3-2-1: Focusing on what you can control, the value of small contributions, and daily habits

Happy 3-2-1 Thursday!

Here are 3 ideas, 2 quotes, and 1 question to consider this week.

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I.

"The more time you spend complaining about what you deserve, the less time you have to focus on what you can create. Focus on what you can control."

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​II.

"If you never question things, your life ends up being limited by other people's imaginations.

Take the time to think and dream, to question and reconsider. It is better to be limited by what you can dream for yourself than by where you fit in someone else's dream."

III.

"The edge is in the inputs.

The person who consumes from better sources, gets better thoughts. The person who asks better questions, gets better answers. The person who builds better habits, gets better results.

It's not the outcomes. It's the inputs."

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I.

The poet Mary Oliver on the value of small contributions:

"May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful."

Source: Upstream​

​II.

Author and poet Maya Angelou on how libraries changed her life:

"All information belongs to everybody all the time. It should be available. It should be accessible to the child, to the woman, to the man, to the old person, to the semiliterate, to the presidents of universities, to everyone. It should be open...

Information helps you to see that you’re not alone. That there’s somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who’ve all longed and lost, who’ve all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you’re not really any different from everyone else. There may be details that are different, but a human being is a human being."

Source: Interview: Maya Angelou with The New York Public Library​

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Are the results I am expecting aligned with the habits I am following each day?

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Want to share this issue of 3-2-1 via text, social media, or email? Just copy and paste this link:

​https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1/january-19-2023​

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Until next week,

James Clear
​Author of Atomic Habits and keynote speaker​​

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p.s. Powerful networking tips. (From a talk by Stephanie Wan.)