Saurabh Mithal

Writer, Teacher, Career Coach, Mentor. Work website: passionatelycurious.in I write a daily blog at https://blog.passionatelycurious.in

Maximum or minimum?

Maximum creates distractions. Minimum brings focus. Choose "What has to be there?" rather than "What can be there?".

Pushing against the voice.

"What you are writing is not good." "This doesn't make sense." "We should come back to this later." "This will not work." The voice will keep doing its work. We can keep doing ours. The moment we press publish, the

Extremely slowly.

Resistance likes rushing: fast thoughts, high frequency, multi-tasking, shifting from one thing to another without getting anything done. It doesn't like to slow down. If you want to write a blog, you can focus on only opening the tab where you write. It may take 10 minutes for

Who's it not for?

It's important to figure out who our work is for. But it's equally, or maybe even more, important to figure out who it's not for. It's not for the cynic, the critic, or the random commenter who doesn't care. It&

Batching vs. iterations.

Batching is great for efficiency. It helps us save time, money and effort. One can write 30 blogs in a day and then schedule them to be sent over the month. Iterations, however, help us build skills. The more iterations, the more repetitions, the better we become. Practising guitar 10

Your work is not for you.

It's not about what you get out of doing your work. It's about the change you can make for the people you seek to serve. When you act sheepish, when you hide, when you listen to the voice of fear and don't show up

Putting it on the table.

It's tempting to keep our goals and dreams in our heads. It's even more tempting to have our systems of achieving them there too. And to top it off, we keep the fears there too. When they are all in your head, we are in for

Becoming Seth Godin.

Got more than 900 rejections in one year when he started out. (~ 3 per day) Wrote more than 8000 blogs in 20 years. (~ one per day) Gave more than 1000 speeches in 30 years. (~ one per week) Wrote more than 23 books in 20 years. (~ one per six months) It&

Tools for solopreneurs that can change your life for the better.

Sharing a few tools that have helped me tremendously in the last few years. Beeminder.com - If you are serious about your goals and habits, are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? The voice of resistance hates Beeminder and its idea more than anything else,

One thing at a time.

We don't move forward by the extent of how much we plan to get done. We move forward by how much we actually get done. It's always better to plan for less and do more rather than the other way around. One thing at a time.

Lightness.

Resistance loves heaviness and seriousness. It wants us to take ourselves and our work too seriously. Everything becomes a threat or a distraction trying to interrupt our serious work. This stops us from being childlike and playful in our work. What if, instead, we could embrace the playfulness and with

Patience and intent.

Almost everyone starts from scratch. Artists who get millions of views on their videos started out by performing in front of empty seats. Blogs and podcasts with a million subscribers started with none. Even billion dollar businesses, like Apple, started with sales of tens or hundreds of computers, not millions.

Uphill battle.

Trying to get back on track is different than trying to stay on track. When we are working out regularly, it doesn't take much effort to work out more. But when we are getting back to the gym after a month-long break, it's important to remember

Finding our agency again.

Without our agency, without being in charge, the victim mindset can take over. Resistance can use its tools, procrastination, self-doubt, and rationalisation to keep us limited and delay our ambition. Sometimes, we can find our agency back again through books, podcasts or similar resources. Many times, it's a

The magic of masterminds.

Find 2-3 people who are on a similar journey as you are. Ask them if they'd like to meet weekly for 30-60 minutes at a set time. Set up a recurring calendar invite with these 2-3 guests. Share with each other what you are working on, and what

Rewarding the habit.

Eliminate the cue and your habit will never start. Reduce the craving and you won’t experience enough motivation to act. Make the behaviour difficult and you won’t be able to do it. And if the reward fails to satisfy your desire, then you’ll have no reason to

Small habits to bring your energy back up.

Talk to someone who perks you up. Do a small workout or breathing exercise. Write down everything on your mind in a doc or paper. Put on music that makes you feel better. Listen to a podcast or an audiobook that brings positivity. Go offline for a while. Drink more

The peace (not war) of art.

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” ~ Steven Pressfield, The War of Art When we work on our art alone, it may feel like a war. A war against a part of ourselves that wants to

Cost is different from price.

The price of the computer you like may be high. The cost of buying a cheaper one could be that it crashes right when you are working on a critical project. The price of the car you like may be high. The cost of buying a cheaper one could be

The generous act of creating tension.

Change leads to growth. And change isn't comfortable. A key component of that discomfort is the act of creating tension for others as well as ourselves. When we create tension, we put the other person on the hook, enabling them to take action and move forward.

Create. Edit. Ship.

When we create, abundance is the key. As professionals, we create around 5-10x more content than we might need at the end. A 400 page book generally has an initial manuscript of more than 1500-2000 pages. When we are in the create phase, we do not engage our editing mindset.

Books.

If you are feeling overwhelmed with fear and self-doubt, unable to take action: War of Art by Steven Pressfield. If you are feeling that you are not consistent enough, that you could do more: The Practice by Seth Godin. If you'd like to be more creative and create

The dance of creating opportunities and delivering on them.

If we focus only on delivering on what's on our plate right now, soon we will run out of work to do. On the other hand, if we focus only on growth and generating new opportunities but do not deliver on our existing commitments, we will end up

The double-edged sword of fear.

On the one hand, it beats you up by constantly telling that you are not doing enough to grow your business. On the other, it stops you from taking any action that can actually help you grow your business. It's tough to break through when we are caught

Taking back charge.

Little by little, resistance creeps up. It asks us to make exceptions. It convinces us that we're still in charge. But slowly, but surely, we start losing our agency. Slowly, but surely, resistance starts dictating our day. And when it does that, it may sometimes feel like it&