#94 Restoring Faith in the Malleable Mind

Here’s a question Tim Ferris asks startup founders (and himself) when deciding to invest time and money into a new project:

“If, in one (or two, or three) years from now, this whole project has failed miserably… Which assumptions you hold today were proven wrong?”

Tim Ferris

Answering the question first requires defining failure and success.

For my project of publishing a daily insight on this blog success looks like this:

Write & publish.

Edit.

Write & publish.

Edit.

Then write & publish some more.

Good, bad, well-received or not, received or read by anyone at all, it doesn’t matter.

Because first of all, writing is a creative outlet for me.

Second: long as I write & publish consistently, I trust I will get better at writing and publishing.

Finally: I trust that from all that sculpting away, day by day, will come better and better insights.

A pretty low bar for success – which, counterintuitively, often leads to more progress long-term.

Now we have established that:

What are the assumptions that could be wrong if next year, it turns out I failed to write & publish every day?

Here are some I can think of:

• Writing and publishing every day is going to be a long-term fulfilling activity for me
• I am truly fine with writing and publishing without anyone ever reading it
• I am fine spending considerable time on starting a new project that I might never monetize
• Writing & publishing every day really leads to better writing skills and interesting insights (although even if this assumption is false, it wouldn’t necessarily stop me from writing.)

Will these assumptions be proven wrong?

Only time will tell.

Until then… I write & publish… then write & publish some more.

You don’t need to know how to do something to learn to do something.

That would be the world on its head.

After all, once upon a time, you didn’t know how to walk, speak, read, ride a bike – until you tried over and over again.

That was all you needed back then. And that’s all you need right now.

To become you want to be (but aren’t yet) you have to start doing what you want to do (but aren’t doing yet).

Who do you want to be?

Which actions would that person take?

The questions are simple. But the path is erratic.

And that’s okay.

As long as you ask them once in a while, you’re well on your way.