested that we think about a metaphor for the experience and the best one we came up with was, “Sometimes it’s worth getting a great tool instead of accepting and tolerating the use of a good tool.”

The cleats I own were just $21 on Amazon, and a few dollars more than the ones Dave has. The cost difference isn’t much, but the experience is so much better. Unfortunately after our walk last week, I forgot to share the link with Dave until yesterday, so he’ll get his by Monday and be ready for next week, but they didn’t come in time for today’s walk.

It’s a good lesson to think about though. Sometimes we just use a tool because it’s the one we have, the one we’ve always used, or the one that is easy to access, rather than seeking the best tool for the job. Sometimes it’s worth the time and research, and/or the extra cost, to get a tool that does the job extremely well… and reduce the challenges of using a less than ideal tool.

In the grand scheme of things, we’ll probably only need these cleats 1-3 more times this entire year, and if Dave stuck with his, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But there are things in our lives that we readily tolerate that could become ‘invisible’ and require less of our time, energy, focus, and attention… working seamlessly because we have found the right tool for the job.

Seizing Moments

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Yesterday I had the opportunity to have lunch with my admin team. Now when I say that I’m talking about 3 ‘teammates’ that do not work in the same building as me. So when we can get together and enjoy a meal it’s a special moment. The moment was made that much more special because two of the three people I met are moving on… one to a new position, and the other one retiring. Then, after work, I connected with some other administrators for a wellness gathering. It was wonderful to spend that time connecting with colleagues that I don’t always see during my typical work week. And when I came home, my wife and I had a wonderful evening together. We both seem to have a little more energy than we usually do on a Friday night. It was a fun night of laughter and conversation.

This morning I did the Coquitlam crunch with my buddy, and while it was cold and early, and we were the only ones in the parking lot, it was a ‘seize the moment kind’ of opportunity. This was our 120th Crunch since we started 3 years ago in January 2020. My buddy suggested that the title of this post should be “Just Do It”, and that was the initial plan, but my thoughts go a little beyond that this afternoon.

After our walk and coffee shop social, I went home and said bye to my wife and helped her pack the car to head over to the island to visit her parents. Then my daughter called and asked for a ride because she spent an anniversary night out with her boyfriend and they were heading home from downtown. After dropping her boyfriend at his house, my daughter and I decided to go and enjoy a sushi lunch at a wonderful restaurant. I can’t express how wonderful it is to have grown-up kids who still look forward to a meal with their father (and yes, especially when he’s paying).

Now I am sitting in my hot tub, penning my ideas using voice to text, and even enjoying a little visit for my cat.

Visits with colleagues, chats with my wife, walks with friends, meals with family, and hot tubs on a cold winter day, these are all small little moments individually… But weave them together, and they make for an absolutely wonderful life.

We sometimes go headlong into work, and bury ourselves in busyness, not realizing that we don’t have to put everything on hold until our next vacation, or gathering with family or friends. Tiny moments, planned, and unplanned, are the moments we need to seek and enjoy.

Lifelong friends

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I got a ‘Happy New Year’ text from a high school friend yesterday. We connected recently and went to a concert, and while we don’t see much of each other, I consider him a good friend. We met in Grade 10. By the end of Grade 12 and all through Grade 13 (a mandatory step before university in Ontario in the 80’s) he and I used fake ID and would go try different beers in pubs downtown. We also went to the occasional concerts together. He’s European and his parents would were quite relaxed about us drinking. They would buy us alcohol for gatherings at his house, and they’d only ever check in with us once a night, just to make sure no one was drinking and driving. Now we both live out west, but he’s on Vancouver Island and I really don’t see him much.

Getting the text today made me reflect on an interesting insight. I have some pretty awesome friends that I don’t see very often. Geography is the main reason, but it’s not the only reason. I’m also not great at reaching out. That said, every connection, every phone conversation, every coffee, every walk, every meal, every social gathering where I connect with these lifelong friends is a treasure.

Like family, lifelong friends can always be relied on, loyal, and loving… without expectation and with full hearts. But they should not be taken for granted. I’ve come to realize that I need to share just how much I value them as people I love, appreciate, and admire. We don’t do enough of this… I don’t do enough of this. It’s much easier to count on someone silently than to outwardly take the time to share how much you value them.

Now I just need to follow through and share my appreciation.