You don’t have to feel ready to be a successful writer to pick up a pen or open a document and write today.
In fact, you’ll probably never feel ready to be a successful writer unless you write today.
This means, strangely enough, that despite how you feel in this very moment, you are entirely ready.
Ready to take the first step.
The moment you accept you don’t feel like writing today and tell yourself that’s fine, is the moment you’ll write again.
Because you can only know and do what’s best for you when you stop fighting yourself.
Once you’ve been writing daily for long enough, continuing to write is the easier option, more aligned with your habits and identity.
Just like for most people, it feels more natural to continue brushing their teeth every day than to skip a day.
But when you’re still building the writing habit, skipping the writing is the easier option.
Which means it shouldn’t be an option at all — until it has become an option you’re not interested in anymore.
It’s fine to give up on something you started.
It’s a pity to not even start because you’re scared you’ll give up.
Don’t let the fear of giving up stop you from getting started.
And don’t let the fear of failing stop you from getting started either.
I can’t predict what will happen tomorrow – or even today.
But I do know that today, I resolve to write.
And tomorrow I resolve to write once again.
And that resolve has brought me to 439 consecutive days of writing.
439 days of writing, despite living in an unpredictable world.
439 days of realizing most obstacles are excuses.
439 days of proving that resolve can bring you pretty far.
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?
We’re not able to see almost everything in life and are blind to only a couple of things.
We’re blind to almost everything in life and are able to see only a couple of things.
And of the things we are able to see, we (consciously or subconsciously) focus on an even smaller subset, and then turn a blind eye to the rest.
To live a creative life, there’s no need to create anything new.
Open your eyes, prick up your ears, smell the air, and feel the earth beneath your feet.
Then open your heart, taste your thoughts, sense subtle shifts, and heed the voice in your head.
When you marry your inner and outer world
insights unfurl.
