How to form new habits and what awaits us in Libra
Good habits don’t constrain. Rather they give freedom. Most of my life I struggled with how to automate learning and establish new behaviour. The answer I discovered was in forming good habits. Books helped, especially The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg, which is one of my most gifted books. This newsletter continues my exploration on how to form good habits.
Here are three interesting discoveries from last week (w27):
James Clear’s interview on London Real TV: James Clear is the author of one of the most impactful books I have ever read: Atomic Habits. It’s one of my most recommended books and the snapshot that I have put above is my notes from this book. The book taught me the mechanics of how to form new habits. Since I have read this book, I have experimented with forming habits to show up in the gym daily, learn Swedish, meditate, and now write regularly. The key for me was to understand that the barrier of entry to form a new habit should be extremely low (my threshold is to do the activity for only twenty minutes daily). While I highly recommend everyone to read this book, if for some reason you don’t have the time, then at least listen to this interview. It’s in-depth (two hours long but worth every minute!), goes into all the nuances of forming habits, and is moderated by a great host, Brian Rose. Lot of interviewers don’t know how to move the conversation forward when dealing with a new topic, but you won’t sense that hesitation with Brian.
As you may have already heard, Facebook is launching a new currency: Libra. The Economist came out with two short but useful takes on what it would mean for the banking system and of course for Facebook and all of us. If you are looking for a quick primer on Libra, these two articles are a good place to start. Libra would ease the cross-border money transfer which today is a hassle and money ripper. That way, Libra would benefit quite a few of us Indians who periodically send money home. And finally, seems like blockchain has found a use case.
Finally, if you are having a bad day, or if you find yourself constantly complaining these days, then just read this. Can’t even explain what this piece is about, and how deeply personal and motivating it is.
A quote I came across last week:
A year from now you wish you had started today
- Karen Lamb
That’s all for the first week! Let me know if you have any good suggestions on the pieces that I should read in the coming week in comments below.
