Why?
When you get tired and you feel completely at the end of your creativity. When you’re bored out of your brain and and over familiarity destroys your perspective on your work and you surrondings.
Will power alone won’t help you stick to it.
You must reconnect with the reason you’re doing it. Why does this matter? Why is this urgent? How will I ease the pain of others with this action? How does pulling through now lead me on a direct line to that outcome?
Don’t get tough in the face of boredom, instead get re-associated with your purpose. It’s the endless jet fuel that’ll take you further than others are able to go.
Time tomorrow
They say there’s no time like the present. That can be quite overwhelming though when you have a lot to get done.
Sure, now is a really good time to do the things that matter. But don’t forget there’s also tomorrow.
If you don’t get around to it today, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Block out time tomorrow; there exists a today (only later) in your tomorrow.
There’s also more time the day after.
The right horse
If you worry too long about picking the right horse, you mightn’t ever enter the race.
At the same time, if you’re going to commit to betting on a horse over and over again to let it compound, you want it to be a good one…
I think the answer is to try your best with what you have right now to pick the right thing, then course correct on the way.
The best horse to pick is the one you commit to.
Doing hard things
Is always worth it. It just never seems attractive when you’re in the thick of the difficulty. But it’s the very difficulty that makes it worth it.
We must reroute the feeling of discomfort to be a confirmation signal we’re on the right track.
“Oh, it’s confusing or slow and tiring? Great, that means I’m on the road to where I want to be”
The physiology of confidence
It’s amazing being back doing Mrs Krishnan’s Party and feeling the way the show almost happens automatically.
After 6 weeks off the show and living a domestic and regular life, I got used to not needing to be big and open to strangers.
Now in the last 24 hours I’ll have individually welcomed 300 strangers into the show. I couldn’t imagine talking to new people with such ease and gusto in my regular life, but through the body of the character it is effortless.
I wonder how we can use this in normal life?
Dormant competence
We’re back doing Mrs Krishnan’s Party this weekend at the Spoletto festival out of Charleston. It’s been six weeks since we did the show and it went really well tonight.
You cannot take away the sheer number of reps you do of something.
It lays dormant there for you. Commit to the reps and reap the benefits when you need it.
The right time
Sometimes the right thing can come to us at the wrong time. It doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing, it’s just the wrong time.
At first, I couldn’t get through episode one of Ozark. Years later I devoured the whole series in a few weeks.
Life happens in seasons and sometimes things need to align in a certain way for us to be ready for things.
I think about this with books I want to read or things I want to learn- it might just not be in the right part of your sequence yet. Be patient and try again later.
Things happen at the perfect time.
The 5 – 8 rule
My friend told me her little life hack for getting the highest impact tasks done.
She has her laptop charged and ready to go every morning. As soon as she wakes she does the hardest thing right away.
The tricky email she’s been putting off. The brain storm. The pitch. Whatever it is, it al happens between 5 and 8 am.
Why? Well it’s simple. Her brain isn’t awake enough to be nervous or second guess yet. She simply follows through on the tasks that her normal waking brain puts off.
How cool is that?
Momentum and achievability
I recently read about three principals of battle.
I won’t have these perfectly right but for our proposes, they’re as follows:
The element of surprise is the first. Then using the surprise wisely to keep momentum. The third principle is to select achievable objectives.
Surprise is less useful outside of battle and birthdays, but I do find myself very interested in the second and third.
Moments of inspiration and motivation can sweep us up to make lofty goals and set an impossible daily workload. This isn’t sustainable. And hey, I’m all for lofty goals; we all need them! But what would be more sensible?
By the way, sensible isn’t a bad word. Sensible and boring often get the job done.
So I say, set yourself a small goal on the path to the big dream. Make the goal achievable. Step toward it and value momentum higher than magnitude.
A little over a long time beats a giant chunk now that makes you too tired to continue.
Unleash your potential with achievability and momentum.