What habits should I cultivate now to prepare for the future?
This is a post by B.V.Harish Kumar, co-founder of CTQ
What are the highest compounding life habits, i.e., those habits whereby starting them now will yield exponentially valuable results in the future, and what are the best of these habits to start compounding in one’s life most efficiently?
I’d recommend setting aside time every day for the following:
Reading - In my book, reading is something everyone should do every day. It’s a superpower. As you read more, you’ll start to make associations and your knowledge will start getting crystallised. Every leader is a reader. You could read non-fiction to learn or fiction for enjoyment. Either ways, you’ll enrich your perspective.
Meditation - Unlike reading, this is not something that everyone gets taught. So you’ll have to take some time to teach yourself how to meditate. They say you should meditate for at least 8 minutes every day. There are different ways and styles of meditation. You can pursue any of them. As you do it regularly, you’ll experience a state of flow and the duration will keep getting longer. Meditation is one of those keystone habits that will have a knock-on positive effect on the rest of your day.
Physical Exercise - Spend at least 30 minutes every day in some form of physical exercise. A fit body is necessary for a fit mind and good health. This is again, one of those keystone habits and will give you disproportionate results when you do it regularly over a long period of time.
Journaling - Reflection and maintaining a journal is a great way of wrapping up your day. Personally, it helps me regularly work my writing muscle as well. You can write about how your day went, express gratitude for everything you are thankful for and write down what you want to do the next day.
Thinking - This might sound odd. Setting aside time to critically think about a topic or trying to solve problems/ riddles is something that I recommend. You don’t have to be an entrepreneur or a political leader to be thinking about how to solve tricky problem or world hunger for that matter. Do it regularly and you won’t be at a loss when faced by a real-life problem yourself.
Networking - You will need help from others - it could be for a favour or a job or for a friend or to get feedback on your idea. You will have to deliberately nurture your network all the time so that you don’t end up springing a surprise on those people when you need them. So spend time building and nurturing your network.
The following could get counted in one or more of the above. I consider them separate and carve out time for these:
Learning - Keep looking for new things to learn. Your reflection and thinking time will give you ideas about what more you should learn. Take up courses, get your hands dirty and keep experimenting.
Hobbies - Don’t confuse this with learning. It could be something you learned when you were younger and it’s one of those things that you do for just enjoyment. You need not associate learning goals with these activities.
Your hobbies could help you address multiple habits from above. E.g. you could be reading fiction. So that addresses #1. You could also be playing tennis and compete in local tournaments. Then that addresses your physical exercise and you get to make new friends at the local tournaments and address your need to network. There are only 24 hours in a day. So you may have to be creative in how you address these different demands on your time.
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