Where do you want to go? What will take you there? What is distracting you from reaching there? It’s not going to happen on its own. It is an uphill battle to some extent. Especially, not going into the downhill indulgences. There is no end to them. There is always the next episode, the next
Unnecessary emotional labour. Our important work requires us to do emotional labour. To show up, to make a change, to create tension, to make things better. But, there are other spaces in our life that lead us to do emotional labour without any returns. Bad traffic, an argument that was not needed, news
What will I tell my boss? If we focus too much on what we will tell our boss, we tend to get distracted from what our real work is. Our real work is to help the users, the clients, the customers. And we are in a much closer proximity to the user than the boss. Instead
Choosing not to play. There are games that are designed to manipulate your mind... credit card rewards. airlines frequent flyer miles. starbucks card. etc. Obviously, there are some advantages in the short run of playing these games, for instance, the free coffee that Starbucks gives when you reach a certain level. But these games
The time resistance takes. It doesn’t make the work better. It doesn’t make the recipient grateful. It simply delays everything. Resistance plays the later game. It convinces us somehow that later would be better. But there is no reason why it would be. Better comes from practice and practice happens when we
What does it look like when you ship your work? Is it a message that needs to be sent, a call that needs to be made, an article that needs to be published, or a letter that needs to be posted? A ship exists to go from one port to another. There is no shipping unless something leaves this port
@everyone. That's what we wish we could do. Only if we could send our message across to everyone. That's the promise that almost every platform alludes to: post it here and then everyone will read it or watch it or like it. But it doesn't
The repetitive, intrusive, self-doubt... ...which makes us doubt our identity unnecessarily. ...which makes us need validation, not once, but again and again. ...which makes everything worse, again and again. It won't go away on its own. But its power can be significantly reduced through community and practice, by surrounding ourselves with peers
The allure of waiting. Waiting for things to get better, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for someone to show up and magically solve the problems. If we are choosing to wait, we should be clear about what exactly are we waiting for and why waiting is a better option than acting now.
A chocolate shared... ...is worth much more than one eaten alone. And, it takes initiative to buy one and share it with someone. We all have the capability of making things better, sometimes by making better things, and sometimes by doing small things that make everything better. We get to do it. We
Are you paying attention? Attention is a currency. It's a currency that determines where our other currency go: time, energy, and of course, money. There is opportunity cost related to where we spend our attention. We can choose to be intentional with it.
Newton's first law. Newton's first law states that every object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless compelled to change its state by the action of an external force. This tendency to resist changes in a state of motion is inertia. Change requires an external
Finding your centre. It won't happen by thinking. It won't happen with analysis. It won't happen by seeking advice. It happens when we act. Not big audacious actions, but small micro action steps in the right direction. It happens when we put ourselves in the uncomfortable position
Creating the conditions for intentional action... Here are the things that help me. You can find alternatives that work for you. 1. Use a visual timer. Either use the Clock app or use the Time Timer app. Better still, buy a physical analog timer. Your focus is significantly different when you have a visual timer in
Systems and gravity. Gravity makes the planets go round the sun. What’s the gravity that’s making you go round? What’s the gravity that you can create? HT to Seth Godin for teaching us about systems and gravity in purple.space
Uncomfortable beginnings... When we start something new, especially something that we want to do or something that would make our lives better, the beginnings are more or less uncomfortable. When you start a diet, you may gain a kg or two in the first couple of weeks. When you start reading, you
Things that won't take care of themselves. Your career. Your physical and mental health. Your relationships. Your community and connections. Your learning and growth. Unless we build a system, unless we put ourselves on the hook, unless we start finding incremental actions that help us grow, we would find ourselves at a distressing level for any of
Fear is a symptom... It's a symptom that we are doing something that can change things, that can make things better. It's a symptom that we are creating tension, we are initiating something that people might not have been expecting us to, that we are upending the order of the
Letting emotions drive... We don't, for the most part, create our emotions with intent. They happen to us as a consequence of our actions and our interactions with the world around us. If we let our emotions drive our actions, it becomes a feedback loop that can take our agency away.
Thinking and feeling... Thinking and feeling don't take us too far. Both are fleeting in nature. Writing on the other hand is more tangible, more resilient, more transparent. And even powerful is action, especially repeated action. Instead of Descartes' "I think therefore I am", as creatives we can
One day at a time. Resistance beats us one day at a time. It tells us that we can start working out tomorrow, we can start writing our book tomorrow, we can start eating healthier tomorrow, we can start doing whatever we want to do... tomorrow. The catch is that it will tell us the
Without getting wet. You can't swim without getting wet. You can't do boxing without getting punched. You can't lead without making mistakes. These are part of the conditions that allow us to create the change we seek to make. We can't make do without them.
Processing the emotions. It feels like a smart thing to move forward from a distressing situation or engagement and try to act as if nothing really happened. Sometimes, it's even called being "professional". But when we do that, when we leave our emotions unprocessed, they compound and make things
Do the work. Yes, you can make plans, big and small. Yes, you can have discussions and deliberations. But, nothing matters until you sit down and do the work. There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part
