It's not about me. This blog. My work. My organisation. My team. They are not about me. Seth talks about it in Practice and Pressfield mentioned about it in War of Art. But I did not get it then. When I make it about me, I make it precious. I stop being generous. I
It will get better... … not with time but through action. One action at a time. One thing at a time. That’s how Resistance loses its power. Each act of shipping, of showing up, of showing courage, takes us forward. We don’t ship when we are ready, we become ready when we ship.
Who's incharge? When Resistance is incharge, we are residing in ResistanceLand. All choices are made by Resistance and we simply tag along. But it is possible for us to be incharge instead. And for that, we might need to gather all our courage to simply say ‘No’. We can say ‘No’ to
ResistanceLand Welcome to Hell. Pressfield describes it as “You can’t get no satisfaction. You are bored. You are restless. You feel unloved and unlovable”. It’s a slippery slope. The moment I think I am in control, I start slipping. The more I slip, the more likely it becomes that
Checklists. I had read Atul Gawande’s book, Checklist Manifesto, around a year ago. I started using Checklists vigorously after reading the book. That made me highly effective as well as efficient. Over the months, my brain, mostly resistance, convinced me to let go of the lists and trust the brain
Lack of trust. An employer doesn’t trust the employee. They look at them as an expense because the moment they get a better offer, they’d leave the job. Hence, they do not invest in them, whether financially or emotionally. An employee doesn’t trust the employer. The moment they find a
Tradeoffs in the mind We seem to be in a perpetual negotiation in our mind. As if there are 2 sides to it. As if by not writing today’s blog, I am going to get something in return. These are lose-lose negotiations. The only way out of them is to not participate in
Boring and repetitive. The quest for novelty can be a hindrance in the quest for consistency. We seek novelty for the tension that it creates. We don’t know how it’s going to turn out. But when we stop being consistent for the sake of novelty, we make the novelty even more
The buzz and the resistance. Yesterday, as part of the Creative’s Workshop at Akimbo, I listened to a conversation between Seth Godin and Gabe Anderson. They talked about the buzz you feel when you are committed to doing something. The buzz I felt just before I started typing this blog entry. That’s the
Don't think your way out of a rut… There’s a popular saying that goes like, “If you’re in a hole, stop digging”. Thinking is what gets us into a rut. The way out of it is never through thinking. Instead, action, despite all the resistance to it, despite you not feeling like it, despite your rational
Small losses... …are essential for big gains. The easiest way to avoid your creative work is to engage in other people’s urgencies. However, in order to do something meaningful, you would have to let go of many meaningless things. If all we do is to avoid the small losses, the big
The neutral gear. How do you get a car that’s going in the reverse direction to move forward? You put it in neutral first. Even to change the gear up, you need to go via neutral. It makes sense then to identify with our neutral state and learn how to get back
Finding our voice. There are two voices inside our head, the automatic one and the intentional one. The automatic one tends to take over the space most of the time. It makes us run on auto-pilot. But sometimes, when we become calm, when we act, we get a glimpse of the intentional voice.
Addicted to the past? Are we working on making our future better or are we busy paying off the past’s debt? Ironically though, the best way to pay off the past’s debt is to work on the future. Elon musk, Jeff Bezos are definitely future oriented. They are working on things that
What are you measuring? Want to write more? Want to lose weight? Want to earn more? What are the metrics that lead to your goals? Are you measuring them? As Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured, gets managed.” If it’s all in your head, you are probably not being as effective as
Leading myself. When we talk of leadership, we invariably think of others as followers: I am leading, they are following. The most important leadership, though, is leading oneself. There is a follower in each of us. That part of our mind that needs direction. That part of our mind that wants someone
Mental labour. The one that we do in the mind. When we think about a task, or a decision or anything for that matter. This includes discussions and deliberations. That mental labour is useless. Nothing comes out of it. Instead, it’s the fingers (that type or paint) or the vocal chords
Time and Focus. Time behaves differently. I am not talking about Einstein’s relativity theory but my assertions on Resistance. When we are indulging in Resistance activities, time rushes like anything. We don’t even realise that we have spent 4 hours on YouTube or watched the entire season in one day. On
Working through ambiguity. We almost always have two options: choosing the ambiguous path or choosing the path of clarity. The path of clarity has clear actions and clear outcomes. You want a job, make a CV and apply on a job website. You want a date, make a profile on bumble. But the
Resistance is not the enemy. I am the enemy. I, who listens to the voice of Resistance. That is the enemy. I, who believe that I still have time to get the work done, so I can open another app and check that. I, who believes the thoughts of self-doubt that comes in my head,
The half-baked idea... …is just like the half-baked cake. You can’t eat it. You don’t want to throw it away. So you keep it. Just like it is. And the longer you keep it, the worse it becomes. The half-baked idea is kept in the refrigerator of our mind. We keep
Irreversible forward motion. Seth Godin calls it “Turning the Ratchet”. It is the action that levels us up. Like the push-up. You can’t or won’t undo it. And it makes the second push-up much easier. The more forward motion we generate, the more we are likely to generate. Thinking is paralysing,
Making exceptions. In the War of Art, Steven Pressfield tells his friend Paul Rink that he finally finished his first novel. “Start the next one, tomorrow”, he replies. Creative pursuit is akin to Sisyphus’s struggle. First, to look at the boulder, then to go beside it, then to put the effort
The irony of rest. What does Sisyphus do when he has pushed the boulder up the mountain? He goes and gets a good night’s sleep. Hopefully. There’s a reason why the sky becomes dark in the night. It’s an indication from nature that you need to turn off and get the
Locking it in? I am not sure whether to do this or that. What do you think? Okay. Let me ask someone else also. What do you think? And so on it goes… Pick up any decision or action; add a bit of ambiguity and morality to it, and then you have this
