Instead of "Just do it", "Merely do it." Seth Godin talks about this in his book "The Practice". When we are working on a creative project, emotions and fear make our journey tedious. It seems like driving a car with the handbrake up. A lot of energy goes into countering the emotions but it doesn'
One win a day. Can we focus simply on getting one win by the end of the day? This would change our perspective when we are making our to-do list. The question then would be: Would completing any item on this list count as a win? It would push us to find the actions
When self-doubt stops you from solving problems. As entrepreneurs, we are always on the lookout for problems and innovative ways of solving them. But many times, even when we see both, our self-doubt stops us from taking action. Some of the things it says: "it might not really be a problem that other people face"
Setting milestones in projects. There are some projects that get done in a day, some even get done in hours or minutes. But most projects take multiple days or weeks to complete. The challenge in working on long projects especially when you are working alone is that it is easy to get lost along
Patting your back! As Seth Godin puts it, we may very well be the world's worst boss. No matter what we do or achieve, the boss in our mind focuses on what's missing. The way to become a better boss is to build the skill of being empathetic towards
Changing the status quo or maintaining it? Maintaining the status quo is a busy job. It eats up time, energy and attention and the urgencies never stop coming. Changing the status quo is different. It requires us to do less, to focus on the difficult actions that will bring about the results that we seek. A lot
Ship something. Keep moving. Energy needs movement. Whether it is within atoms, or in space, things keep moving. Nothing is stationary. Nothing is settled. Change is the only constant. Get busy living or get busy dying. - Shawshank Redemption.
Putting yourself out there. Whether it is our career, health, relationship or anything else, the more we put ourselves out there, the more likely it is that we make progress toward our goals. It's not easy. It's definitely not comfortable. But it's the path that leads to the
Chaos, not order. When we seek to pursue our creative ambition, we seek order, clarity, and certainty. But that's exactly what we are not going to get. Instead, we will get chaos, excitement, surprise, delight and whatnot. Possibility is very different from certainty. You can have one or the other, not
Pursuing multiple goals. It's tempting to strive to reach multiple goals at the same time. It gives us the illusion of progress. The most likely symptom of this is that we are busy all the time. But this is hardly effective. In terms of input, there is a lot of work.
Get something done. Ugly done is better than perfect in progress. When we take action, when we make something live, we put ourselves on the hook. There is tremendous learning there. The more we do that, the better things become. It's easy to fall into the trap of planning and organising
Eventually. Eventually is not a time-frame. It’s a way to procrastinate on your dreams, on your ambitions. When you put your desires on an eventually timeline, you are not taking action. “I will do it, eventually.” is a safe place to hide.
Letting go of the past. Seth Godin talks about letting go of sunk costs: things we have invested time, money or energy in the past that do not serve us in the future. This is one of the most difficult skills to build. If you had to choose from scratch, which habits, people and projects
Getting to a calm mind. No child has ever stopped crying when someone shouts "Stop Crying" to them. Similarly, our mind never calms down when we order it to calm down. Similar to a child, we have to let the mind be, we have to ask it what's wrong, we have
5 blogs a day. Seth Godin told Tim Ferriss in a podcast interview that he writes 5 blogs every day and publishes one. For him, writing the blog is not a chore, it's a privilege. A privilege to observe something interesting and to put that in words. It also creates a mindset
Starting with the problem. As entrepreneurs, many times, we are in search of problems that can be solved by the solution we have in our minds. In the process, we end up wishfully inventing problems that might or might not exist. The challenge, instead, is to leave the comfort zone and talk to people.
Actions and decisions. Decisions happen when we act, when we take some action which makes the situation irreversible or at least inconvenient to go back. Without action, there is no decision. If you can't decide on something, the way forward is to identify the action that needs to be taken.
A dollar saved is a dollar saved, not a dollar earned. Saving is a finite game. There is an upper cap on how much you can save. Earning, on the other hand, is infinite in nature. It's not a zero sum game. The more value you create, the more you can earn. More than the act itself, it'
Routines and repetition. Typically, we end up making hundreds of decisions every day, most of which do not make our life better: what we'll eat (at least 3 times a day), what we wear and so on. The irony is that no matter how many times we repeat them, they persist.
What are we having for dinner? You can ask this. Or you can ask, "How can I double my income in six months?" You can't ask both.
What gets done matters. There can be a hundred things we can do, big or small, meaningful or meaningless, selfish or generous. We can spend hours and days debating these, but the only things that matter are the ones that get done, that get shipped. Steven Pressfield talks about Resistance being the highest when
People like us. We are all on different journeys in different spheres of life. Sometimes these overlap, many times they don't. We expect our close ones, our friends and family, to empathise and relate to our project, our challenges, or our wins. But, unless they are enrolled in a similar journey,
Showing up as our most ambitious self. We usually don't. We are mostly afraid to do so. To show up with our ambition without any caveats, without smoothening the edges, without defending our dreams. There is magic in being unashamedly, unabashedly your best self, your most ambitious self. Maybe, we can start by writing it
One push-up a day. Tim Ferriss once asked Matt Mullenweg (Founder, CEO of Automattic (The company that made and runs WordPress) about his workout habits. He replied that his goal is to do one push-up every day. No matter how tired or busy he is, he can get that done. Most days, he gets
The power of one. Focus. Select. What's the one over-arching goal that you can be committed towards? Everything else becomes secondary.
