Better's Blinkist

What’s in it for me? Make your New Year’s resolutions stick.

In these blinks, you’ll discoverwhy it’s good to develop an addiction;the author’s greatest failure; andwho was first to run a mile in under four minutes.

30 March, 2020 01:33 Share

Your life is made up of ten areas that need to be worked on simultaneously.

Measuring your progress in ten areas of your life will allow you to see what you need to improve.These interrelated aspects are mental health, physical health, spirituality, intellectual life, marriage or partnerships, parental life, friendships, job, hobbies and personal finances. These components are key to living a fulfilling life, which is why it’s important to work consistently on improving them.

30 March, 2020 01:33 Share

rank yourself from zero to ten on each of the aspects previously mentioned. This way you will be able to identify the areas in greatest need of improvement and regularly mark your progress by comparing the results. Moreover, it will give you a clear indication as to where you should be focusing your efforts.

30 March, 2020 01:34 Share

These ten aspects are connected to and influenced by one another, and therefore improvements in one area will most likely result in growth in other areas as well.For instance, a relaxing home life will allow you to concentrate better at work, while a rich social life will lead to a higher chance of meeting a partner.Likewise, performing poorly on certain aspects could have negative impacts on other areas too. You may lack energy in the workplace if you’re not physically healthy, while not having any hobbies could negatively affect your marriage.

30 March, 2020 01:34 Share

Mental blocks may stand in our way, but we can learn to overcome them.

Most of us lug around a lot of baggage, or mental blocks, that determine what is and isn’t possible for us to achieve.One such mental block is false assumptions. Humans continuously make assumptions about the world and themselves. These are often wrong and create a barrier to our progression. These assumptions can be thoughts, such as "You’re not the creative type," "You’re ugly," "You can’t hold down a job," or "The recession means nobody will buy your product." These are almost always self-inflicted and objectively untrue in most cases.

31 March, 2020 05:56 Share

Pilots once thought it impossible to fly faster than the speed of sound, and athletes believed that no human could run a mile in under four minutes. The ones that broke through and achieved the seemingly unthinkable are those who dispensed with the negative narrative and went about proving that it was, in fact, possible.This is the mentality that former United States Air Force general officer Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager had when he broke the sound barrier in 1947. In 1954, athlete Roger Bannister also ignored the impossible narrative by running a mile in three minutes and 59 seconds. By dispelling common knowledge about physical limitations, both Yeager and Bannister succeeded where others had failed. Since then, numerous airplanes have broken the sound barrier, and many runners have recorded one-mile runs in under four minutes, now that the perceived limits have been surpassed.By revising the perceived limits, not only can you improve yourself, but you can even change the world.

31 March, 2020 05:57 Share

In 1963, it was the belief of many that the civil rights movement wouldn’t amount to anything. Most said that non-violent efforts would never achieve change and that racism was far too deeply ingrained in American society for anything to be done about it. Dr. Martin Luther King, however, refused to take these perceived beliefs as undeniable truths and led a peaceful protest march of 200,000 people to Washington, where he gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. With this speech, King replaced the taken-for-granted worldview with an alternative perspective – knocking down the mental blocks in many American minds and opening them up to change.

31 March, 2020 05:57 Share

Instead of letting past failures derail you, learn from them and grow.

It might’ve been a primary school teacher who told us we’re hopeless at art, or it could’ve been last month’s failed attempt at dieting. Whatever the case, past experiences can contribute to our negative thinking and keep us from moving ahead.A bad experience in the past can affect our confidence in future circumstances.A good example of this is comparing the 80% of teenagers who make New Year’s resolutions to the 30% who do so aged 60 and older. This discrepancy is because the older people get, the more failures and setbacks they’ve experienced, and so they are less optimistic about their desires coming true. But this is a false assumption, and you shouldn’t let past experiences affect your actions in the future.Instead, use those previous failures as useful advice.

31 March, 2020 05:59 Share

The author’s greatest failure occurred when he was working all year for a client – an up-and-coming author working on landing a big publishing deal. Toward the very end of the year, the client stopped taking his calls, and just like that, the author had wasted 12 months on someone who’d decided to go with another publisher at the last minute.Now, the easy choice would’ve been to give up and look for another job. Instead, the author used what he’d learned over those 12 months to improve his company in a number of ways. For instance, he realized that he should never focus on just one client, and instead spread his net wide. He also learned never to assume that a client would be appreciative of his work. To minimize the risk, he now asks his clients to explain exactly what it is they want out of the partnership.As important as it is to set future targets for yourself, it’s also critical that the goals you set are attainable. Let’s take a look at how you can achieve this in the next blink.

31 March, 2020 05:59 Share

Set challenging goals, but keep them realistic.

Some targets that we set for ourselves are so unrealistic that even the world’s greatest geniuses wouldn’t be able to attain them. On the flip side, sometimes the goals may be so easy that we lose motivation to try and achieve them because so little effort is required.The key to ensuring high enthusiasm levels is striving for a goal that’s within your capabilities, but one that also requires a reasonable amount of effort.

31 March, 2020 06:04 Share

Let’s say you’re planning to write a book. Winning the Nobel Prize for literature is a desirable goal, but it’s also quite unreasonable for a first-time writer. Furthermore, such an ambitious target could prevent you from starting altogether. Conversely, if you set your sights too low and allow yourself to finish your first draft in 6 months, you’ll end up taking too long and probably never get around to finishing. Instead, find a happy medium, which the author calls the discomfort zone. For example, give yourself three months to finish the first draft, and then another three to complete the second.Setting goals is important, but don’t be delusional.It’s possible to exceed the discomfort zone and break into the delusional zone, if you’re not careful. Just as an athlete who overtrains will end up pulling a muscle, setting delusional targets will result in you undermining yourself.

31 March, 2020 06:04 Share

One example of this is the automobile company General Motors. In 2002, they set a target to obtain 29% of the US market. This absurdly ambitious goal almost bankrupted the company.Employees were required to wear badges with the number 29 on their lapels so that they were constantly reminded of the goal. The staff became so fixated on sales numbers that they sold cars with zero-interest loans – costing the company money and affecting its bottom line. It effectively undermined the business and put the 29% target even further out of reach than when they started the initiative. If General Motors had considered it more thoroughly, they would’ve realized that the goal was delusional and this misadventure would’ve been avoided.

31 March, 2020 06:05 Share