Shortform Books

Bullet Journal Exercises for Discovering Your Purpose

How can bullet journaling help you find meaning in life? What bullet journal exercises can you do that will get you excited about the future? In his book The Bullet Journal Method, Ryder Carroll suggests two exercises for finding meaning and fulfillment in life: the visualization exercise and the obituary exercise. These exercises will help you move forward in a way that makes you feel more fulfilled. Here’s how bullet journaling can help you in your search for meaning and purpose in life.

How to Gain Clarity: Try Bullet Journaling

Do you feel like you lack clarity and direction in life? Why are you doing what you’re doing? Many people run on autopilot which leads them to believe that life is meaningless. In his book The Bullet Journal Method, Ryder Carroll explains how to gain clarity on why you’re doing what you’re doing. Here’s how you can use your Bullet Journal to gain clarity and purpose in life.

Shortform Reads: A Shameless Harry Potter Superfan

Why did Megan make the transition from fiction to non-fiction books? What lesser-known book does she wish more people knew about? Megan works as a book guide writer at Shortform, making educational guides that help readers gain insight into their favorite books and become exposed to new ideas. She’s originally from the United States but recently made a big life change and moved to Brazil with her husband.

How to Read Your Opponent—Chess Prodigy Explains

How do you read your opponent in a fight or a competition? What signals can help decipher their intended actions? At the highest level, competition takes place on the psychological battlefield. To win, you have to learn how to read your opponent and exploit the chinks in their mental armor. This is especially true when you’re evenly matched in technique. Here’s how to read your opponent, according to American chess player Josh Waitzkin.

The Role of Mindfulness in Sports Performance

How can mindfulness help you become a better athlete? Can practicing mindfulness improve sports performance? To excel in sports, you need to maintain an emotional state that allows for confident, uninhibited performance. If you have any mental or emotional conflicts, you can’t access peak performance states. Mindfulness can help you achieve that by training you to remain unperturbed in the face of distractions and emotional turbulence. Learn about the benefits of mindfulness in sports.

External Reality & Success: Why You Might Be Anxious

On what do you base your success? Is your quest for success making you fearful and anxious? Many people measure success in terms of how much they achieve or accumulate. According to best-selling author and world-renowned well-being practitioner Deepak Chopra, this definition of success—based on external reality—limits you and keeps you trapped in a cycle of achievement and accumulation that creates more anxiety than success. Here’s why an external focus creates a constant state of anxiety.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir—Book Overview

What happens in Jeannette Walls’s book The Glass Castle: A Memoir? What did Jeannette and her siblings go through as children? Did her parents ever learn? Jeannette Walls’s memoir The Glass Castle is the harrowing tale of her life growing up in poverty with wayward parents. Following the Walls family through the desert to the coal-mining region of West Virginia to the fast-paced life of New York City, this memoir explores the nature of family, loyalty, and tragedy and what it takes to survive together and apart. Here’s a brief overview of the events in Walls’s book.

How to Boost Productivity: The Bullet Journal Solution

Do you want to know how to maximize your time? How can using the Bullet Journal Method help you? If you feel like time is your enemy and you just don’t have enough hours in the day, you should try bullet journaling. This may sound like an odd and counterintuitive solution at first, but bullet journaling can help you become more productive and organized so you can focus your time on what matters. Here are some Bullet Journal productivity tips from Ryder Carroll.

How to Do a Year-in-Review in Your Bullet Journal

Do you keep a bullet journal? Do you take time at the end of the year to review it? Ryder Carroll, the author of The Bullet Journal Method, says that you should always do a bullet journal year-in-review. This will help you reflect on your previous year’s goals, aspirations, and plans. Here’s how to do a year-end review.

Niten Ichi-ryū: Miyamoto Musashi’s Sword Style

What does Miyamoto Musashi teach in The Book of Water? In what ways should a samurai be like water? In The Book of Five Rings, legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi says that a samurai must learn to be like water. He teaches three fundamental components that a warrior must master if he wants to learn his famous sword style Niten Ichi-ryū: 1) don’t memorize, absorb, 2) train both body and mind, and 3) master yourself first. Let’s take a look at each in detail.