#537 What you think is holding you back probably isn’t
Whatever you think is holding you back
Probably isn’t.
Get out of your head
Get into the world.
Whatever you think is holding you back
Probably isn’t.
Get out of your head
Get into the world.
You write every day so you’re ready on the day you are forced to write.
You run every day so you’re ready on the day you are forced to run.
You show up when you have a choice, so you’re ready when you don’t have a choice anymore.
Because that’s when your character shows.
On the days when I feel like everything I write is bad, I choose to be a writer.
On the days when I feel like the most inspired writer, I choose to be a writer.
On the days when I need to skip a day because life gets in the way, I choose to be a writer.
On the days when I don’t feel like a writer, I choose to be a writer.
And especially on the days when I don’t write, I choose to be a writer by trusting that soon enough, I’ll write again.
I choose to be a writer, not through pressuring myself into hardliner habits but through my daily commitment to the general direction I want my life to take.
Focus on making the majority of your actions and decisions align with who you want to be.
When you do that, you’ll always bounce back.
You’re likely to encounter consistency challenges.
After all, nobody feels motivated every day.
Maybe you’ll have a day where you’re busy or not feeling great, and writing, running, or doing yoga, seems like the last thing you want to do.
Luckily, you don’t need to feel motivated to write one sentence.
You don’t even need to want to write to have words appear on the screen or paper.
You just need to be reminded that you want to be a writer.
And writers write, even if they don’t feel like it.
And so it goes for runners, yogis, meditators, athletes, crafstmen, lovers.
You don’t have to be good at this today.
If you were, you wouldn’t have to practice.
And if you wouldn’t have to practice, it wouldn’t be fun
And definitely not fulfilling.
You don’t have to be good at this today.
Come what may, you will be okay.
You can trust yourself.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Then go on with your day.
Wisdom doesn’t come from experience. It comes from reflecting on experience.
— Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant) December 11, 2022
Between ages 25 and 75, the correlation between age and wisdom is zero.
Gaining insight and perspective is not about the number of years you've lived. It's about the number of lessons you've learned. pic.twitter.com/8wbKsCMkED
Memory isn’t an objective account of the past – and that’s not its purpose either.
Memory stores the lessons we extract from life experience. And to do so, it modifies, adds, subtracts, highlights, and hides.
Hot soup burns my tongue – next time, I’ll remember the pain, but not if it was tomato soup or chicken soup. And I’ll remember to wait a couple of minutes before having the first spoon.
Experience lived. Irrelevant info deleted. Lesson learned. Memory created.
My country gets invaded – and that causes so much pain, I won’t just deliver an objective account of what happened: I’ll make sure to tell everyone who the evil guys are too.
Experience lived. Story modified. Lesson learned. Memory created.
I eat the most delicious dessert at a Mexico City restaurant – that’s the memory I’m going to tell my friends about, not which glass of dessert wine I had with it.
Experience lived. Dessert highlighted. Lesson learned. Memory created.
You’re going to make memories anyway. Which lessons do you want to learn?