Fear and forward motion. “Where your fear is, there is your task.” ~ Carl Jung As Steven Pressfield said in War of Art, we can navigate through our fear. What are we most afraid to do? What action step will move us forward in that direction? What stops us from taking that action step? What
All or nothing. There are games where there's no middle ground. You can fold or you can go all in. If you can't make peace with ending up with nothing, you can't complain about not getting the all.
Self-sabotage is a slippery slope. And it's path is tricky and complicated and confusing. And doesn’t necessarily lead anywhere. On the other hand, love can act as a compass and take us on the journey towards where we want to go. The slope, although, is uphill and it’s going to take
Make life interesting. Do what makes life interesting. Even if you do it for an hour a week. Do that. No matter what.
Where's your curiosity leading you, next? What's interesting to you, now? What's calling you? How can you make space for it? Maintaining the status quo is a busy job. Changing it requires intent.
Vulnerability is a gift. Vulnerability takes courage and it's not easy to embrace. But when we do the hard work of being vulnerable, we open doors not only for ourselves but also for those who we are vulnerable with. And vulnerability allows us to engage with possibility, to look beyond the downward
Catching the wind... ...is not a strategy, it's luck. And the work that you seek to do is too important to be left to luck. When you focus on what you can deliver and who you can serve, you gain the agency to fulfil your promise. However, when your promise involves
Taking a break. That's a tough one when you are your own boss. When you are working for someone else, you can ask for a break and you'd really hate it if you are denied that. But what if you are the one who is denying it? It'
No fires to fight. Sometimes, we get so used to fighting fires that we don't know what to do when there are no fires to put out anymore. One tendency, then, can be to look out for more fires to put out, and another (disastrous, to say the least) can be to
Self-inflicted wounds. During the trench warfare in WWI, it was a not-uncommon phenomenon for soldiers to take their rifles and literally shoot themselves in the foot. The troopers would claim that the shooting was accidental. They were hoping to get sent to the hospital and thus excused from duty. They did this
Keeping a check on rationalisation. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. ~ RICHARD P. FEYNMAN, Nobel Prize–winning physicist Rationalisation stops us from looking at the hard truth. It weaves a story that dilutes the reality and provides justification for whatever conundrum we are
Creating the conditions for... ...for whatever we desire. More conversations? Go to a cafe with a book and without your phone. People feel comfortable asking what you are reading and voilà... you have a conversation. More money? Figure out what people are already paying for and are not being served well. Build trust and
It's not about you. It's about the people you seek to serve. It's about the story they tell themselves and how engaging with your work resonates with that story. The more the creator gets away from their own heads and more into the heads and hearts of the people they
Doubling down. We hear a lot about diversification, about spreading it out, about not investing too much in one thing. But great work and great relationships happen when we double down on what we believe is right for us. We do this especially knowing that "it might not work" (as
On all the time. When you expect the brain to focus for hours on a stretch, it simply gives up. It will not put in the energy needed to do something tangible and make progress. Instead, it will distract us with stimuli whether it's email, social media or anything else. To get
The resolve to ship. Desire and intention are not enough. Until we have the resolve to ship, the resolve to change the status quo, resistance will keep stopping us from shipping. It will distract us with meaningless details and keep us entangled. But, once the resolve to ship is there, we are able to
The bad days. There are days when we have no motivation, no excitement and even no energy to do the creative work, the work that we have signed up for. The brain doesn't work, the creative juices don't flow, things just don't feel right. These are the
Fun or profit? Are you doing it for fun, or are you doing it to earn a profit? "Both" rarely works. When you choose what's it for, you can choose to make the tough decisions that will get you the outcome you are looking for.
Finding neutral. When we get rejected, or when something unfortunate happens that we don't seem to have control over, or when things don't go the way we intended them to, then, the natural tendency we have is to react to the situation and to try and take action
Missing a day. When we miss a day on a habit we are trying to build, the immediate reaction is to try to make up for it the next day. That's a trap and it leads us on a slippery slope which goes like this: if you write a blog daily,
Making it easier. There's a difference between doing the hard thing and doing it the hard way. The easier we can make doing the hard thing, the more likely it will be that we do it. For instance, if you are writing a book, it helps significantly to join a co-working
Slight discomfort. Resistance wins because we try to avoid slight discomfort. The discomfort of closing the emails tab and opening a blank page to write. Or the discomfort of leaving the sofa and starting a workout. Once we start writing or start working out, the discomfort is no longer there. Instead of
The magic of making a start. A few wise words from The War of Art by Steven Pressfield: Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur
One thing at a time, one day at a time. A reminder for whenever we feel overwhelmed. We don’t have to solve everything today. We can do what we can do today. And, almost always, that’s going to be enough.
Who are you? What do you do? A runner runs. A writer writes. A teacher teaches. Choose your identity, choose your work, choose your future.
