One thing that matters. What is the one project that matters to you right now? What do you want to commit to? What does "done" or "good enough" look like? What are the milestones? Who can keep you accountable?
A glimpse of hope. When we are engulfed in darkness, even getting a glimpse of hope may become challenging. No matter how much we try, we may not be able to touch it. It may seem too out of hand. It may take a lot of courage, but taking one action contrary to Resistance,
Shipping "bad work" as an antidote to resistance On days when we are down with resistance, it's unlikely that the work we ship would be our best work. Rather, we are more likely be sluggish. Even if we put in our best effort, all we might be able to do is to somehow patch something up
The difficulty in choosing the easier option. If you had a choice between a traffic-laden route that takes longer and one that seems empty and faster, you wouldn't choose the traffic-laden one just because it's hard. That would be ridiculous. But, when it comes to our work, we find it difficult to make
Making space for happiness. Being a pro doesn't mean working all the time. Rather, working all the time is a sure shot sign of an amateur. When we work all the time, we tire ourselves out and don't ship much. The pro sets boundaries so they can make space for
The wasteful nature of Resistance. Just because it consumes more fuel, makes driving more difficult, or feels like work, doesn't make driving with the handbrakes up a fruitful exercise. A driver who does this is simply wasting resources. He is not learning anything that would make him a better driver. It's
Counting the no’s. If we start counting the no’s, they stop affecting us that much. It allows us to say, “Oh! it’s just the 5th no” or ”It’s only the 21st one.” And since we have survived 21 of them, we aren’t that afraid of the 22nd either. Counting
Minimum viable action step. What's the minimum we can do that would count as one complete action step? Anything less and it would not matter. Once we figure that out, then we can put in the reps. The more the reps, the better our chances of success. For instance, enquiring about a
Just keep typing... Will things get better by typing? I don’t know. Will it help? I'm not sure. What I do know is that things won’t get better by thinking. And so, sometimes, the only option I have is to type.
Do that first. What’s the most important thing for you to work on today? What will require the most energy and attention? What will bring forth the most resistance? Do that first.
The skill of self-compassion. If our friend was going through what we are going through, we would not use the same words, voice or tone with her that we end up using with ourselves. While engaging with others, especially our friends, we are patient, compassionate and understanding. We give them space. We allow them
What would you do if you weren’t afraid? What would you do if you weren’t afraid... ...of “no”, of judgement, of failure, of success, of being your best self? What would you do?
Small Yes's It's tempting to go directly for the big YES. But asking someone to marry you on the first date isn't going to get you too far. Instead, we can help our audience enrol in the journey by enabling "small yes's", the yes
The nuanced middle. More, more, more... less, less... a bit more... a little bit less... perfect. Whether it's tuning your acoustic guitar, fixing the focus on your camera, examining a cell through the microscope, or tuning into your favourite channel on the analogue radio, we must follow this process of tweaking
Make your dream specific. The easiest way to be off the hook is to be vague about your dream. It would take hard work, mostly emotional, to figure out "What does it look like when it works?" But without shaping that, we tend to not move towards it at all.
Low battery protocol. When our phone goes to low battery mode, we become very cautious about how we use it. We avoid the high energy consuming apps and tasks and shift to minimum mode until we can plug it back in. And we know that once it's charged, we can use
Identity requires evidence. Identity is the leverage that can help us bring about change. When we see ourselves as a person who works out daily, it becomes much easier to go to the gym daily. The catch is that unless we create evidence for the identity, we won’t believe in the identity
Shipping mindset. When you are in a shipping mindset, you are intent on moving forward. You make decisions, you make difficult trade-offs, you let go of far-fetched ideas that are too vague to execute. You are on a mission to get things done. When a pro sits down to work, she can
Driving with the handbrakes on. That’s what stress feels like. It leads us to a place where we keep putting in effort without making much change happen. If that’s the case, it may make sense to figure out the root cause of the stress, especially if it’s chronic stress. Sometimes, maybe not
Via neutral. You can't go from first gear to a higher gear, or vice versa, without going via neutral. More acceleration isn't going to help if you are stuck in the first gear. The skill of changing gears requires the skill of shifting to neutral.
Identity votes. With every action we take, we cast a vote, either for the identity that we want to build or the one that we want to get rid of. Whichever identity gets the majority votes wins. The only way to imbibe an identity is to create evidence for it and the
Imperfect forward motion. When we are working on a project, we can get stuck and become paralysed trying to figure out the perfect strategy or perfect action to execute. Fear and self-sabotage work together in sync to stop us from taking any action. It's not that we forgot about the project.
Finite & specific. Making a project finite and specific makes it doable. And that's the hard part. The hard part is taking the project from an ambiguous state and making it finite and specific. It's hard because it requires us to make choices. We will have to choose the
Focus is a skill. And like any skill, if we don’t use it much, it becomes weaker. And like any skill, we can start again, day by day, in becoming better. The amateur fears solitude and silence because she needs to avoid, at all costs, the voice inside her head that would point
Customer traction. Customer traction is the moment of reckoning. Either the customer would want our product and sign up. Or they would decide it's not for them. One way or the other, it moves us forward. And customer traction is also the hard part. It requires emotional labour. It requires
