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    #203 What makes your aspirations valuable

    An aspiring writer who doesn’t believe writing is a valuable skill in our current society and focuses on building a traditional career instead.

    An aspiring runner who doesn’t believe running is a good use of their time in our current society and goes out for drinks every night.

    An aspiring classical musician who doesn’t believe society will ever appreciate their art – and goes into pop music instead.


    If you want to turn aspirations into achievements, you’ll have to decide for yourself what’s valuable, even if it goes against what society and tradition prescribe.

    So to make writing a valuable skill, write.

    To make running a good use of your time, run.

    To make the world appreciate your classical music, practice classical music.

    To make anything worthwhile, show that it’s worth your while.

    Because going against the mainstream is not just necessary to achieve your aspirations – it’s what makes your aspirations valuable in the first place.

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    #225 Commitment comes first

    When you decide if you should be chasing this goal, job, relationship, or place to live – in other words, commitment – you choose between action or inaction based on if it’s a viable, worthwhile, realistic goal.

    When you decide on the course of action – in other words, how to do something – you’re already committed to action.

    Sometimes, the commitment might be too big, too hard, or too disruptive – and that’s perfectly valid.

    But here’s what I’ve noticed, my friend: whenever I try to decide on the how before I’ve decided on the commitment, I have even more doubts, and any course of action seems complicated.

    I’m curious how you feel about it. We’ll talk more about it in the coming days and weeks.

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    #21 Action Defies Excuses (day 20 update)

    Day 20 of my daily publishing experiment. What I’ve learned (or remembered) so far:

    • Self-trust is built by taking action. On some days I woke up stressed out, thinking “I have no clue what I’ll post about today”. But then I start writing, and the post reveals itself on the page every single time. After experiencing that several times, the fear of posting (or not being able to write anything) is fading away. In other words: action defies excuses.
    • Starting to journal (Morning Pages) over 600 days ago led to an explosion in creativity. Starting to publish a daily insight is giving me a similar boost.
    • In the past, I leaned towards bigger, longer writing projects that required a lot of energy and thinking before I produced something “valuable”. I now see there’s power in consistently writing short posts about ideas and insights, no matter how insignificant and no matter how imperfect the writing. Because through the writing, I understand them better. I remember them better. And I’m confident that over time, from all these small insights, bigger ideas will emerge.

    In short, a pattern I’ve observed many time in the past years is playing out again:

    When I start defying my own excuses by taking action, no matter how small, my self-trust grows, my self-image shifts, and I become more of the person I want to be.

    Which begs the question:

    Where else am I frustrated, holding on to a static identity of the past that I could prove wrong by taking action?

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