The good, the bad and the ugly. Was our day completely good or completely bad? Are we objective about our assessment? The ugly part is that in most cases we obsess about the worst thing that happened in our day instead of looking at the good parts also. That’s a habit we can change. This is
Review. We plan all the time. And most of the times we fail to execute our plans. But that’s not the end of the story. There is an important step that we mostly don’t do. It’s to review what happened and adjust our plans accordingly. Reviews make the
Do it now. I read a blog entry from Jason Fried of Basecamp and I felt an urge to reply to the blog as it quite resonated with me. Almost immediately, I had another thought, a very forceful one. It told me ‘not today, not now’. Yes, you should reply but you need
Keeping things inside your head. This is a dangerous habit. We feel that by not communicating, by not replying, somehow we are avoiding the uncomfortable conversation. Somehow, things are better because we chose not to speak. Yes, dealing with trolls might be a fool’s errand and should be avoided in the first place. But,
The fear of success. Are we afraid of failure? I don’t think so. We call it the fear of failure, but when we give into it, we barely act. And thus, by default, we fail. Failure is not something we are afraid of, rather failure is something we may have become quite used
Embracing who you are. J. Krishnamurthi talked about the concept of ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’. The ‘what should be’ interferes with how we feel about ourselves. It creates a barrier between who we are and some imaginary supposedly perfect version of ourselves. Yes, we want to become better. But that is much
Action steps. It’s good to have goals and desires and whatnot. I wish I could earn more / lose weight / gain weight / get into a relationship / travel more / and so on. What’s more important is to identify doable action steps and then getting started with them. The day will never be
Self-sabotage There is no lower limit to the self-sabotage that we can cause. It becomes too addictive too soon. It is very important to identify when we are downward sloping and to arrest the slide. Small, positive actions can go a long way in breaking the momentum of self-sabotaging activities.
The decade of the freelancer. Technology has evolved. The next decade is going to be the decade of the professional freelancer. Not because of Uber or Upwork or Fiverr but because of tools like Zoom, Discourse and Basecamp and learning platforms like Akimbo, Creative Live and Masterclass. Seth and Tim Ferriss host their blogs on
Perspective. The brain perceives us in relation to something else. When it has to choose between a stranger and a friend, the friend becomes us and the stranger becomes the other. When it’s between the friend and ourselves, suddenly the same friend becomes the other. And when it comes between
Stay. Stay with this idea. The one you are working on. Yes, the other one seems tempting. Yes, this one doesn’t seem to work, at least for now. There is a time to pivot, but mostly it’s not when we believe it is. Change takes courage but staying also
Visual clutter. Are you unable to focus and get things done? Look around you. What do you see? How many things are there that you want to see? What all is there in your field of vision that is not put there with intention? Removing this clutter from your view, whether physical
One by one. Is the brain able to process more than one thing at a time? It definitely gives the illusion that it can. But choosing/deciding is not something the brain is good at. That’s the job of the gut. So, when the pre-frontal cortex is at loggerheads with the gut,
Writing a blog. Seth Godin nudges everyone to start writing daily. I agree with him wholeheartedly. On a dark day, the one minor blog entry can help you feel good about yourself. Some days, you can go through what you wrote months ago, and seek wisdom. It is an asset that keeps giving
Breaking the mental barrier. Our mind finds solace in the status quo. We get used to our ‘condition’. To break that mental barrier, we need to take action contrary to it. Taking these actions is where the highest kind of courage is needed. If we want one status quo, I may very well choose
Embracing cyclicality. Nature has cyclicality built in. Day and night, summers and winters, life and death. As creatives we can also embrace the cyclicality of creative work. Sometimes, we need to leave the creative soil vacant so that it gets replenished. Shutting the office at 5, taking the weekend off, these are
What you seek... We complicate life unnecessarily. Yes, we want this and that and that too and this too. Yes, I understand that. But let’s talk about which one do you want first. And why. Let’s keep asking ‘why’, not because it’s a hack, but because it may bring us
A few kind words. A few kind words can change the world. At least for some one, at least for some time. It doesn’t take too much time or effort. It doesn’t take anything away from you. Rather, both the speaker and the listener feel good. Oxytocin (love, bonding) is released in
Pebbles in your shoes. Yes, you can walk with them. They are irritating, but you can manage. You are in a hurry, no? Let’s keep going. It’s easy to put off the pebbles for later… But try taking 2 minutes to take off the shoes and take the pebbles out. Not only
The ideal status quo. That’s what we are sold. Do this and life will be perfect. Whether it is a test, or a job, or a relationship, that’s what we are told. Get this thing done and then everything will be perfect. Yes, these things do significantly change our life, sometimes for
Showing up... again. That’s hard. Yes, it takes courage to show up the first time. But when you fall into the Resistance traps, when your streak gets broken, when all seems lost… Just to show up again. To write another blog. To raise your hand. That takes another kind of courage.
The deadline. There was a time when I hated the deadline. I despised it. Now, I don’t think I can survive without it. The deadline helps me publish this blog. The deadline helps me run my company. The deadline gets me to complete the course I sign up for. If I
The symptoms are all the same. Overwhelm. Guilt. Multi-tasking. Not feeling like I am doing enough. Unable to show up consistently. Distractions. When we allow the shallow mind to run our life, we all feel the same symptoms. The medicine, therefore, is also the same. Establish a ritual to access the deep mind on a consistent
Priorities or priority. One word that I’d like to eliminate from my life is priorities. If I say priorities, I am not putting in the effort of identifying the priority among the priorities. Having priorities is a way of hiding, of escaping the hook. HT to Essentialism by Greg McKeown for the
Typing to decide. Most of the time we do not do the work because we don’t know what we want to work upon. Our mind makes us believe that there is no point sitting down to work if we are not clear. So, we start thinking and deciding and talking and so
