What is the worst that can happen? If you did not send that email today. If you did not publish the blog today. If you did not make the calls today. This is Resistance’s trap. It makes us focus on avoiding the downside rather than embracing the upside. And we fall for it. As we have
Writing and thinking. If I ask you to write something, anything, for 30 minutes, you’d ask “What do you want me to write upon?” “What are you expecting?” “What is the purpose of this exercise?” But instead, if I just leave you for alone for 30 minutes, with or without your smartphone,
Being kind to myself This is one of the toughest thing to do. And this is one skill that we need to learn. We can be kind to others, but how can we be kind to ourselves. How can the voice inside our head be the kindest of them all. It takes conscious emotional
Misplaced priorities We tend to favour going with momentum instead of deliberately calibrating the direction in which we are moving. A symptom of this is excessively busy behaviour. Because we do not know where we want to go to, we start moving in many directions at once. It is difficult to pause
The intention to finish There is a significantly different quality of mind when our intention is to finish something. Most of the time this quality is evading us. Thinking about a decision and deciding something are very different. The thinking can go on indefinitely and it is that which brings a lot of pain.
Gravity and Sisyphus Sisyphus was punished by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it neared the top, repeating this action for eternity. Most of us look at this like a curse and a punishment. I have started to believe otherwise. What
Unnecessary complications. Should I use WordPress to publish my blog or Medium? Should I write short form blog entries or long form? Should I email this blog daily to my subscribers or weekly? I can and have spent weeks and months deliberating about this in my head. This and numerous other unnecessary
Full body (and mind) engagement. Have you tried the warrior pose in yoga? You can’t do it unless you have a full body engagement. The legs muscles are engaged, the shoulders, the neck, everything is engaged. And just like that, the mind is also engaged. Mind follows the body and body follows the mind.
The one who plans and the one who does. Are they the same person? Does one empathise with the other? Is there a healthy relationship between these two very different people. Doesn’t matter if they are both called by the same name. Can we be more empathetic towards our tomorrow self? Can we make things easier for him/
Show up! Outcome is the side-effect of showing up. There are a lot of reasons for not showing up. There is always tomorrow. But, when you do show up, things start to happen. Showing up is in your hands, the outcome is not.
Mount Everest and... One would rarely hear someone saying, “I am preparing to climb the Mount Everest in the next few months and I am also preparing for _________.” Doesn’t work that way, does it? If you are going to climb Mount Everest and every ounce of your energy, focus is not directed
Making implicit explicit. It’s tough. But it always feels better on the other side. You can do it by writing things down or by telling them to others. Or a combination of the two. Things are generally more scary in our mind and once we write them down, we can start working
Shame! The secret sauce of creatives. More than anything else, it’s shame that makes the world go round. We study for our exams, we submit our assignments, we finish our work, because we don’t want to feel the shame when someone asks “Why didn’t you do it?” As with creatives, mostly there is
The difficulty in delegating stuff. The critical skill of an entrepreneur is the art of delegation. They can get other people to believe in their vision and do everything that’s needed to fulfil the vision. The magic of being a freelancer on the other hand, is to do stuff on your own. Especially the
Imminence! The state or fact of being about to happen! That’s how the dictionary defines imminence and rightly so. Imminence is why you are able to attend a live yoga class but keep procrastinating on the YouTube video that teaches you to workout. Lack of imminence is why you keep
anxiety Anxiety vs guilt. Most of the time, we consider anxiety as a negative emotion, something that needs to be avoided. And most of the time, we keep experiencing guilt. At least for me, guilt is the default emotion. I am always feeling guilty of one thing or the other. I have rather become
action Action first, system later. If you are trying to make a change, especially one that will improve your life, then there is a tendency to seek to build the perfect system. This act of planning the perfect system seems like a noble pursuit but that is the worst thing that you can start with.
Creativity Keep calm and carry on! Why the world needs your magic now more than ever. Yes, we have a situation. Yes, things are not normal. Our survival is at stake. How can you not panic? The default is to panic. Everyone is panicking. Why shouldn’t I? Panic and fear do not take us far.
Essentials Covid-19 to Hubed-20 The virus and the disease. * The virus grows, multiplies. * Each new entity needs more resources. Each new entity grows, multiplies. * The host starts fighting. * Either the host wins and the virus dies. Or they both die. * In both cases, the virus dies. The virus does not know better. Do we?
Creative Process The hunt. Every hunt takes the hunter to the next level. Hunting is an integral part of nature. A plant hunts the soil. A cow hunts the plant. A lion hunts the cow. Birds hunt the worms. Bigger birds hunt the smaller ones. Survival of every living being seems to be based
Productivity Would that help? In the movie Bridge of Spies, Tom Hanks’ character James Donovan has the following exchange more than once with the character Rudolf Abel, who has been accused of being a Russian spy during the cold war: James Donovan: Aren’t you worried? Rudolf Abel: Would that help? Everyday, we have
Minimalism Essentials. I woke up to the sound of birds chirping in the morning today. No, I wasn’t in the hills or on the beach, I was actually in the most polluted cities in the world. Just two days (24 March 2020) of human inactivity has changed the colour and the
When can you officially call yourself a writer? How to start writing? (or anything else for that matter) Writing is tough. It seems impossible. It’s scary, so we put it off for tomorrow. “How do I convince people who don’t know me that an enemy they don’t believe in is coming to kill them all”
First Post The impossibility of publishing the first blog entry. Q. How do you ship stuff consistently that you are proud of? A. [By Seth Godin] By shipping stuff consistently that you are not proud of. It is this answer that has brought me here today. It is this answer that is forcing me to publish this blog today. Am
