Tag: writing

Dreams

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Dreams, just like ideas, have three possible outcome.

Outcome number one. They die. You had a dream, you believed in it for a while, you do not believe in it anymore, it dies. That is what happens to most dreams. Goodbye.

Outcome number two. You keep them out. You think about them. You perfect them. When you get a piece of them, you push them further by fantasizing on an even more perfect version of them. You alienate them from the world around. You make them a central focus of your inner life and emotions without internalizing them. They get to serve a sort of function, like the carrot for the donkey: they give you purpose, and they are also the primary reason why you are often unsatisfied and sad.

Outcome number three. You bring them to your world. And it is not mainly a matter of sharing them (though you might, you should). It is mainly you adjusting them, making them grow with you (and with your world), shrinking and expanding them depending on circumstances and people, using them as a lens through which you look at your current reality. Doing this effectively basically means that you will end up living a life in which each step you take is part of the dream, because the dream is more of a purpose, it is a frame for each one of your efforts.

Dreams, just like ideas, are great starters, they boost motivation and keep the morale high for a while. What happens with them though depends on you.

The other side of the court

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When playing tennis, there are a limited amount of things you can control.

Most of them happen on your side of the court. The way you hit the ball. The angle of the racket when hitting the ball. The power and direction you want to give the ball. Whether you are going to run for the next ball or leave it be. And possibly few more.

When the ball leaves your racket, though, your part is done. There are an infinite amount of variables on the other side of the court you cannot control. The final trajectory of the ball, the response of your opponent, the call of the line umpire, the decision of the chair umpire, the impact of the weather, the variable of the net. The outcome of the shot is in large part unpredictable.

And that’s true also of your work. Whether what you do is going to be successful or not is largely not up to you.

Focus on your side, perfect what you can impact, make sure you have the best possible chances in the best possible context.

Then be happy with it. You have done your part.

Follow your passion

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Sure, but how do you go about finding your passion?

It is not something innate, something you have inside and need to get out, something you have to dig deeper and deeper to reveal.

Passion gets built.

It is about doing, and doing, and doing some more. It is about getting better at what you do, master your area, connect with others that do the same, share and grow. And it is about ensuring that what you do and excel at aligns with who you are, with the narrative you want to promote about yourself as a human being.

Follow your passion is a great advice, once you know what your passion is. And to get to that, you need to be ready to not give up when things get tough, to not withdraw in front of adversity and challenges, to not change course every time something new and potentially brighter shines on the horizon.

Are you ready for that?

Building on success

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A weird year ends tomorrow, and many will think at some kind of resolutions for 2021. I want to share (again) few tips that have helped me stick with my resolutions throughout the twelve months in the past few years.

And one more important thing.

If you have recently developed a habit you are proud of, double down on it in 2021.

If you have meditated 10 minutes every day, make it 20 minutes in 2021.

If you have dedicated 2 hours a week to writing that novel, make it 4 hours in 2021.

If you have successfully delivered 5 blog posts a month, make it 10 in 2021.

If you have landed 4 speaking gigs, make it 8 in 2021.

You do not have to reinvent the wheel every year, just continue on the journey. Building on success is a sure way to continue being successful.

You stay

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When you are in a bad mood, your productivity goes down. The quality of your work is not as good as usual, even getting started feels painful. You are cranky, you put negative narratives first, you fail to appreciate what good there is.

Being in a bad mood also poisons everything around you. And most importantly, it makes people in your life be in a bad mood to.

There is no remedy to being in a bad mood. It just happens.

The only sensible thing to do is put all the residual resources into breaking the direct link between the mood and yourself. Indeed, often when you are in a bad mood, you look at yourself as a bad person too. That’s dangerous.

Moods come and go. You stay, often improved. If you can appreciate this difference more, nothing will stop you.

To meet an emotion is first to acknowledge it and then to feel it enough to get the message it carries. The feeling carries the message but it isn’t the message, and we won’t get the message without feeling at least some of the emotion. The message, of course, is very likely to be a form of emerging self-knowledge.

Dan Oestreich, How To Meet A Strong Emotion