Think Big: Take Small Steps and Build the Future You Want

I want you to view ME+ as a real person who is worth your time, empathy and effort.

It is essential to make your progress salient by auditing the activities you are doing and the milestones you are reaching.

You zone in on and remember items that interest you, and these can be saved for later if you wish to go deeper. It also helps build the narrative that you are a continuous learner. By engaging in distracted learning regularly, you are helping ingrain a new routine in your daily life. If repeated enough times as a small step, it becomes a habit.

It is also worth setting aside a block of time for what I will call ‘distracted learning’. This is continuous learning but with a lower level of focus, so you can multitask. Think listening to a podcast while on the treadmill or cooking, or reading while listening to music on your commute. Learning in this way has great benefits.

Anders Ericsson, a Swedish psychologist, who insists that practice is deliberate. You need to be in a zone where there are no distractions, so you can achieve flow. Ericsson also maintains that if you manage to get into the zone, you can expect to be tired afterwards. Why? Because you have been focusing so intensely it saps your energy. Therefore,

described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow is a mental state that is experienced when you are engaged in continuous learning activities that are challenging enough to fully engross you. The good news is that if you achieve flow you will enjoy a feeling of great joy and satisfaction. The other states recognized by Csikszentmihalyi are a

Exploring other areas of learning outside those that link directly to your future self will allow you to be unexpectedly inspired. It also gives you scope to discover further interests that you did not know you had.

I recommend devoting 80 per cent of your continuous learning time to honing a key skill – with a view to becoming an expert – which allows some leftover time to investigate other interests.

In the beginning, you should spend some time becoming familiar with opportunities that are either free or low-cost. If your continuous learning costs a fortune, your own budget will ensure it can never be continuous.