Hello!

Did you miss AWIP? A quick 2 week break is now over - lots to discuss and lots to write, so let’s get into it.

In today’s email:

• Today’s thing ✏️ - Journey before destination

• This week I'm ⬇️ - a load of links and interesting things

• A quote 💬 - something useful or thought provoking

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I finished the final book of the Game of Thrones series this week. It’s an amazing series (still unfinished), but it was a great feeling to finally finish the book and move onto something else.

Some books, however, are a bit of a drag and I can’t wait to finish them. It’s those sorts of books that make me care more about the number of books I’ve read and actually finishing them, than just enjoying them as they are.

What's interesting is that this way of looking at things happens in all parts of my life. I can sometimes focus on the destination (finishing a book, arriving in Cornwall after a 5 hour drive) rather than the journey itself (the book itself, the enjoyable drive).

With a goal oriented focus, you can never really be that happy. You achieve a goal, but you always make more in its place.

This email is a good example - I don't have a goal of X emails this year.

Instead, my aims of writing this email are to improve my writing, learn about cool things, and think about them out loud. I also want to connect with people that have similar views and interests. This is journey focused.

If I don't enjoy writing the email, I doubt I'd write one every week, so it's important that I enjoy the process. This is what keeps me turning up to write each one.

📍 Creating change: journey before destination

Having a big focus on a goal - losing weight, learning a new skill - is likely the reason why we often don't succeed.

Losing X% body fat, or being able to play Oasis, are both great things - and would hopefully bring a lot of joy.

However, they are destination focused. There's not enough attention on enjoying and making the most of healthy eating and exercise, or the development of dexterity and ability as you learn the guitar.

If you don't like exercising or eating healthily, you aren't going to lose weight. So, focusing on the process - and this doesn't necessarily mean enjoying - is key.

Easier said than done, of course. Starting new habits/processes (daily yoga, 3x exercise per week etc) is always difficult.

Which is why it's important to figure out how to enjoy the process! And that's another problem for another day.

This week I'm: ⬇️

📺 Still watching Clarkson’s Farm S2 - as much as Clarkson is probably not a good person on the whole, this series is extraordinarily good and incredibly interesting. The 5th episode focusing on his cows calving is some of the best TV I’ve ever seen

🔉 Adding Sonos’s beautiful new speaker - Sonos Era 100 - to my wishlist

🎧 Reading How to be Perfect - written by one of the writers of The Good Place which is an amazing show on Netflix. Very funny and insightful so far

☀️ Happy that we are fast approaching my favourite month of the year: April

💭 Thinking about April’s 30 day project. Any suggestions?

📹 Recommending you watch this video by Matt D’avella - I quit my phone for 30 days

🕺🏻 Looking forward to DJ Seinfeld next week - one of my all time favourite DJ/producers

💬 And finally, a quote

Thanks!

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In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, and have a look at what I’m reading on Goodreads.