1 Secret To Retaining What You Read For Ever

Morning Leaders,

As we bring 2020 to a close, have you thought about reviewing your progress this year?

It’s this time of year that I sit down and review the goals and progress for 2020, from here I’ll celebrate the wins and review why I fell short on the goals I didn’t hit. I’ll also map out my goals and roadmap for 2021.

I touched on goals a few weeks ago and why setting clear goals is instrumental in being successful and staying focused on where you want to go. In tandem with goals, you need to be documenting your journey. Writing down the things you are learning, your successes and the things you have fallen short on. With all this insight in one place compounded over time, you will become a powerhouse of knowledge. But storing these insights in one place is not enough, you need to periodically review your notes and re-surface the knowledge. Re-surfacing this knowledge and re-applying it will help it stick in your memory and be available for your day to day work. This extended knowledge can have a profound effect on you as a person and the progress you make towards your goals.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peterson

Now you may be thinking, I’ll just remember it. You may well do, but like most of us, if you don’t write things down, you’ll soon be a victim of the forgetting curve. Once that treasure you acquired or read has not been applied or used or does’t have some form of emotion attached to it, it will often leave your short term memory and will be forgotten.

You know what the best way to avoid losing all the valuable knowledge and insights you have acquired is? Write it down into your personal repository.

What does a ‘personal repository’ look like?

Call it a blog, call it a journal, call it a note pad and pen, call it what you want. Write it or type it into some format which you can refer to at a later time.

Here are somethings that I constantly write down in my personal repository:

✅ Inspiring lines and quotes

✅ Talk tracks/ways of communicating a message

✅ What an experience taught me

✅ Summary and key notes from books

✅ Analogies

✅ My self-reflections

✅ What I have learnt from a failure

✅ Feedback from a Mentor

✅ Goals

✅ Reading list

This process does require discipline but it’s the best way to improve and develop as an individual. Recording what you are learning and focusing on week over week can open your eyes to a lot of things.

By setting goals and documenting the steps of your journey you can easily measure your progress. You can also shift your focus if you feel like your plan has become out of date and needs refreshing. By documenting each step you have a stronger sense of progress too, where goals alone can feel like progress has stalled which may leave you feeling discouraged.

I use Notion as my personal repository. This app will get you organised, focused and on a path to success on your own personal journey.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and all the best for 2021!

David

Resources Of The Week

• YouTube - Evan Carmichael Confidence Series - Evan put together a series of daily confidence building videos from celebrities to motivational speakers delivered via YouTube directly to your inbox everyday. 254 days to Unstoppable Confidence.

• Book - David Goggins - Can’t Hurt Me - this guy is an absolute machine. Ex Navy Seal and has completed the hardest ultra marathons on the planet. If you want inspiration from someone who has built incredible resiliency and an unstoppable mindset, this book is for you.

• Book - Leadership: Plain and Simple by Steve Radcliffe. Great book which carries on the theme of this newsletter why it’s so important to establish strong relationships with your team. Based on Leadership FED framework. Future, Engage, Deliver.

Quote of the Week

‘Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.’ - Henry Ford

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