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    #178 You don’t have to master this today

    Performance gap: the frustrating gap between the way you know something should be done in an ideal world and the way you currently do it.

    I know I should write daily blog posts in advance so I have a buffer in case something comes up and I don’t get to write. Yet here I am, writing this daily insight hours before the publication date.

    I know what the perfect downward-facing dog pose in yoga looks like. Yet when I perform it myself, I am far off from that ideal pose.

    I know all the ingredients that make up a solid, convincing speech. Yet when I write one myself, I am only able to incorporate a few of those ingredients.

    Learning, then, is closing the gap between your intellectual understanding of an ideal product, action, or skill, and your current rendition of it.

    Don’t be so hard on yourself for your current performance.

    You can’t expect to turn intellectual understanding into mastery and internalized knowledge right away.

    You don’t have to master this today.

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    #213 Comfortable dissatisfaction

    You’re dissatisfied with your social life, but not so much that you feel terribly lonely – so you don’t change anything.

    You’re dissatisfied with your physical fitness, but not so much that you’re in pain every day – so you put up with slow deterioration.

    You’re dissatisfied with your current job, but not so much that you’re dragging yourself to work – so you put up with unfulfilling days.


    Being satisfied with some areas of your life is good.

    Being intensely dissatisfied with some areas of your life is fine, too – because that unhappiness can be the leverage you need to make a change.

    But comfortable dissatisfaction – that’s the zone where dreams and happiness go to die. And boy, have I spent a lot of time there.

    So I hope you are satisfied with your life, my friend.

    And if not, I hope you’re at least intensely dissatisfied.

    Let that be the fuel you need to take action to change.

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