Art of Learning

I’ve been publishing daily posts for 300+ days now.

The secret?

Writing less.

• I don’t want to spend hours writing daily posts, so I keep them short.

• I don’t want to drag myself to a 4-day writing session to create all posts for the coming week in advance (then not write for the rest of the week)

• I don’t want to set writing goals that are painful to reach and make me feel burnt out.

• I do want to write a little bit every day, so I prove to myself every single day that I’m a writer.

• I do want to feel that writing that daily post is achievable and fun.

• I do want to build momentum.

Keep it achievable. Keep it pleasurable. Keep it sustainable.

In other words: Tiny Trust Builders.

Only when it has become normal to write every day can you truly think about what you want to say.

Only when it has become normal to run every day can you truly think about the record time you want to run.

Only when it has become normal to practice yoga every day can you truly think about what it means to perform a pose.

First, you normalize the habit. Then you get the freedom to hone the skill.

Thinking hard doesn’t make the pressure of “finding something to write about” go away.

Writing does.

When you write 50 pages a day, only to be forced to recover for a month.

When you start running 5 miles a day without any preparation, only to end up injured.

When you start studying a language for 5 hours a day, only to give up after a week.

When you fly so close to the sun, your wings melt.

When intensity and excitement radiate too brightly, and the reality of life suddenly slaps you in the face.

That’s when you start appreciating the slow, steady flame of consistency that burns long and becomes brighter over time.

And that’s when you’ll see lasting change.

Ernest Hemingway allegedly stopped his writing sessions in the middle of a sentence so he knew how to start his next session. He stopped writing, even if he could do more.

Julia Cameron teaches to write precisely three pages of stream-of-consciousness journaling a day. Stop journaling, even if you could do more.

I’ve gotten better results studying foreign languages 20 minutes a day for several months than rushing into a new language and studying it for 3 hours a day, then crashing and burning. I stop myself from learning, even if I could do more.

Because burnout and overindulgence stifle progress, and in the long run, moderation leads to more.

Talent: “This is all I can do, no matter what you say.”

Passion and purpose: “Who knows what I could do if I practiced every day?”

Focusing on talent keeps your potential at bay.

Focusing on passion, purpose, and the practice turn every day into play.

This is the way.

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.