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We all need to find ways to progress every day. I would go as far as to say it’s our responsibility. Especially during times of stress and uncertainty, it’s easy to just wallow in short-term compulsive pleasures. But as I stated before, our time is only valuable – if we chose to make it valuable for ourselves. And then we experience meaning.
Below you will find 7 ways that make me thrive and progress every day. It aspire meaning in the sense that I’m always learning, maturing and creating when connected with one of the medium’s below.
Since March 2020, Dark Horse Podcast have been my weekly dose of evolutionary biology with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying. They are both evolutionary biologists, and also married to one another. The podcast invites you to livestreams on YouTube every Saturday, where they are talking about how they understand the world, through an evolutionary lens. Both Bret and Heather taught undergraduates for 15 years at Evergreen State College, and this greatly reflects the podcast. They compliment each other, with their idiosyncrasies as educators, in such an engaging way.
In evolution space, the questions often begin with “why.” So, if you value questions starting with “why” – even though that challenges the accepted mainstream narrative and is political incorrect – you will appreciate this podcast. Bret and Heather talk about everything from the most present news, like the Covid-pandemic, to tropical nature and animal behavior. You will definitely learn something new every week with this podcast!
It seems like the majority today either love or hate Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. This polarization seems to be the chief trend among the general population, about public intellectuals. I think we can benefit from a lesser polarized view, and learn from one of Petersons 12 rules – “assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t”.
I found his podcast especially thriving and empowering. A proper way to really progress every day. He explores philosophical and psychological topics including; the relationship between science and religion, the interplay between motivation, emotion and cognition, the nature of human personality, and the role of fundamental rights such as free speech.
To choose one book is hard, because there are so many remarkable books on the market. But if you seriously want to enrich your life and progress every day with profound enlightenment, I really recommend reading this book. I got this recommended by someone whom I respect very much, with the notion that this would really help me in life.
And it’s an understatement to say it did. It’s knowledge I think about on a daily basis, still several years after reading it the first time. The book gave me a set of “tools” to understand small, trivial things that can have immense (negative) impact on our everyday life. Like, why the energy in a room suddenly changes, why you go home from a meeting feeling totally drained and how a toxic relationship can be just as much your own fault.
The narrative: The main character undertakes a journey to find and understand a series of nine spiritual insights in an ancient manuscript in Peru. The book is a first-person narrative of the narrator’s spiritual awakening as he goes through a transitional period of his life.
It only takes 10 minutes a day. No more. Headspace provides you with a super easy way to learn how to stress less, move more and sleep soundly. What better way to make room for some progress every day?
This is a place to start either you are a beginner or an advanced mindfulness guru. Try for free and notice the difference in your mood after just a couple of days. I do it in the morning to get a fresh start to the day. It’s been helpful in making me more focused and calm during stressful times – also known as a great way to thrive and progress every day.
I’ve followed Mark Manson since 2015, and you can say I’m a fan of his work. For some he uses the f-word too much, but still his content speaks for itself. What he’s really good at is extracting out the basics from great philosophical, psychological thinkers and making it more accessible to everyone.
Prior to creating my first clothing collection, I took this course and I must say it really helped. I managed to put my dream into words (which is harder than you expect), state a clear aim and start walking down that road.
The course will help you figure out exactly what your ideal life looks like, state goals and systems and how to leverage each one to create a better life. You will learn how to create habits that you’ll actually stick with over the long-term, and how to evaluate whether or not you’re spending your time in a way that enriches your life (and what to do about it if you’re not). At last, you will learn how to create an action plan to get off your ass and start working towards your ideal life.
Especially during a world pandemic like Covid-19, I think your news source is crucial and equivalent to how sane you manage to stay. I don’t read traditional news online anymore, because they don’t provide proper, unbiased information.
It’s worth paying a monthly fee for more profound, scientific articles, and one good alternative is The Economist. Their focus is not to scare, provoke or make you more biased. They do what news are supposed to – provide you with accurate information in a dull way. Too bad so sad, news are not supposed to be a CSI-episode.
Last but not least, I need something for those small breaks. When I want to pause for a minute, escape to dream-mode and not feel connected to anyone. Then I sneak away into Tumblr-world. This has been my dream away platform since 2012, but luckily I’ve managed to spend lesser time here the last years. When you are a student and constantly day dream about how you want your life to be, it’s easy to find yourself doing nothing but scrolling and daydreaming for hours.
These days I only use Tumblr when I want a quick catch-me-up break, not more than 10 minutes. It’s also the only platform where I dont interact with friends, family, news and whatnot – I just look at beautiful, inspiring pictures and dream away for a moment or two.
PS: Not recommended for real procrastinators (ref the student life I stated above).