When you start a new project, excitement eclipses sacrifices.
But when things get serious, you must know what you’re in for.
Your dreams may be worth every sacrifice. But you better know why, before life has passed you by.
Knowledge transfer always implies time collapse. Because learning an insight from someone else usually takes less long than figuring it out yourself.
Take books. The writer usually spent considerable time researching and distilling the topic and coming to good insights (time I might not be able to dedicate).
Thanks to that writer, I can now consume that knowledge in, say 6-12 hours of reading the book. A considerable time collapse…
But when does time collapse go to far?
Can I read a 1-page summary of that book and truly say I grasp the topic?
When your brain gets space to breathe, knowledge grows and nuance shows. It needs time and repeated exposure to absorb information, make connections, and discover new insights.
So a one-page summary isn’t necessarily too shallow… On the contrary: it collapses time so much that information becomes very dense.
What with the evolution towards short-form online content? The primary purpose of TikTok videos and Instagram reels might be to entertain, but the trend is clear and spills over into education, our attention span, and knowledge transfer: shorter, more shallow, yet more dense.
Too little time collapse and we can’t make progress.
Too much time collapse and knowledge collapses with it.
You’ve spent your lifetime bumping into the limits of what you deem possible.
And you’ve also spent your lifetime overcoming the seemingly impossible.
Sit. Crawl. Walk. Speak. Read. Find love. Get over loss and heartbreak. Travel. Invent. Create. Learn. Write.
Overcoming the seemingly impossible is what makes you you.
Once you accept that, the question shifts from, “What’s possible for me?” to, “What are you overcoming next?”
There is no way to predict the future.
But thinking about where you would like to be in the future can help you make better decisions today.
Want to be a writer in the future? Better write today.
Want to run a marathon? Better run today (or eat better, or rest, or stretch…)
Remind yourself of the future, not for the sake of precise predictions, but for the sake of the present.
The trick to successful habit-building: make daily practice easy.
We often do the opposite: we make weekly practice hard.
If I tell myself I’m going to post one long blog post every week, I’ll find a million reasons not to write for the first six days until I have no choice but to write.
But if I tell myself I will post daily, the longest I can procrastinate is… 12 hours?
And after a week, I’ve practiced my publishing habit 7 times.
So it goes for meditation, yoga, running, and any skill or habit.
Make the daily practice easy.
You kind of want to run a marathon.
You kind of want to eat better.
You kind of want to move more.
You kind of want to feel better.
And everything kind of stays the same.
Only when “kind of” becomes “absolutely” and “want to” becomes “choose to” change happens.
I absolutely choose to write.
I absolutely choose to run a marathon.
I absolutely choose to eat better.
I absolutely choose to move more.
I absolutely choose to do whatever it takes to feel better.
Because there is no other way.
Voting fraud doesn’t exist in your body and mind.
You can’t cheat your way into being a writer. Your body and mind count every word as a vote for being a writer.
You can’t cheat your way into being a runner. Your body and mind count every every stride as a vote for being a runner.
You can’t cheat your way into being healthy. Your body and mind count every nutrient.
Luckily, you don’t need a landslide to change your identity. A simple majority is enough to make the power balance tip over.
