Can you be more specific? It is always a good strategy to be more specific. What is it exactly that you want? What exactly do you need to get done in order to get it? When exactly are you going to do that? The more specific we become with our intentions, the more like we
Thinking vs. typing. Typing is helpful. It takes us somewhere. It makes our thoughts tangible. Typing in public is even better. It keeps us on the hook. On the other hand, thinking keeps us in the loop. Very rarely do people break out of status quo because they were thinking. They break out
freedom.to Freedom, this is one app I don’t think I can live without. It blocks all the distracting websites on my MacBook. So, even if my tired or distracted mind is looking for salvation in YouTube or any of the other dopamine dealers, I am unable to access them, no
Keep going. There are times when things do not look like they are working, especially when they are. At these times, there is a very strong urge to change, to pivot, to analyse. What I have realised over time is that this is just a phase. That all we need to do
8 hours a day. Without that, that amount of sleep, you are running your body in an emergency state. Coffee is the quick fix you do to get the engine started although you know how much engine needs an oil change. It is easy to spend another 2 hours in the night on your
Forward. Forward motion is uphill. It is full of roadblocks, full of uncertainty, full of ambiguity. But is there another way? I don’t think there is. That’s all we can do, no matter how difficult or impossible it may seem. — If you liked reading this, consider subscribing. If you
Killing your darlings. No matter how much we want, we can never save all our darlings. Time is limited, there are only 24 hours in a day. While our imagination and the number of things we assign our ‘tomorrow self’ can just keep on growing. When you are faced with such a predicament,
Magic. There is no degree, certificate in magic, thankfully. There is no entrance exam to be selected to learn magic. Not the tricks, for them there might be. But real magic. The magic that makes your heart skip a beat. The magic that comes from a heartfelt story written by a
Wonderful rebound... A student wrote and sent me this… There is more to our life, our career than the scores of any test. We tend to make an identity out of that score and think that it will make us a better person(hierarchically) to have achieved it. Then we try to
When things go right... When things go right, at times it doesn’t feel right. There are butterflies in the stomach, and there is a tinge of anxiety all around. When things are static, we feel comfortable. Nothing much changes. The more we shift from this latter feeling of comfort to the feeling of
Reasons? We always have a reason not to level up, not to take action. In almost all cases (read: all cases), these reasons are merely excuses. They come from the fear of levelling up, the fear of letting go of the status quo. When your identity is someone who wants to
Better. To make something better means that we have to make something worse before that. The 2nd draft can only be better if the 1st draft isn’t perfect. When we strive to make the first draft perfect, we give into Resistance. The magic happens by making things better, not by
Say 'no' to notification. How would you feel if you are working on something and every 10 minutes or so, some random person taps you on your shoulder? How would you feel if many of those taps are not by a person but by a robot sent by a company that wants to sell
assistance We talk a lot about resistance and rightly so. Most of us keep experiencing that force. But there is another force at play, the one which is on our side. The one which never falters. It works if you do the work. Neil Gaiman famously said in his commencement speech
Shifting the focus from circumstances to action. When we focus on our circumstances, we invite the ‘victim mindset’. We become helpless. We feel that we can do something only if ‘this happens’. The best way to change your circumstances is to focus on the action that would lead to the change. In most cases, the actions would
Rushed. When we are rushed, we keep moving but we get nowhere. The feeling of ‘rush’ comes when we try to get something done in lesser time than it requires. But when we act rushed, we increase this time and in most cases actually do not get the outcome. It’s
Non-negotiables Our non-negotiables define us. It’s imperative that we find them and be explicit about them. When we start making exceptions to our non-negotiables, that’s when we start losing our sense of ourselves. By definition, there can be no exceptions to the non-negotiables. — If you liked reading this, consider
Experiment. Life gets better when we experiment. When we try something out and see if it works. A 5-year old experiments all the time, with the snacks they eat or the toys they love. As we grow old, more often than not, we lose this knack of experimenting. We become comfortable
Time is finite. If we spend 3 hours extra awake in the night, it gets deducted from our day the next day, or worse, from our sleep. The natural cycle of day and night is an ally and not an enemy. It is something to be embraced. Sunset and sunrise are very strong
Accepting yourself. I don’t do well in open offices. Even when no one is around. I don’t do well on social media. Even though it offers a supposed shortcut to success. I don’t do well making plans in excel. I prefer a blank document instead. I tried for a
Resolving ambiguity. Ambiguity is the reason behind procrastination, more often than not. And we try to resolve this ambiguity in our head or by talking to someone. Sometimes, very rarely, we see through it, but most times, it leads to even more clutter. The reason is that thinking and talking are not
The opposite. Common wisdom is rarely wisdom. In most cases, our initial ideas are not as good as we think they are. It’s just that they are our ideas. It might be a good exercise to consider the opposite. What if I did the opposite? What if I said the opposite?
Transparent. What if our thought, our voice and our action were in sync. It doesn’t start from thinking about it. It starts from writing, sharing and doing our work with intent. When we become transparent, then the cunning voice inside our head becomes weaker. When we share our fears, our
