🐊 9 Universal truths about habits, told through random facts

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My kids wanted to go play at their Nana’s house last night, and while we were there I found Kate Hale’s book, Factopia, sitting on the table. 

After having way too much fun with it, I couldn’t help but do a special edition of Habit Examples featuring 9 ridiculously random facts, along with my hot take on how each one is a bullet-proof model for thinking about and taking action on habits.

So here it goes!

#1 - Before the universe began, it was billions of times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

Hot take: The greatest things you’ll ever do in life will have come from the tiniest beginnings.

Don’t be afraid to start small.

Like, real small.

#2 - Newborn babies have about 270 bones. By the time babies grow up, they’ll have between 206 and 213 bones.

Hot take: What if personal growth was less about adding more to your life, and way more about removing all the unnecessary?

#3 - The first paper money used in New France (what’s now Quebec, Canada) was actually playing cards.

Hot take: Start with what you’ve got, and grow from there.

Habits are nothing if they’re never started.

But they’re usually not started because starting small seems like nothing.

#4 - The average chocolate bar contains some tiny insect fragments.

Even the greatest things you enjoy most in life aren’t perfect.

So why do you think your habits have to be perfect?

Build habits around purpose and fulfillment - not perfection.

#5 - Rain doesn’t fall from the sky in the shape of a teardrop - the waterdroplets look more like jellybeans.

Hot take: Just cause everyone says it, doesn’t make it true.

Check your facts and take information with a healthy dose of skepticism.

What else do you still believe just because everyone you know claims it to be true?

#6 - Some crocodiles will grow and lose some 3,000 teeth over the course of their lives.

Hot take: Many, many things you try in life won’t work out.

The quicker you let go, the sooner you make space in your life to try a new approach more likely to succeed.

#7 - Dung beetles are able to roll their dung balls in a straight line even at night. They use the light from the Milky Way to navigate.

Hot take: A solid set of guiding core values is the only way to maintain a clear moral path.

How easily will you be swayed throughout your life if you don’t even know what your top priorities are, or what values you adhere to?

#8 - Monarch butterflies migrate from Mexico to Canada each year. It takes the butterflies up to five generations to travel that far - so some of the insects that complete the migration are the great-great-grandchildren of the butterfly that started the journey.

Hot take: Never underestimate the generational impact of your habits.

How different is your life now because of the habits of your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and beyond?

How different will your great-great-grandchildren’s lives be because of the habits you start building today?

(And I just remembered that the most popular theory of generational impact is literally called “The Butterfly Effect”!).>

#8 - About 15,000 to 18,000 new animal and plant species are discovered every year. (That’s 49 new discoveries every single day).

Hot take: As soon as you think you know everything, you’re the wrongest person in the room.

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Consider just one of the ideas you just read.

Is there some way this principle prompts you to do something different in your life?

Write down the thoughts that come to your mind and make it your intention to live this new idea, at least for today. .

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“It smells gross… like lizards”

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Thanks for reading!

- Kody

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P.S. This took me 4 hours to write.

It only takes you 4 seconds to share.