mastery.fm – Page 29 – caffeine for the mind & spirit

Just Start

You will never figure “everything” out. You will never be able to make everything perfect before you start. Just make a decision and run with it. Figure it out as you go along.

You will never live the life you want by wandering aimlessly through hypothetical scenarios. I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. I’ve also tried just doing something. That worked.

I implore you: find a quiet place in your mind, identify your desires free of caveats, and make a plan to move toward those desires. Don’t try to plan for all eventualities. That will just prevent action.

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Habits & Identity

James Clear on the effect that habits have on your self-image:

Your habits are the way that you embody a particular identity. So, every morning that you make your bed, you embody the identity of an organized person. Every time you go to the gym, you embody the identity of someone who’s fit. Every time you sit down to write, you embody the identity of someone who’s a writer.

Every action you take is kind of like a vote for the type of person that you believe that you are. As you take these actions, you build up evidence of a particular identity, and pretty soon your beliefs have something to root themselves in. It’s like, “Man, I showed up at the gym for 4 days a week for the last three months; I guess I’m the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts” — and that I think is the true reason why habits are so important.

Once I realized how beliefs and behaviors are connected, that it’s this two-way street… then I started to think that this is really something. Not only does it deliver those external results — the clean room, or the bigger bank account — but also the internal results of shaping your sense of self-image and what you believe.

Source: Rich Roll podcast, episode 401

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Be Obsessed

James Altucher on asking the right questions:

Someone told me a story about Amy Schumer, one of my favorite comedians. She videotapes all her performances. Then she goes back to her room and studies the performance second by second. “I should have paused another quarter-second here,” she might say. She wants to be the best at comedy. She studies her every performance.

(…)

If you aren’t obsessed with your mistakes then you don’t love the field enough to get better. You ask lousy questions: “Why am I no good?” Instead of good questions: “What did I do wrong and how can I improve?” When you consistently ask good questions about your own work, you become better than the people who freeze themselves with lousy questions.

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Lucky People

Scott Adams talking about luck and the luck factor:

A researcher named Dr. Richard Wiseman studied luck and lucky people – he was trying to find out if there was any such thing as luck. Of course there isn’t, but he did discover one interesting thing: he found that people who considered themselves lucky, people who feel like luck is going to find them, had a wider field of perception. Not vision, but what they perceived. They would literally notice opportunities that other people wouldn’t notice, cause [other people] weren’t expecting any opportunities to be there.

And here’s the cool thing: he found that you could take someone who thought they were unlucky and just make them do positive thinking exercises – didn’t matter if it was affirmations or prayers – the technique didn’t matter so much. If they got into a mindset that luck was out there if they would just look for it, they would actually notice more things.

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Software Simulation

Interesting tidbit from the Joe Rogan podcast with Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert:

Joe Rogan: Human memory is really flawed…

Scott Adams: Well, if you wanna go real deep real fast, you just gave me a good opening… I am a proponent of the “we are all a software simulation” view of reality. That would also explain why memories are so screwed up. The explanation would be that the past doesn’t exist – until you need it. In other words, the past writes itself on demand… because if we’re software, you wouldn’t have everything in the universe pre-programmed just in case you needed it – it would take up too much resources.

Source: Joe Rogan podcast, episode #874

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Just work on your act.

Ryan Holiday on the importance of working on your craft, and how “your work is the only thing that matters”:

There is a story about an exchange between Jerry Seinfeld and a young comedian. The comedian approaches Seinfeld in a club one night and asks him for advice about marketing and getting exposure.

Exposure? Marketing? Seinfeld asks. Just work on your act.

And:

No one pursuing an artistic career wants to hear what sits at the core of Seinfeld’s advice: Your work isn’t good enough. Keep your head down. You still have a long way to go.

And:

An artist’s job is to create masterpieces. Period.

Everything else is secondary.

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Success Takes Time

Steve Pavlina on 5-year commitments:

People commonly overestimate how far they can get in a year, but grossly underestimate how far they can get in 5 years.

If you actually want results, make a 5-year commitment to a particular path, like building an online business, developing your social skills, becoming a world traveler, etc. A lesser commitment is largely pointless.

And on time horizons:

Think about what you can achieve between now and 2025 if you commit to it. You can lose any amount of weight and develop any kind of physique you want. You can start your own business and make it profitable. You can meet the mate of your dreams and start a family. You can relocate to anywhere in the world.

(…)

You have an enormous degree of control and power when you think with a time horizon of 5 years. Don’t let that potential go to waste. Set a course now and get moving.

Jeff Atwood has similar thoughts on success and time:

…success takes years. And when I say years, I really mean it! Not as some cliched regurgitation of “work smarter, not harder.” I’m talking actual calendar years. You know, of the 12 months, 365 days variety. You will literally have to spend multiple years of your life grinding away at this stuff, waking up every day and doing it over and over, practicing and gathering feedback each day to continually get better. It might be unpleasant at times and even downright un-fun occasionally, but it’s necessary.

(…)

Obviously we want to succeed. But on some level, success is irrelevant, because the process is inherently satisfying. Waking up every day and doing something you love — even better, surrounded by a community who loves it too — is its own reward. Despite being a metric ton of work.

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Always Be Shipping

Longtime blogger and developer Jeff Atwood on the idea of always be shipping, whether it’s writing, software, or art:

Always Be Jabbing. Always Be Shipping. Always Be Firing. It’s the same advice, stated in different ways for different audiences.

(…)

… pick a schedule you can live with, and stick to it. Until you do that, none of the other advice I could give you will matter. I don’t care if you suck at writing. I don’t care if nobody reads your blog. I don’t care if you have nothing interesting to say. If you can demonstrate a willingness to write, and a desire to keep continually improving your writing, you will eventually be successful.

M.G. Siegler talks about a similar phenomenon in his post, Just Keep At It:

The good news is that even if the audience doesn’t show up at first, the work pays off in other ways. Namely, you’ll get better at what you’re doing.

I look back at some of my early blog posts and cringe. They were awful. I was foolish. But I kept going and the posts got less awful and less foolish (this statement is subject to review in another decade). I honestly think the worst thing that could have happened was getting a large audience from day one. I wouldn’t have been ready for it (even if I thought I was).

And so again, the advice is simply to keep at it. Even if the next post gets zero readers too. And the next one. Eventually, zero turns to one and then one to two and then you’re off to the races.

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They Just Start Doing It

Great email shared by Arnold Rauers:

There are two kinds of people, those who aspire to do something creative, art, music, games, and go around places to ask how to get into the field and those who just do it.

The secret to all successful creative people is that they never ask how to do anything, they just start doing it. They pour their heart and soul into their craft and maybe one day they get into it. There is not one specific way, just a big open road with multiple pathways and opportunities left and right.

If you really feel any creative drive you should be listening to that inner voice and start creating stuff right now.

(…)

So my advice is to stop worrying about how others did it and start creating now.

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