What am I scared of right now?
What are the chances that that scenario will come true?
What would happen if that scenario came true?
And what would happen then?
And then?
And then?
Is it really that bad?
Do I have the resources to deal with it?
Is this truly a catastrophe, or will I be fine either way?
Keep asking*, “What would happen then?”.* Look past the initial fears and challenges. And more often than not, you’ll realize that this too shall pass.
A voice in my head says I can’t write every day?
I’ll write 2 sentences every day, just to prove to that voice that I, in fact, CAN write every day.
A voice in my head says I don’t have the perseverance to train for (and then finish) a marathon?
I’ll do something small to prepare for the marathon every day, so at the end of each day, I can say to myself “The proof is there, today was another day of me persevering and preparing for a marathon.”
You can’t brute-force your way out of an “I can’t do this” belief. You can only take small actions that start proving the contrary.
Slowly but surely, you chip away at the credibility of the naysayer voice, until the scale starts tipping over, and an encouraging voice emerges.
What if you could? What if you could already do what you believe you still can’t?
Maybe the key isn’t to become a different person, but to believe in the person you already are.
Whoever or whatever you aspire to be is not as far off as you might think.
I can believe I’ve published the perfect insight – until I narrate the podcast version a couple of weeks later and suddenly notice subtle typos and, sometimes, logical flaws. The typos and flaws were always there – but did I make a mistake earlier?
I can believe I’ve nailed this yoga pose – until, during one session, I suddenly sense some tension in my neck I had never noticed before. The tension was always there – did I make a mistake earlier?
I can believe I’ve cooked the perfect dish – until one day, I notice that the sauce tastes even better with a little less salt. But, even before I noticed it, the improvement was always there – did I make a mistake earlier?
Maybe learning is not about errors but about gaining ever more subtle awareness.
It’s not about figuring out where you’d like to end up – it’s about deciding where you must go.
Lukewarm dreams freeze to death unless you light the fire of desire under them.
If writing and creating every day were as vital to my survival as drinking water, ingesting food, and bonding… What would life look like?
Biologically, all behavior is driven by pain, pleasure, and the triggers and habits that come from repeated reaction to those stimuli.
So I eat because I want to escape the pain of hunger – or heartbreak, sadness, and frustration.
I connect with others because I’m neurologically hardwired to feel pleasure when bonding… and pain and deprivation when I’m abandoned.
Similarly, I write because I want to escape the frustration of not being able to put into words an insight.
I also write because I enjoy the rush resulting from finding the words that convey what I want to say.
I write because I love the tingling in my back and neck when I combine those words into sentences with just the right rhythm, just the right cadence capturing the meaning, context, emotion of what I want to say…
I write because writing wrests the essence from the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions racing through my mind and body.
I write because when when I write, I feel that at last, I can make sense of life.
And the more meaning I find, the more likely I am to write.
We all want to avoid doing things that make us miserable.
Yet avoiding them often takes the shape of prioritizing them.
“I’ll do this unpleasant thing first so that I can get to the fun stuff.”
Unfortunately, it seems to be a rule that the more unpleasant tasks you cross off your to-do list, the more unpleasant tasks appear on your to-do list.
Sometimes it makes sense to do the essential things first, even if that means you keep the unpleasant things on your to-do list.
This is not a free pass to avoid unpleasant things and only do something you like.
It’s about doing the things that matter, regardless of whether they’re pleasant.
It’s about coming to terms with the fact that you’ll probably always drown in chores and busy work to do, then doing the important stuff anyway.
Journaling question of the day:
Where are you prioritizing and attracting things that make you miserable instead of doing the work that matters?
