Farheen Ale Syed

Now onwards, if someone asks me what’s my favorite self help book, I know the answer: Atomic Habits by James Clear. Here are a few quotes I loveddd from the book. A very, very practical approach to organizing your life. Recommended 💯 One of the sayings in San Antonio Spurs locker room, NBA’s most successful team, “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it- but all that had gone before. 1. Small changes often seem to make no difference for weeks or months until you cross a critical threshold. You need to be patient. 2. Your identity is not set in stone. You have a choice in every moment to grow better. Create a loyalty program for yourself. 3. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. Fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves. 4. A genius is not born, but is educated and trained. With deliberate practice and good habits, a child could become genius in any field. 5. If you want to master a habit, the key is repetition, not perfection. Walk slowly, but never backward. The best is the enemy of the good. 6. Lost days hurt you more than successful days help you. Master the habit of showing up. Rebound quickly. Never miss twice. 7. Your genes do not determine your destiny. They determine your areas of opportunity. 8. No habit will stay interesting forever. The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom of doing the same things everyday, over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom. 9. A lack of self awareness is poison. 10. Make a commitment to tiny, sustainable, unrelenting improvements today. Early on, its all sacrifice. Small habits don’t add up. They always compound, if you’re willing to stick to them for years.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, an emotional whirlwind that describes facing death eye to eye, when neurosurgeon Paul was diagnosed with terminal Cancer near the end of his residency. Paul faced each stage if his illness with grace- not with bravado or a misguided faith that he would “overcome or “beat” cancer but with an authenticity that allowed him to grieve the loss of the future he had planned and forge a new one. Here are my absolute favorites from this book: 1. I don’t believe in the wisdom of children, nor in the wisdom of the old. There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn doen by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment. 2. Life is merely an ‘instant’, too brief to consider- Backett’s Pozzo 3. It is important to be accurate, but you must always leave some room for hope. 4. Boredom is the awareness of time passing- Heidegger 5. Darwin and Nietzsche agreed on one thing: the defining characteristic of the organism is striving. Describing life otherwise was like painting a tiger without stripes. Life isn’t about avoiding suffering. 6. Happiness is not the point of life. 7. Books are the finely ground lenses providing new views of the world. 8. Putting lifestyle first is how you find a job- not a calling. 9. People can always hurt you more, but they cannot stop the clock. 10. Paul’s, a dying man, message for her toddler daughter: When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied.

The monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma is a self help book to reach your ultimate potential and achieve your dreams fearlessly, all this with a very deep sense of character, kindness, self-awareness and living in the present moment. What makes this book special is the mention of practical techniques that anyone can do to unlock the greatness that resides within each one of us. Here are some of my most favorite parts from the book: 1. Albert Camus once said, ‘Real generosity toward the future consists in giving all to what is present.’ Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Live for today. 2. One’s destiny unfolds according to the choices one makes. The best time to plant a tree was 40 years ago. The second best time is today. 3. Worry drains the mind of much of its power and, sooner or later, it injures the soul. We all have the power to determine what we will think about in any given moment. The price of greatness is responsibility over each of your thoughts. 4. Luck is the marriage of preparation with opportunity. Life favors the prepared mind and pretty much gives you what you ask from it. 5. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self. Don’t race against others. Race against yourself. 6. The only limits on your life are those that you set yourself. Its all a matter of conditioning. Act as if failure is impossible, and your success will be assured. 7. Read regularly. Every answer to every problem you have ever faced is in print. All the mistakes you will ever make in your life have already been made by those that have walked before you. 8. The most youthful people are the kindest. A little bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses. 9. Make sure, you keep your friendships in constant repair. A person with three solid friends is very wealthy indeed. 10. A goal that is not committed to paper is no goal at all. Small victories lead to large victories. Starting today, learn more, laugh more and do what you truly love to do. Do not be denied your destiny.