Issue #11: 12 Habits for Life, The Soaring Twenties, and Good Movies

Announcing my 12 Habits for Life Experiment, The Soaring Twenties by Thomas J Bevan, How to Improve Your Content Diet, A Good Movie Aggregator, and William Faulkner

Welcome back everyone again and thanks for taking the time to read what I write, I really appreciate it. Today I’m announcing a very special project that I’m undertaking this year and I really appreciate all your support and advice. Let’s get into it.

In this week’s issue we will cover:

• My 12 Habits for Life Experiment

• The Soaring Twenties by Thomas J Bevan

• How to Improve Your Content Diet by Polina Marinova Pompliano

• A Good Movie To Watch Aggregator

• A quote by William Faulkner

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12 Habits for Life

I've been into personal development and habit change for about 3 years now. I remember I discovered the self-help and personal development genre of books when I was in a serious rut and at the time the allure of habit change and the life-changing prospects that they held made me feel extremely excited about my future.

I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole of self-improvement videos, motivational sketches, and productivity glorifying feedback loops. Maybe it was a way to compensate for my own inequities but I felt good consuming this content and looking forward to a future where I could be the person who had all those "billionaire habits".

What happens to so many of us fellow personal development nerds however happened with me. These calls to action went in one ear and then proceeded to go out the other. I would make a list of the 12-15 habits that promised to make me a success. Get up at 4:30 AM, take a cold shower, meditate like a monk, visualize your day, the list goes on. I would then resolve to wake up at 4:00 am the next day and run through my day with maximum efficiency and productivity. This never really went to plan.

Maybe I would actually check off the lists that day. Maybe I would make it two days in a row. But I never was able to continue that progress three days in a row. I tried to take on too much at a time and burnt out before I even got started.

Then in 2019, I saw Matt D'Avella attempt his own version of what I was trying to do, but spaced out over the course of 12 months. He was trying all the habits that I wanted to develop, but he was doing them one at a time. He ended up waking up at 5 am, quit caffeine, journaled, meditated, quit social media and sugar, and even braved the cold showers. His playlist of 30-day experiments has been on constant replay - especially recently during quarantine and 2020.

I've decided that in 2021 as a sort of reset, I will be embarking on my own 12 Habits For Life journey and concentrate on implementing one new habit into my life for each month. I've already drawn up a tentative schedule of habits and when I will be doing it but would love some suggestions or advice on the same:

• Waking up early (5 AM)

• Journaling

• Going Vegan (I expect this one to be particularly difficult)

• Digital Detox (quitting Social Media)

• Learn a language in 30 days

• Meditation

• Rejection Therapy (Basically trying to get rejected in some way every day to build character)

• Breathwork (kinda feel like this one might be redundant because of meditation though)

• Tracking every minute of my life for 30 days (Time blocking)

• An experiment in minimalism

• Walking 25k steps for 30 days

• and of course the dreaded Cold Showers

I've already begun by waking up at 5 AM every day since the New Year (I woke up at 5 AM for the first time in my life on a Sunday and it was extremely weird). I will be reflecting on these habit-building experiments of course in my writing and probably on Twitter and have also decided to push myself out of my comfort zone a little bit and also start a YouTube channel documenting these experiences as a fun project to look back on later. I'm putting together a video as a formal announcement this weekend and will be posting it all over social media to keep me accountable.

I'm excited to announce this project and really looking forward to sharing my growth over the next year with you all. Would again love to hear your advice/thoughts so don't be a stranger and drop me a line on some sort of social media or reply to this email!

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The Soaring Twenties

I came across this article from a recommendation of Matias Sanchez's Fiction Notes that was written back in October but I think that even though it was written 3 months ago, it still holds true and is a fascinating read today. It was written by Thomas Bevan for his weekly essays on life and literature. During this essay, he reflects on the twenties of the last century while making predictions about the coming decade. It pulls heavily from Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast - a book which I have been currently reading and enjoying very much. Bevan argues that today's Paris is not a place, but the internet where writers and artists will be more connected than ever and will also be able to have their work discovered easier than any other time in history. The article is really worth giving a read and I've come away with different lessons on each re-read.

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How to Improve Your Content Diet

I loved this post by Polina Marinova Pompliano about leveling up your content diet. As she says:

What you eat is who you are, and what you read is who you become.

While most of us are willing to invest in our health, we often neglect our "content diet," which refers to the type of information we choose to feed our brains on a daily basis.

We live in a time where it is so easy to lose control of where we place our attention. The Social Dilemma by Netflix revealed that there is a lot more that goes into our content consumption than meets the eye, so this article was another timely reminder to watch what we read. I’ll end with some words from Polina again:

Don't let yourself run on autopilot. Be the one to choose what to feed your brain.

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A Good Movie to Watch

And while it is great to curl up with a great book or read your other favorite writers (besides me of course lol), it's fine to take a break once in a while and watch great movies. I found this site from BrainPint another new newsletter I subscribed to recently. This site basically tells you what new critically acclaimed movies have moved to different streaming platforms. I've been looking for an aggregator like this for a while so I thought I would share it here on the newsletter for anyone else looking for something similar. On my watchlist this weekend: Hell or High Water on Hulu.

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Quote of the Week

"Be scared. You can't help that. But don't be afraid."

William Faulkner

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Thanks as always for taking the time to read what I write. I really appreciate every comment and view. As always I’m always ready to speak to anyone about anything - I’d also love to hear your thoughts/advice on my 12 Habits challenge. Feel free to reply to this email or contact me on Twitter.

Until next week - stay safe!