Your work matters. It matters to the people who you might not be able to see yet. It would matter to them in more ways than you can think of. No one is going to give you permission to do the work. You can, though, choose to give yourself permission. You can choose
Moving from doubt towards trust. Small, incremental actions create evidence. That evidence helps us take slightly larger actions. And over time, it becomes our identity. Surrounding yourselves with people who cheer you on your small wins makes the journey easier. Someone who does 100 push-ups today started by doing a single one someday.
The way things are. Excerpt From The Art of Possibility by Ben Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander: This practice is to be present to the way things are, including our feelings about the way things are. This practice can help us clarify the next step that will take us in the direction we say
One thing. The hard work is to figure out the one thing that you need to get done next. And, once you figure that out, you can make space for getting that thing done. That space could be a single focus session of 90 minutes, could be multiple sessions of 90 minutes
Making space for... What would you like to make space for in your life? Health, relationship, companionship, humour, love, money, growth? What does this space look like? What can you start doing daily or weekly or monthly to make this space? Once we are intentional about what we want, we will be intentional
Working tired. Would you bet on the best athlete to win the race if they started tired? Then, why do you think you can do your best work when your body and mind are tired? Taking care of your body and mind is a trait of the professional. Unlike amateurs, they don&
Manufacturing possibility... Every day, we get a chance to manufacture possibility. We can do that by smiling at someone and asking how they are doing, we can do that by making someone feel seen and heard, we can do that by moving beyond the voice of our calculating self. Good things happen
The last person to know. Most of your clients may not see you as an amateur. Many of your colleagues may not too. Maybe even some of your friends too. But, for you to not see yourself as an amateur is a big leap. Somehow, you might be the last person to know that you
I do what I say I'll do. And, by when I say I'll do it. A skill that's worth practising. And a reputation that's worth building. HT to Eli Ricker for the "Tracking What I Do Versus What I Say I'll Do" project.
Action is the antidote. Negative thinking and feelings can overpower our will to create. They enable a victim mindset thinking and create a tendency to play it safe. Thinking a lot and acting too little is a symptom of resistance. The antidote to this sort of overwhelm is to take action. There are many
The way things are. The desire that we have in our hearts is the way things are. The pain that we might be feeling is the way things are. The way things are doesn’t mean resignation. It means to be in sync with the way things are. “The way things are” is dynamic,
Meet your heroes. The common advice “Don’t meet your heroes” relies on making your heroes ideal. This implies that you can never reach their standards, and hence, there is no point in trying. Instead, by all means, meet your heroes. Know that they are subjective. Know that they have virtues and that
The fear of things remaining as they are. Mostly, we hear about the fear of change, of growth, of new, of taking the leap. But, there's an uncommon fear we don’t hear about a lot: the fear of the usual. It's not that professional creatives don't have fear. But for them,
Whole vs. parts The calculating self is a part of us but sometimes it tries to act as if it’s the whole. The whole is larger, it encompasses us in all our dimensions. It accepts the good, the bad and the ugly. And, it’s not at war with itself.
The brain too gets tired. What would you tell an athlete if she keeps running or working out despite his body being tired? Would you tell her to push more and get in another round, and another, and another? Or would you encourage her to rest and recover so that she is in the optimal
Thinking in decades. What are the 3 things you would want to get done this decade? (Let's put a date to it. By 31 Dec 2030.) What's the hard part in getting these 3 things done? What can you start doing today that can help you achieve these 3
Expecting traction to happen on its own. "If I keep creating good content on <choose your own platform>, my followers/fans will grow on their own and one day it will sustain me" is as incorrect a statement as "If we keep making a good product, it will sell on its own.
Off the hook. The easiest way to be off the hook is to be on the hook for too many projects. When you are juggling too many balls, both you and everyone else expect you to drop some. But when you juggle with just one ball, or maybe two, or three, then dropping
Trusting intuition. Your body has intelligence that is keeping you alive. It keeps your heart beating, it ensures that you keep breathing, it takes care of everything. This intelligence forms your intuition. It tells you what you need to do, where you need to go, who you need to be with. Trusting
Self-empathy. What would you do if your best friend was going through what you are going through? What would you say to her? Would you be so critical with her too? Empathy is hard, but self-empathy is harder. Still, it's something we can get better at by practicing it
What do you want to ship today? Can you be specific? Is it one thing, two things, or three? Which of them would go out first? If there was only one thing you could ship today, what would that be? When we limit our list to the most important things, we are on the hook. A never-ending
Too big a leap. "Too big a leap" asks for a miracle to happen. It doesn't take into consideration the skill or resource gap that might be needed for the leap to work. It leads to a hoping-against-hope situation. We get stuck when we assert that we have to choose
No points for resistance. When the voice of resistance and fear dominates inside our head, it seems to make a lot of sense. But when we look back at it and the inaction that it convinced us for, there is nothing but regret. And there are no points you get when you explain to
Leaving it to chance. The professional does not leave things to chance. He sees what’s in his control and ensures that he plays the game well. Knowing that “it might not work” and still doing it allows the professional to take the power away from uncertainty. If it would not work, he has
A thousand blogs! This is my blog #1000. Maybe, today's a good day to reflect back and also to see what's ahead. 1. I'd start by nudging you to start writing a blog daily. It doesn't cost anything and it hardly takes 15-30 minutes a
