#148 It’s not a choice

Performance gap: the frustrating gap between how you know something should be done in an ideal world and how you currently do it. 

One implication of the performance gap: you don’t have to master this skill today.

Another implication, maybe even more important: your idea of how something “should be done” is probably wrong anyway.

Because as you practice and gain mastery, you’ll also gain progressive insight: a more nuanced intellectual understanding of the skill you’re practicing.

What I thought was a “good” yoga session six months ago, I now see as a session full of misalignment and cramped muscles.

What I thought of as a solid piece of writing six months ago, I now see as an argument full of holes and points of improvement.

Sometimes, progressive insight is just about more nuances.

Sometimes, progressive insight shows that your initial intellectual understanding completely missed the mark.

There’s only one way to find out: practice: Sculpt away, day by day. 

You don’t have to feel certain to start taking action.

You take action to start feeling certain.

You don’t need to be calm to do yoga.

You do yoga to become calm.

You don’t need to have a quiet mind to meditate.

You meditate to cultivate a quiet mind.

You don’t have to speak Spanish fluently to have a conversation in Spanish.

You have a conversation in Spanish to learn to speak Spanish fluently.

You don’t need to know how to love to start loving someone.

You start loving someone to learn how to love.

And while this chain of causality sounds logical, sometimes the logical things are the hardest to remember.