#306 You’ll be okay

Playing the guitar hasn’t taught me to move my hands and fingers across strings. It has taught me to persevere whenever I’m failing over and over again until suddenly, it all clicks and the words, music, or movements flow.

Yoga hasn’t taught me to put my body in awkward poses. It has taught me to be aware of – and release – the tension in my body whenever I sit, walk, stand, and run.

Taking cold showers hasn’t taught me to withstand cold water. It has taught me to know to relax whenever my body tenses up in stress and my heart starts racing.

Learning a foreign language hasn’t taught me to say the same things with different words. It has taught me that there are different ways of perceiving the wordless world around me, and expressing what I feel inside.

When we isolate insights, most of the learning is lost on us.

Learn thematically. Ask yourself, “Where else does this apply?”

With how (online) education and teaching are done nowadays, most people give up long before they get real results. Let’s fix that with this counterintuitive 3-step approach to skill-building: 👇

1️⃣ Step 1: Intent Builder.

Before you start, you must light a fire under yourself.

Why is this important to you?

What do you stand to gain?

Also (especially), what do you stand to lose?

(❗️I guarantee that at some point, you’ll forget what you’re doing it all for. So make your Intent strong and remind yourself every day; otherwise, you’ll always let life get in the way.)

2️⃣ Step 2: Trust Builder.

In the first 14-21 days, there’s only one thing that matters:

Can you prove to yourself that your Intent is strong enough to show up and take action daily?

Or are you derailed by the slightest setback or the lack of quick results?

Most people don’t have that trust in themselves yet. So you must build it up by taking small, daily actions completely decoupled from “quick wins” (I call them Tiny Trust Builders).

This is counterintuitive because people crave instant results, which means most course creators try to build them in their programs.

But the harsh truth is, only when you can show up without getting instant results are you ready to get real results.

3️⃣ Step 3: Skill Builder.

Once you’ve built the trust that you’ll show up, you can focus on skills, progress, and results. Here are two valuable mechanisms that take you from Trust-Building to Skill-Building:

👉 Make things a little harder every day or week
👉 Implement feedback loops: ask for coach feedback, talk about what you’re doing, show your work,…

Bottom line:

Learning something new is easier if you’re already in the habit of showing up every day.

It’s also easier to get through a bad day if you’re already in the habit of showing up every day – after all, you know that tomorrow, you’ll be there to take action again.

When you feel inspired, write.

When you feel you don’t have a single sensible word in you, write.

When you feel like the last thing you want to do is writing, write.

Because writing will bring your identity and mindset back to where it
belongs.

Because you’re a writer.

And writers write.