reading reflection no. 2

1. General theme: Put yourself in a position where even if you fail (don’t meet a goal), you still have put yourself in a better position than you were before. Maybe you gained some skills, or made connections along the way that can set you up for success in the future
2. This book discusses maintaining a positive attitude/energy usually by making good habits and building confidence. In addition he talks about not being afraid to be the first to do something. Just because nobody else has tried or succeeded with something doesn’t always mean that you can’t.
3. Assignment would be to interview people about their skills. It would consist of asking how quickly/easily it originally came to them, and what their process was/is to develop that skill. In addition ask questions to try and assess the relationship of their relative skill level with how much they enjoy whatever it is.
4. I learned that “Goals are for losers”. This surprised me, because all my life I’ve been told that's the road to success is to set goals and strive to achieve them. According to Scott Adams goals either discourage you if you don’t meet them, or they take away your desire to improve once you do meet it. The more important thing to focus on is the here and now (The Process). What are you doing every day in order to improve. In addition it is important to make daily habits of whatever your process is, other wise it's easy to decide not to do it on certain days and eventually the habit gets away from you. Other main takeaways I got from this book are

-focus on yourself and happiness (exercise, nutrition, sleep, positive attitude)

-have awareness and learn from everything that you do (recognize patterns)

-building skills will give you more opportunities for success

-Even though it might go against what we’ve been learning in this class (tenacity), sometimes it's good to know when to quit. It's important to assess yourself and what you’re good at, and sometimes part of the learning process is trying other things. Usually passion comes along with success (it's fun to be good at things).