#549 This is your true competitor
When you’re focused on outsmarting the competition
The true competitor becomes your ego.
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#438 Whatever happens
ByLukasIt rains – you keep breathing.
The sun is out – you keep breathing.
You win – you keep breathing.
You lose – you keep breathing.
You feel good – you keep breathing.
You feel bad – you keep breathing.
Whatever happens, you can keep breathing. And you can continue with what’s important to you.
#267 Why intensity fades and consistency leads to change
ByLukasWhen you write 50 pages a day, only to be forced to recover for a month.
When you start running 5 miles a day without any preparation, only to end up injured.
When you start studying a language for 5 hours a day, only to give up after a week.
When you fly so close to the sun, your wings melt.
When intensity and excitement radiate too brightly, and the reality of life suddenly slaps you in the face.
That’s when you start appreciating the slow, steady flame of consistency that burns long and becomes brighter over time.
And that’s when you’ll see lasting change.
#9 Admiring early work
ByLukasAdmiring (flawed) early work is easy when we already know the late work is going to be great.
Everyone forgives Picasso or Da Vinci for a lousy early sketch. In fact, people pay good money to hang one in their living room.
Maybe the early work, showing that even the greats are mere mortals on a journey towards excellence, is the most valuable?
And yet, it’s much harder to be gentle on a beginning artist for shipping mediocre creative work – not in the least for the beginning artist themselves – when their path to excellence hasn’t unfolded yet.
After all, something that one day will be “my early work” is still “my current best work” today.
The road to excellence is invisible from the trenches.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Which makes me wonder…
When I know that through persistence and daily practice, one day, I’ll look back on today’s creation, smiling, thinking: “Oh how far I’ve come… How much I’ve learned… And some of this was actually pretty good…”
Can I admire my creative work less for what it looks, feels, or sounds like, and more for who I’m becoming through making it?
Can I do the same for the creative projects of others?
With that mindset… How much easier and forgiving would the daily creative journey be?
#404 Up and down we go
ByLukasThrough ups and downs
Up and down we go.
Every high, every low.
Every blow.
On we flow.
Because tomorrow, we star in another show.
That’s all I know.
- Creativity | Daily Insight | Intentional Living | Stream of Consciousness Writing | Tools for Thought
#99 Why bother to journal?
ByLukasStream Of Consciousness writing isn’t about what you write. It’s about the very fact that you’re writing.
Nobody cares about the words on the pages. Nobody will read them anyway. Neither should you.
This is not a novel. This is not a love song. This is not a poem. This is but an externalization of your mind’s chatter. Ugly, pretty, insightful, bland. It doesn’t matter.
There’s no great work. Nor is there any bad work. No high standards, no judgment. Nothing but what flows out of your mind.
So if none of it matters… why bother to write Stream of Consciousness?
Because it forces you to slow down.
Because it forces you to pay attention to what’s on your mind.
Because it forces you to listen to the way you talk to yourself.
Because it helps you get all the overwhelming thoughts and worries out of your system.
Because it helps you gain clarity.
And because sometimes, insights emerge. Not necessarily in the words on the page. But due to the fact that you’re writing the words on the page.
Stream Of Consciousness journaling is writing. Venting. Self-therapy. Problem-solving. Meditation. Goal-setting. Creative liberation. And anything else you want it to be.
Because you have all of that in you already – if only you’d re-learn to listen.
And listening to yourself, it turns out, is much easier when you put it all on the page.
#21 Action Defies Excuses (day 20 update)
ByLukasDay 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?