At the end of every round trip around the sun, I write a summary of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt. They’re like software release notes and this is version 36. As I think of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt, I look for the biggest ways I’ve changed how I operate. To learn and not to do is not to learn after all.
To that end, if v35 from 365 days ago looked at v36, here are the 3 most striking changes –
(1) Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome: This was the biggest learning from a challenging experience last year. I love the idea that “words are containers.” My incentives container was shallow and had little meaning attached to it. That experience deepened it and filled it with meaning.
This has transformed how I get things done. I spend significantly lesser time getting upset or annoyed at behavior that seems counter intuitive to me. Instead, I take the time to study the incentive and change it where I can.
It is hard to over-state how much of a change this is. While it has undoubtedly made me more effective, it is hard to overstate how peace it has brought to my day to day.
(2) Daily reading of 5 principles: The toughest experiences are amazing laboratories for learning. The same experience that taught me about incentives also instilled an urgency to crystallize my principles / my approach to life.
I had versions of this floating around – a mission statement, a collection of ideas from stoic philosophy and lessons I’d learnt, etc. I synthesized all these into 5 ideas I now read every morning. It grounds me and reminds me of the “what” and the “how” in my approach to life.
Years of writing here have taught me that effective learning is all about having the right system of reminders. I finally learnt that lesson.
(3) Health as the real #1 priority: I’d begun the journey of moving health to the top of the priority list at this time last year. But I don’t think I’d have foreseen the changes that have followed.
I’ve written extensively about this (thanks to Peter Attia, Casey Means, and Kelly + Juliet Starrett)- from changes to my diet and lifestyle, experiments with the continuous glucose monitor, daily mobility exercises, and so on. The difference, prior to this year, was that health was what I squeezed in when everything else was manageable.
Now everything is squeezed in once health is taken care of.
With that said, onward.
Until v37.
(past birthday notes/version updates :) –35, 34, 33, 32, 31, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23).
