If you could go back and teach your 18-year-old self just three habits, what would you teach?
This was a question I got asked on Quora and loved to share my answer with you guys in Steemit. And here are three things I would teach myself.
1 | Read every day, however little
I used to read a lot when I was 16 to 17. I read about business and marketing, health and fitness, self-help to autobiographies. Most of them are in Mandarin or translated to Mandarin because I didn’t know English at all that time.
But then I stopped reading due to busy schedules and irrelevant distractions.
Then, I got back to reading when I was 25 (which is 2 years ago) and realize how much I’ve missed during all these years of not reading.
In hindsight, my growth accelerates so much more when I’m regularly reading, learning, and implementing new insights and wisdom. Some of them didn’t work out, but it’s the actions that matter.
I’m not a fan of speed reading. Instead, I prefer to read slowly and think about what I learned at the same time.
2 | Create something every day
I started my blog two years ago without having any specific goal and plan. However, the more I write, the more I realize the value of creating.
You see, everyone is a consumer. We need foods, we buy things, and we consume information.
While the world is pushing us to consume more—more than we are able to—creating something valuable becomes a rare and valuable skill to master.
Now I write, and I intend to focus on writing for many years to come.
But if I’m 18, I’ll try creating something, anything, every day. Whether it’s a piece of software, a YouTube video, a few minutes of music, or a physical product.
3 | Daily journal to find what is true
I tried journaling and failed to stick to it many times.
But today is my 100-day streak of building a habit of daily journaling. And I do wish I started earlier than this.
It’s not about writing unrelated daily incidents in Blogspot or Tumblr. Instead, my daily journal focuses on a few core elements:
- Theme of the day and how well I’ve performed (and how I can do better)
- The decisions I’ve made and the decisions I want to make (and the reasoning behind them)
- My pains, worries, and fears.
It takes me 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night.
And then I review seven of them every week to jot down some key insights: (1) Principles, what is true so I get to use the logic to make better decisions, (2) Pains and fears, to discover possible areas for growth.
By the way, this daily journaling format was inspired by Ray Dalio after reading his book Principles.
PS: I would like to add that I’ll also tell my 18 years old self to travel more often.
Image from Unsplash