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 can’t expect to hold on forever to happiness
Without also clinging to your fears
Emotions flow
They come and go
The best you can do
Is observe
Feel
Enjoy the show.
If you don’t often go on detours, would there even be life in your day?
Maybe going astray IS the way.
Performance gap: the frustrating gap between how you know something should be done in an ideal world and how you currently do it.
One implication of the performance gap: you don’t have to master this skill today.
Another implication, maybe even more important: your idea of how something “should be done” is probably wrong anyway.
Because as you practice and gain mastery, you’ll also gain progressive insight: a more nuanced intellectual understanding of the skill you’re practicing.
What I thought was a “good” yoga session six months ago, I now see as a session full of misalignment and cramped muscles.
What I thought of as a solid piece of writing six months ago, I now see as an argument full of holes and points of improvement.
Sometimes, progressive insight is just about more nuances.
Sometimes, progressive insight shows that your initial intellectual understanding completely missed the mark.
There’s only one way to find out: practice: Sculpt away, day by day.
Talking about “good and bad ideas” implies a ranking. Good, compared to what? Bad, compared to what?
The truth is that most ideas you produce will be average – because there is no other way.
Not all ideas can be your best idea – and if they are, they will soon be replaced by a better idea. Your previous best idea has now become average.
Not all ideas can be your worst idea either. And if they are, they will soon be replaced by an even worse idea. Your worst idea has now become average.
This dynamic matters. Because if you produce an idea a day, compared to someone producing one idea a month, your chances of replacing your current best idea with something better are much higher.
You’ll also likely replace your current worst idea with something even worse – and that’s fine. You’re increasing amplitude in both directions. It’s all part of the practice.
The more ideas you have, the bigger your sample size. The more elaborate the ranking. The better the good ideas. The worse the bad ideas.
All this to say: bad, average, and good ideas ALL stack the odds of striking gold in your favor. What matters is that you show up and generate ideas.
I like to journal in the morning.
But if I’d journal in the evening, this is what I’d ask myself:
“Were my actions today actions of the person I choose to be? Or were they actions of a person driven by old patterns, habits and limiting beliefs?”
“Did my actions bring me closer to where I choose to go? Or did they keep me stuck in a place I really don’t want to be anymore?”
“Did my actions make me feel good about myself? Or did they make me resent myself?”
What can I do differently tomorrow?
Daily practice without the pressure of daily perfection.
Consistency without guilt when you fall off the bandwagon once in a while.
Doing activities that make you feel good about yourself, not guilty.
That’s what a sustainably healthy life looks like.
