Hi! Welcome to our 26th newsletter! 💡learnshiv is here to make learning easy for you. In this constantly changing world, the only way to future-proof yourself is diversification, and that’s what I’m here to help you do.

Here’s what we’re talking about in this week’s newsletter:

• 👉🏽 How to future-proof your life

  • Work: Tracking your tasks at work, WOW: Work Metrics

  • World: Electoralism will not save us, WOW: Electorialism

  • Well-being: Dealing with a major upset, WOW: Productive Failure

💻 W O R K

Always track your work
I need to be taking my own advice here because I got lazy and stopped doing this. Above is a screenshot of my actual notion tracker for work accomplishments. It’s really that simple. Here’s how I break it down.

Section 1: Name the task - Name the task and set it as a new page in Notion so you can drop any notes, links or comments from co-workers in there.

Section 2: Choose the type of task it was - You should get granular here so you can differentiate the type of work you did. This will help you determine where most of your efforts were spent at the end of the quarter.

Section 3: Add the date - You should be tracking your work EVERY DAY, even the smallest tasks. This not only helps morale on the days you feel unproductive but can always be proof if you’re ever accused of not performing.

Simply tracking your work this way helps future-proof your career by creating a tangible record of your skills, achievements, and value to employers. This not only strengthens your position during performance reviews and salary negotiations but also enables you to quickly adapt your resume and interview responses to changing job markets.

🌎 W O R L D

Electoralism will not save us
I know we’ve all heard - Biden finally decided to drop out of the presidential race. While this is a good thing, I firmly believe that voting is harm reduction and not much else. I do still think we should vote, but we shouldn’t see it as our main way to participate in politics. Here’s why:

• Limited scope for change: Electoral politics usually creates incremental changes rather than the radical change needed for fundamental systemic change. Pivotal changes in society have always come from grassroots movements, from civil rights in America to anti-apartheid in South Africa to labour strikes in Canada.

• Money gets in the way: Money talks, and frankly, most elected politicians act on behalf of their donors (who could be corporations or individuals), PACs, and others who give them money (like organizations that pay them to speak or book publishers). We see this play out often in how politicians vote on issues like gun control, pharmaceuticals and defence spending.

• Other forms of political engagement create more direct change: Other actions often prove more effective than traditional politics in addressing societal needs and driving change. During COVID-19, community-led mutual aid initiatives provided immediate support while official responses lagged. The 2018 U.S. teachers' strikes achieved significant wage increases and improved education funding more swiftly than years of political lobbying. Direct action and community initiatives can yield better results than relying solely on electoral politics.

Understanding the limitations of electoralism encourages engagement in diverse forms of civic action, skill development, and community building beyond traditional political structures. This enhances personal resilience, adaptability, and critical thinking, better equipping you to navigate societal challenges regardless of electoral outcomes.

🧠 W E L L - B E I NG

Dealing with a huge upset
This weekend, I went to a huge basketball tournament in Ohio with my husband (he’s the team doctor). It was a sudden-death tournament, and our team lost by 30 points. Boom—epic fail and no chance to redeem it. Seeing the players' morale drop so much throughout the game got me thinking about how much we attach failure to our self-worth. Here’s why we need to detach these two concepts (I learned these from this article):

• Inherent human value: Our true worth lies in our fundamental experience as conscious beings, not in external achievements. Detaching failure from self-worth allows us to recognize our intrinsic value regardless of outcomes, promoting resilience and a healthier self-concept.

• Enhanced recovery and growth: People who practice self-compassion and don't tie their worth to success recover more quickly from failure and are more likely to try new things. This approach fosters a growth mindset and encourages learning from mistakes rather than being paralyzed by them.

• Avoid psychological machinations: When self-worth is tied to achievement, individuals often engage in counterproductive behaviours to avoid failure. Detaching failure from self-worth reduces the need for these defence mechanisms, allowing for more honest self-assessment and genuine personal development.

Understanding how to detach failure from self-worth future-proofs you by fostering resilience, continuous learning, and emotional stability in the face of life's challenges. This mindset enables better decision-making, stronger relationships, and adaptability.

Thanks for reading our 26th newsletter. I want you to be prepared for the ways in which our world may change and affect our lives, careers, relationships, and more in the future. 💡learnshiv is meant to share my three passions with you, share what I learn, and make your life easier by helping you learn, too, in a digestible way.

If you’re reading this, reply, and I might give you a sweet treat.

Have a great week, and stay curious,

Shiv 💁🏽‍♀️