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
Emotional or strategic? Emotions are fleeting. They can't be relied upon especially when the going gets hard. Also, emotions make us see drastic measures as the only option forward. And they do not present a choice. When we are in the grip of emotions, it's hard to see outside
Feeling the symptoms. What’s the project that we can’t let go of? The one where when we try to let go of it, we start feeling the symptoms: heaviness, restlessness, despair. And the moment the project is back on the plate, the symptoms go away. If there’s such a project,
Allocating resources to projects. Each project requires resources. Mostly, we are conscious about allocating money but extravagant with resources like our time & energy. If we don't assess how much we have available and also limit our work to the amounts we allocate, sooner or later, we would run into burnout.
Making things worse. Many times, we take the higher ground while we are hiding. We don't act and we say that it is because we are virtuous. At least we are not making things worse. We all have the ability to make things better. And if we are not doing that
Boredom is the key. The amateur seeks new, change and exciting. The moment a project loses these traits, the amateur gets bored and seeks another project. The professional thrives in boredom. She embraces the repetitive nature of showing up day after day working on supposedly the same thing knowing that even though she can&
90 minutes at a time. A lot can be done, 90 minutes at a time. A lot less would be done, in let’s say, 6 hours at a time. Our brain can’t process that much time. It won’t initiate the process that would help us focus. 90 minutes allow us to warm
"The how" interferes with "the what". If we get distracted by "the how", while deciding "the what", it is going to lead us astray. Our decision-making would become cloudy and emotions would stop us from making a strategic decision. We need to ignore "the how" until we decide on "
