Most of your daily actions are guided by unconscious patterns and habits. But since actions overrule thoughts, even unconscious actions contribute to how you see yourself.
The more conscious actions you take, the more of a say you get in who you are (or want to be).
I choose to do ………… because I choose to be someone who …………
I choose not to do ………… because I choose to perpetuate my identity of ………….
In the series of self-sabotaging behavior I’ve observed in myself and others: “pre-emptively disqualifying yourself”.
Before you even start, you’re depriving yourself already of any potential benefit of the exercise because you don’t know if you’ll get the EXACT benefit promised/desired by you.
“This exercise might have cured your neck pain, but I’ve always had neck problems, it won’t chage anything.”
“You might be able to write every day, but for me, in my situation, that would never be possible.”
This shows a lack of understanding of learning principles. Because with any exercise, program, diet, methodology, you’ll never get the exact same results as someone else, because you can never replicate the exact circumstances and actions of a person.
Instead, you do the exercise/program/diet/… within the framework of your own personal context/skills/past experience. Within that context, it will guide your learning process. But the outcome resulting from it is personal.
Variance is to be expected, and this is a good thing. Because this is how innovation happens: actions in different types of circumstances lead to slightly different results. Sometime that leads to disappointment, sometimes to real breakthroughs.
Getting different results, then, is not a reason to pre-emptively disqualify yourself, or to claim something doesn’t work. Because the true value doesn’t lie in getting the exact same results as someone else, but rather, to consciously set the general direction of our lives.
Every day, we have to make so many decisions that lead us down different future paths, so modeling someone and using their actions as a guiding principle will greatly increase the probability of you going in the direction you desire, and getting results in the same ballpark.
For example, I’ve been doing Dylan Werner’s yoga classes on Alo Moves (my go-to online yoga/fitness/meditation app) consistently for almost two years now. Even if I continue to follow his exact schedule for two more years, chances are, I still might not be able to do something like this:
After all, we have a different body structure, different gene disposition, different circumstances, and I’ll have to adapt his schedule to my personal capacity.
Still, if I follow his schedule I’ll definitely become much stronger and healthier than if I chose to model a couch potato, watch TV and eat fries and burgers all day. And that’s what it’s all about.
Modeling, in that point of view, are an effective way to accelerate your progress and lead your life in the direction you want, without you having to know exactly which results you’ll get.
In other words: when you let go of the need to predict exact future outcomes, you can stop pre-emptively disqualifying yourself, and start pro-actively setting the direction of your life.
One swallow doesn’t make a summer and one off-day doesn’t kill your discipline.
But keep in mind, your actions are votes, and your votes build habits.
My advice? Better maintain the majority for the habit you want to be here to stay.
The meaning of your life is not in the goals you crave.
It’s not in the results you chase.
Nor is it in the habits you create.
The meaning is in what you do in this very moment.
And the next moment.
And the one after that.
The meaning is in your collection of actions. In your collection of decisions. In your collection of present moments. Wherever they take you.
When the best story in the world has already been written… why do I write?
Because writing is not a choice – and neither is telling stories.
Because stories are never finished.
Because the best stories in the world are written over and over again.
Because a story well-told depends on who you’re telling it to.
Because we all tell the same stories anyway, but that one little change, that one new interpretation can make the difference between touching someone or missing the mark.
But what IS the best story in the world?
I don’t know.
I do know they don’t have to be very elaborate to have impact:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Ernest Hemingway
When someone, sometime, stumbled upon six words that can evoke so much… How can I NOT continue my own search for stories and the words to tell them?
P.S.: Credits to Jony Mitchell for writing the best song in the world.
P.P.S: Extra credits for singing the most heartfelt version even after suffering a stroke and having to relearn to talk and sing.
P.P.P.S.: Credits to The Tallest Man on Earth for showing that a new interpretation can make even the best song in the world reach new heights, and providing the inspiration for this post.
Not everyone learns the same way.
But one thing’s for sure: whether it’s practicing a foreign language, playing an instrument, or studying for an examyou’d learn more if you’d practice a little every day.
Before I write, I barely know what I want to write.
The more I write, the more I know what I’m meant to write.
Intention can be there before the practice. But meaning only shows up when YOU show up.
