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    #187 Causality on its head

    You don’t have to feel certain to start taking action.

    You take action to start feeling certain.


    You don’t need to be calm to do yoga.

    You do yoga to become calm.


    You don’t need to have a quiet mind to meditate.

    You meditate to cultivate a quiet mind.


    You don’t have to speak Spanish fluently to have a conversation in Spanish.

    You have a conversation in Spanish to learn to speak Spanish fluently.


    You don’t need to know how to love to start loving someone.

    You start loving someone to learn how to love.


    And while this chain of causality sounds logical, sometimes the logical things are the hardest to remember.

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    #91 Now is not the time to negotiate

    I commit to taking a cold shower. To publish a daily blog post. To do a yoga class, because these actions contribute to my vision for who I want to be.

    I commit, despite the knowledge that when the time has come, right before I turn the shower tap to cold, I won’t want to take a cold shower.

    That right before I start writing an article, my mind will throw a million distractios at me.

    That right before my yoga workout, my mind will start negotiating with itself, coming up with reasons why I’d better do something else.

    “Today it’s cold outside, what if I start tomorrow?”
    “I don’t feel like it today, maybe I’ll just write two articles tomorrow?”
    “{{insert any excuse my mind makes up to avoid short-term discomfort}}

    But now is not the time to negotiate.

    Do I choose the long-term pain of regret over the short-term pain of discipline?

    Do I choose to cultivate a procrastinator identity, or do I become a go-getter?

    Who do I want (and choose) to be?

    I can evaluate and adjust my plan afterwards.

    But now is not the time to negotiate.

  • #174 How to turn faith into trust

    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.

    Trust you must.

  • #321 Maintain the momentum

    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.

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