If you haven’t seen, subscribed, or ultimately wanted to read through my January 24 thoughts and musings, I am providing a monthly digest of content and reflections.
This was my first post of the year and a reflection on building daily habits. As I come to the end of the month I have received the following feedback. ”I love your habit tracker. I’ve been using it. It’s accessible.” I know several people who have jumped into the habit tracker and have found it valuable. My 1 month reflection is that it’s hard to do something every day but knowing I’m supposed to or was planning to do something every day absolutely makes me more mindful of it and the goal becomes how can I not slip multiple days in a row.
This was one of my post viewed posts this month. I stand by the notion that living is an active proposition and very different from existing. Both are states of being but one is living is separated by intentional action and choices. This post is helping me synthesize some of new ideas around Live. Learn. Lead.
Mistakes Make Our Brains Learn
This post is an extension of a LinkedIn post I made last year. Of everything I’ve written this month, this might still be one of my favorite stories/anecdotes. I am reminded of that student and her wisdom regularly. I have thought about when do we start seeing mistakes as high-risk and not learning opportunities? I wondered about how do we nurture this mindset in children and adults? If you’ve not read this one, it’s my favorite.
This was another highly viewed post. I think it was actually my most read post in January if I am reading the data correctly. This was a direct connection between a book that I’m reading and my thinking about the book. I don’t know if there are other runners who saw this, or others who read (or are reading) Do Hard Things, or maybe it was my gratuitous use of Dave Grohl’s The Storyteller but this post got a lot of eyes on it. I am looking forward to getting to the end of Do Hard Things and then digging through the notes because there is SO MUCH good stuff in that book. I imagine there will be a post in the next month or so on positive and negative self-talk.
The Ukulele was my last post of the month and focused on how I stepped into trying something new and learning the ukulele. As I type this I just finished about 30 minutes of practice and my fingertips are tender. I’m not sure where intersection of overcoming fear, positive self talk, and consistency is but I feel like it’s somewhere around me picking up the ukulele.
As I think about February and my habits and practices. I am going to work on increasing my strength training to make sure it’s at least 2x/week. I’m going to try meditating at least 1x/week. Keep up with regular 3 to 4 days/week running (goal of ~25 miles per week), monitoring my food by counting macros, reading 10 minutes/day, write 10 minutes/day (maybe those will be 5 days/week). And then minimize my sugar and alcohol intake. Oh and ukulele practice 3x/week. Building consistency. Building habits. Doing things that bring me joy (Live), doing things that deepen my understanding of myself and the world around me (Learn), so that I am positioned to lead with authenticity and vision.
Live. Learn. Lead. 
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