Distinctions for Life are anything that helps your live better. From the mundane, like keeping your feet comfortable through the day, to the philosophical, like how attention defines your life. Some are subtle and may take a long explanation to allow you to apply them and change. Others are so easy they can be explained in a few sentences.
We humans are categorizing animals. It is nearly impossible for us to not look for patterns and group things together. Here’s a few categories for distinctions
Ideas are distinctions. Sometimes a new intellectual understanding can make a big change in your life. Understanding the effects of where you put your attention is an idea that once you get it, will allow major changes. Likewise, understanding your beliefs have a huge impact on you is an idea that makes a big difference.
Beliefs are distinctions. Read the Beliefs post which goes in-depth about what beliefs are and why they are important. Other posts teach you useful beliefs that are distinctions all by themselves.
Metaphors are distinctions. Metaphors are symbols that we use to think about life and things in life. Sometimes these metaphors bring baggage with them that needs to be examined, like the metaphor of work/life balance.
Life hacks are distinctions. These are habits, tools or systems that once implemented in your life will change you for the better. These are often the “small changes” that make the big difference.
Practices are distinctions. A practice is a small thing that if done regularly slowly but surely improves your life. An example of a practice would be Morning Pages.
Words are distinctions. Sometimes the way we use words have a deep but subtle influence. A change of terminology can make you more persuasive, kinder, or a better leader. We call these distinctions Work Hacks.
I remember hearing a speaker once talk about how many books he’d read, how many speakers he’d heard. He said some of them were very bad, but he told himself, “If I just learn one little thing that I can apply from this book, then it was worth it.”
This blog is a collection of those “one things” I’ve picked up over the years. Not every post is going to be relevant to you when you read it. Somethings you will try it and it won’t give you a big return. But given all the different distinctions here, you should find something that makes tomorrow better than the day before.
One pet peeve of mine is when a books spends the quarter of the book telling you why you should make a particular change, or why what they say is true. I always think, “Look I bought the book. Let’s get to it already.”
One of the beauties of Distinctions is they prove themselves.
If you do them.
I’m going to ask you to actually do stuff and see what happens. If it works for you, you’ll know it. If it doesn’t work there might be bugs in the systems. Double check you are doing it as described. If you are doing it right and it still doesn’t work for you, move on.
Sometimes though all it takes is a change in…
Photo by Syed Farhan Ahmed on Unsplash
