Whenever you set out to establish a new habit, there’s often a nagging thought at the back of your mind wondering, “When will you quit this time?”
But the naysayer in your head that has had free reign for all these years can’t be silenced.
They can only be proven wrong.
“You expect me to quit? Watch me.”
“Say whatever you want; I am showing up today.”
Tiny Trust Builders, day after day, until the naysayer admits, “I was wrong. You’re not that person anymore.”
When you lean in to the fear
The naysaying voices you hear
You’ll realize solutions are near
Within grasp
Maybe already here
And so is everything else you hold dear.
656 days ago, I started writing 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness journaling a day.
That’s an inner dialogue of 1968 pages poured into piles of journals now safely stuffed away.
30 days ago, some of those thoughts started making their way to my blog.
I promised myself that if I made it to 30 daily posts in a row, I would start sharing them.
Today is the day, so here goes.
I’m sharing daily observations about language, language learning, memory, creativity, habits, discipline, the art of learning, tools for thought.
Lessons I’ve learned.
Insights I’ve earned.
Words I’ve heard.
Memories spurred.
Books I’ve read.
Poems flowing out of my heart and head.
No rules, no fixed topic, no niche, no marketing strategy.
Nothing but whatever’s on my mind.
I’ve learned a lot so far, but the most important insight: there’s power in publishing imperfect work.
Because if I allow myself to create something imperfect every day, I’m certain that someday the sum of all these imperfect creations will be something I’m proud of.
It’s liberating.
Maybe there’s liberating power in reading someone else’s imperfect work too.
I can’t wait to find out together with you.
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“I can only do that when…”
Remove the “only” and the when”.
I can do that.
And so can you.
You build self-trust by taking actions – Tiny Trust Builders – in alignment with who you want to be.
I want to be a writer, and build self-trust by writing every day, even if it’s just one line.
I want to learn Portuguese, and build self-trust by practicing every day, even if it’s just 2 minutes.
But often, what stops you from taking these actions in the first place is a lack of trust in yourself.
I don’t trust myself to write every day – I’ll give up anyway.
I don’t trust myself to learn Portuguese every day – I’ll probably get busy and skip a day.
There’s only one way out of this vicious cycle:
When you don’t trust yourself to take the actions, you take a leap of faith instead.
Because with every leap, fear turns into faith, and faith into trust.
Even if you know where you want to go.
Often, you’ll still have to bend to the world.
You’re not the one running the show.
The article I publish today may be worse than one I wrote 2 months ago.
I may struggle today with a guitar piece I played effortlessly last week.
And when I meditate today, my mind may be all over the place, even though last week it was calm as water.
On any given day, I may feel that I’m making progress, that I’ve reached a plateau, or even that I’m going backwards.
But it doesn’t matter.
Progress isn’t always visible in daily practice. But without daily practice, there is no progress.
If I stick to daily practice, on average, I’ll get better. I’ll start having more good days than bad. And slowly but surely, my ‘bad days’ will start being better than what I consider a ‘good day’ right now.
Progress, averaged out is what it’s all about.
