Big Goals

Big goals, like making a million dollars, can fail, because we increase our spending as our income increases. In other words, earning and saving a million dollars is a different goal than spending money like you have millions to spend.

It is important to make big goals, but even more important to work on them in a compatible way, that we don’t make some progress and undermine our real purpose. This starts with identifying these goals that will take many years to achieve, and connecting with the feeling and desire behind those goals. Why go there unless it’s worth the journey?

[Hardy, 2019]

Quantifiable Wealth Vision

To save a large amount of money, create a wealth vision that is quantifiable. Just specify a final amount and a date.

Then create a 90-day system for measuring progress. What went well? What are the key wins? What did you learn? What has you most excited? Where do you need to pivot? What do you want to do over the next 90 days? What 2-5 wins will make the biggest difference?

Notice how a 90-day system involves both the quantifiable decisions and the feelings around those decisions.

During the 90 days, track money, health, time, and progress. Wealth is not just a number. By using 90-day systems for much longer-term goals, this challenges us to make some challenges gradually and some quickly, creating a more sustainable approach to our goals.

[Hardy, 2019]

Daily Routine

Develop a daily routine that gets you into flow, or a peak state. This is a higher performance focus that is designed to adaptability and agility. You’ve put in the preparation, now let the body take over while you perform. Part of this flow can include visualizing and imagining the outcome as part of the morning routine. Start each day calm and grounded.

[Hardy, 2019]

Results Over Habits

Focus on results rather than habits or process. It’s less what you put into the system, and more what you get out of it. Get mentors and partners that are ideal for your growth, ideally people who know what it’s like to overcome obstacles and discouragement, who have this kind of success already in their lives. Listen and observe. Ask thoughtful questions. Who you work with is more important than how you work with them.

[Hardy, 2019]

Incremental Updates

As you work, update your values and definitions of success. This kind of commitment isn’t about becoming automatons, but to have an authentic experience with meaningful goals and their results.

[Hardy, 2019]

Deliberate Practice

Deliberately learning new skills does not have to be as intimidating as it seems. In fact, we’re doing it all the time without our explicit consent.

[Forest, 2019]

Series of Connections

A skill is a series of connections in the brain. Practice creates them. The brain doesn’t discern what is useful. If we’re missing connections in the brain, we need deliberate effort to redirect the brain to catch this later. It’s about creating a natural response to life, rather than beating up on ourselves if our responses in life are less than ideal.

[Forest, 2019]

Learning How to Learn

Learning how to learn, we can apply ourselves to any skill. A skill is the ability to do something well. By contextualizing our skill-building habits, we gain confidence this can be applied anywhere, that we accept moderate skill as an initial goal, and we are learning to take action.

[Forest, 2019]

Sub Skills

Skills are built of sub-skills. By breaking a skill down this ay, we realize how tractable skill learning can be. The more we learn, the faster we learn, the more satisfied we become. The learning path has dips and plateaus, but gradually accelerates.

[Forest, 2019]

Chance

Typically, after formal education, we learn from tutorials or videos and hope for the best. The best approach for me is not the best approach for everyone.

An effective approach to what it will take to learn new skills is to break the skill down to smaller sub-skills and work on the most rudimentary ones first. Gather resources, track progress, and use deliberate practice. Organize the sub-skills in skill-up trees, so it’s easier to focus on next steps.

[Forest, 2019]

Two Memory Systems

Generally, we have two memory systems, short-term or working memory and long-term memory.

Most of our short-term memories occur in the pre-frontal lobe. Long-term memories are assembled in the hippocampus from other parts of the brain.

Short-term memory is consolidated and re-consolidated into long-term memory. Inactive memory in long-term memory is re-activated into short-term memory. Once memory is stored long-term it changes more slowly. It is never a bad idea to reactivate memory.

[Forest, 2019]

Remembering

One way to remember something is to imagine it associated with a single image. If it’s funny, it’s evocative. By incorporating more senses into this memory, like talking out loud, we remember better.

Flashcards and spaced repetition works as well.

Handwriting and drawing notes work better for recollection than typing.

Numbers and dates can be mentally linked to birthdays or familiar dates.

Place mental objects as images on a familiar scene. This is called a mind palace.

Use acronyms to break down a sequence of memories.

[Forest, 2019]

Mix It Up

Study in multiple environments. The brain associates the setting where we learned with what we’re learning, and mixing that up makes it easier to recollect more information. Spaced repetition works well for this same purpose. Revisiting content immediately, after a day, a week, and a month works. More repetition and reconsolidation is useful.

[Forest, 2019]

Unlearn and Relearn

Forgetting or unlearning is useful. This is because we accumulate information without knowing what to do with it. When we unlearn and relearn something, we can clean up what is useful, creating fidelity in our thinking. This makes it easier to transfer skills as well, creating a more-versatile memory.

[Forest, 2019]

Sleep

Sleep is critical for active practice. Jogging, showers, and meditation are good, but sleep is the best thing we can do for our memory.

The Edison technique involves taking micro naps and holding marbles in our hands. When the marbles drop, it wakes us up, and we have usually worked out the problems we were thinking about when we rested.

[Forest, 2019]

Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity is a process where the brain rewires itself. The brain becomes more efficient this way.

[Forest, 2019]

References:

Forest, D. (2019, September 11). Learn New Skills in 15 Hours: The Essential Guide. Retrieved September 12, 2019, from Medium website: https://medium.com/swlh/learn-new-skills-in-15-hours-5f69582a6073

Hardy, B. (2019, September 5). 10 Steps to Become a Millionaire in 5 Years (or Less). Retrieved September 12, 2019, from Benjamin Hardy website: https://benjaminhardy.com/10-steps-to-become-a-millionaire-in-5-years-or-less-4/