The professional and the practice. The professional ships on a schedule. She creates a schedule and doesn’t miss ship dates. What do you want to ship?
Weeks, Quarters & Decades. A week brings immediate focus. What do you want to ship this week? Quarters help in intention setting. What is the change you want to make in the next quarter? Decades allow us to set long-term vision. What matters to you when you look at your life 10 years from
Dropping the ball... ...is not as bad as we might feel. Rather, you might not be doing it enough. When you drop the ball, the ball does not break. Neither does the floor. You can pick up the ball and throw it again. You can even let it drop again. And again. The
Get in tune... From Rosamund Stone Zander’s book: Pathways to Possibility: So to embark on the exploration “Get in Tune,” open yourself to the idea of a complex universe, pulsing and vibrating, that is striving to attune with you. Imagine that everyone you meet desires to be in tune with you, as
The wins you don't see... When someone reads your blog and gently nods in agreement... When someone reads your comic and feels seen for the first time... When someone listens to your song and cries her heart out... When someone watches your movie and is not the same person anymore... When someone reads your book
"This is the problem." How can we emotionally distance ourselves from the problem? How can we move from "The problem is me" to "This is the problem"? Doing this would allow us to be strategic about the problem, rather than emotional. But it requires emotional labour to reach this place.
Response time. Don’t keep people waiting. Whether it’s your client, a freelancer you have hired, your spouse, your parents or your kids, or it could be someone you have asked feedback from. Shorter response time is the best way to earn trust. When you keep people waiting, the trust erodes
Learning to live with it. Bad days would happen. Dark resistance is going to be there. Thinking we can eliminate it is childish. What we can do is to learn to live with it, learn to observe it, learn not to allow it to overtake our lives.
Why not now? What action step will move your project forward? What's stopping you from taking that action? We can spend hours, or sometimes decades, waiting to take action. How is delaying the action helping you?
Choosing constraints. Constraints help move our project forward if they are chosen with intent. But they can significantly hinder progress if they are there by default, or by cruft. Which constraints would you choose if you had a choice? Which constraints are there for no good reason? How can you eliminate them?
The idea that slipped... ...might come back, might not. But if we keep searching, we may find others that may surprise us. The brain is an idea machine. All we need to do is ask.
Lightness... ...is the opposite of darkness. ...and is the opposite of heaviness. When we act as a light, we feel lighter. And, when we feel lighter, we start acting as a light. That's how our best self is and feels.
Illusions... The sunset is an illusion. The sun isn't moving. The earth is moving. But the eyes don't believe it even when they know it. The one who has more ideas doesn't write more. The one who writes more generates (and writes) more ideas. HT
A half-baked cake. A half-baked decision is as good as a half-baked cake. No one can eat the cake. It's a waste of the ingredients. And, unless we throw it away, it keeps taking up unnecessary space in the refrigerator. Better to start afresh and bake the cake until it'
Blogs worth subscribing to... Seth Godin's blog Seth’s BlogSeth Godin’s Blog on marketing, tribes and respectSeth's Blog Reading the daily blog will change your day for the better. Subscribe here: https://seths.blog/2024/02/free-subscription-drive/ James Clear's newsletter 3-2-1 Thursday newsletterIdeas that never expire.James
Two truths and a lie. This is a popular game where we are given 3 sentences out of which only 2 are true. The game is to find out the lie. Can we play this game with the critical voice inside our heads? Can we ask: Which one's the truth? Which is the
The best version of you. What does your best version look like? What do you see? Who do others see in you that you don't see? How can you see yourself more like your best version? The more we start seeing ourselves as our best version, the more we become that.
The harsh and critical voice. It can be harsh towards us... and it can be harsh towards others. Sometimes vocally... but mostly within our heads. The more we listen to this voice... the more powerful it becomes. The alternative is to listen to the kind voice, the adult voice, the forgiving voice that enables us
Minimum, not maximum. There is hardly any sphere where maximum is more effective than minimum. The smallest viable audience (This is Marketing, Seth Godin) helps you make remarkable products. The minimum lovable product (Lovability, Brian de Haaff) helps you ship faster and more consistently. The minimum to-do list, the "Done for the
One complete action step... ...no matter how small, gives you the feeling of DONE, of shipping. And makes it more likely that you will get the next one done too. When overwhelmed by the complexity of the work in front of you, figure out the next action step and focus on getting it done.
Dark resistance and memory. The trick dark resistance plays on us is that it makes us forget the best versions of ourselves. Not only that, it makes us believe that the best versions of ourselves is not us, it's someone else. If we start embracing the fact that our best version is
Fear you don't need... Excerpt From Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert: ...you do not need your fear in the realm of creative expression. Seriously, you don’t. Just because you don’t need your fear when it comes to creativity, of course, doesn’t mean your fear won’t show up. Trust me, your
As you are... "As you are" is good enough. Being kind, compassionate, respectful, and loving is good enough. When we stop comparing, we learn to accept ourselves as we are. The more we do that, the more we can grow.
Love (and acceptance) We all want to feel accepted. We all want to feel loved. We can start by accepting ourselves. We can start by loving ourselves. That's the hard part.
The next one... Once you ship a project, the anxiety about how it's doing, how it's being perceived, and what you could have done better can take over... ...which is not useful because now the work is shipped. You can't do much about it. What you can
