I have often led a conversation that relates to the fitness aspect of THPL that goes something like this. There are three things that you do every day without question – you eat, you sleep and you brush your teeth. You could go a day or more without any of the three but you would rarely go more than two days without eating, sleeping or brushing your teeth. And so, if you do these activities with such regularity, because you know they are good for you, and then why not bring fitness to the same level of frequency in your life – we know it is good for us after all, right?
And so it is, yes, THPL proscribes frequency as a core element of its effectiveness. And this “frequency” concept needs to touch all aspects of Life, Learning and Fitness. So, are we ready for another challenge? How about the following; What if we were to set a learning goal for every day. Now we are up to five things we do – eat, sleep, brush our teeth, exercise and learn. Seems to be a rather full day. Maybe it is, or maybe we just have to be focused. Maybe we need to set a goal – to learn something, anything, small or large, every day. It could be a new word that we look up in a dictionary, maybe it is an interesting news story, or it could it be a statistic that you could use in your work? I think in fact, we learn something every day, we just do not internalize it as such and this could be because we do not have a learning goal and so we then miss the explicit acknowledgment that we did indeed learn something.
Interestingly, it is the measurement that we get the satisfaction that we are learning, growing and making progress. What is interesting is that once you get this process going you run the risk of becoming a learning junkie – an information carnivore. The need to satisfy the mind with new learning becomes as addictive as any other activity as it is physiological; it brings with it streams of natural narcotics, and a host of other affirming benefits. What better way to bring THPL to life than with daily learning goals. I dare you to ask yourself, what did I learn today? Work it till you come up with something and then make the assessment a daily event, hold yourself accountable and have fun - the best is just about to start.
Loving life as I learned a lot today about at least five topics, including Sherpa’s challenges on Everest, the soon to be released Porsche 918, fermented soy bean paste is an acquired taste, confidence trumps ability as Phil Mickelson proved at the British Open and about the Noun Project.
Ciao
joe