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  • #360 The key to creating everything you ever wanted

    If you wouldn’t see overwhelming results in your first 30 days of writing, working out, dieting, or learning an instrument, would you still show up?

    Are you okay with small, almost invisible gains because the process of learning, creating, practicing is fulfilling enough in itself?

    And if not, could you be okay with that, if you knew it was the key to learning or creating anything you ever wanted?

  • #377 First show me you can show up every day

    Most people are happy to start something new and experience “quick wins” when motivation is still high.

    Yet the moment they stop seeing results, motivation dwindles.

    —

    If you can show me you can show up every day…

    Even when you don’t see any progress…

    Just because it’s important to you…

    That’s why I know you’re truly ready to get the results you’ve always wanted.

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    #133 How to Get Irrefutable Proof of Progress

    “Getting better” at something is not a linear process.

    You can practice every day and not see any progress.

    In fact, you can practice every day and notice deterioration.

    But it’s impossible to practice every day without building the self-trust that you have the discipline to practice every day.

    I might not have clear proof that I’m becoming a better writer, but I have irrefutable proof that I wrote today, yesterday, and the past 138 days.

    And because I write every day, the evidence is building that I am, in fact, a writer.

    As my actions shift my identity, the probability that I’ll keep writing increases.

    And as long as I keep writing, the probability of writing better work increases.

    Tiny Trust Builders are the only reliable proof of progress.

  • |

    #187 Causality on its head

    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.

  • |

    #8 Musenküsse

    klimt-the-kiss-musenkuss
    Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss (1907-1908).

    der Musenkuss (German) The kiss of the Muse

    Creativity becomes much easier if you see it as a game of finding new ways of describing what has always been there.

    Observing, rather than inventing.

    It’s liberating. Because now the game changes from pulling ideas out of thin air to a game of discovery. Observation. Paying attention. Building upon what’s already discovered, then connecting the dots in way nobody else has.

    Most of all: listening, when the muse finally arrives and visits you for a kiss.

    There’s this voice in my mind
    Impossible to ignore
    And yet I fill my head with noise
    Drowning out
    What deep down I know to be true
    Do I even want to admit
    That this song in my heart
    Is not about me
    But about you?

    P.S.: I’ve observed the same principle in language learning (and wrote a book about the consequences of this mindset shift).

    Which begs the question…

    Where else would we do better if we observed a bit more, rather than trying to invent from scratch?

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