I just completed writing one essay a day for the month of March.
The biggest lesson I learned from daily volume that waiting never showed me? Convergence. It was like creating a map of my own mind. The topics all started to point at common roots.
What made it possible was the organized method I developed as I went. After a few days, I locked the elements in and it carried me.
The process I ended up with was not complicated.
1. Find a problem. Not an imaginary client's problem. Yours. Something you solved in the last year or are actively solving now. The current ones are better — there's a charge in them that planning can't manufacture.
2. Record how you dealt with it. For past problems this is memory and reflection. For current ones it's closer to working it out on the page in real time. Writing an essay about a problem you haven't fully solved yet is one of the more useful things you can do with it. Structuring it reveals the solution.
3. Choose a framework and plug in. The framework is the skeleton. The personal material is everything else. When the editing is done, the skeleton should be invisible. If you can see the bones, keep going.
4. Write the messy part. The actual feeling of being inside the problem. What your mind told you would happen if you didn't fix it. What it felt like to be in it without a plan. Usually a page or two of stream of consciousness that gets cut down to four sentences that do more work than the full page did.
5. Compile. Fit the personal material into the structure. This becomes faster. By day fifteen I had a feel for what went where before I started writing.
6. Then cut. The repetition. The cleanup sentences that arrive after the real landing has already happened. Anything that isn't earning its place.
You can also save a lot of time if you have notes to draw from.
If you need to write an essay in a few hours, give it a shot.
When you're consistent with your "optimal morning routine" it might start to seem like it's overrated.
But once you get some fall of and have to rush in the morning you realize how much it was holding the energy of your day together.
If it's working, keep building.
If you want more of something: use it.
We've heard it takes money to make money, but it's true for everything.
Strength, confidence, endurance, attention, concentration, energy - you gain more by using what you have.
The act of using it triggers the mechanism to gain more.
The beginner’s mind doesn’t ask whether the information is original. It asks whether it’s true, whether it’s alive, whether this moment of transmission is real.
Shunryu Suzuki didn’t invent the breath. He just sat down with people who needed to be reminded that it was there.
There are a couple of spots left for this shaman retreat in Mongolia. My friend, and native Chinese speaker and fluent English speaker, is guiding those that need a translator. It's a special opportunity to have that a personal translator for an event like this.
For more info: https://t.co/lPIljmdDnY
This is beautiful work. I recently was confronted with the realization that we don't know how much we healed our attachments (through solitary work) until we are shown the attachment again.
Not to be too vague, but also not going into it.
I noticed where I made progress, and where I still have work to do.
I can see you're onto something real here, when I read:
"It goes way beyond surface level improvements, self-development systems, or mindfulness meditation."
Going through my journal lately and recognizing how much of our obstacles are stored in nervous system.
Even often physical issues. Dealing with a pain in my neck---this subconscious tension in the shoulder.
Even deep though, now that we're talking about, it could tie back to the gut biome, too. So much of what's going on in there directly relates to what the CNS expresses.
You don't really want your friend's advice.
You just want them to agree with you so it feels like you have permission to do the thing you already know to do.
Just regulate your nervous system. Trust yourself, and do the damn thing.
I see what you're saying. I've felt that, too. I'm not here to tell you you're wrong or to change, but there's this thing called Solomon's Paradox.
Cus D'Amato made Mike Tyson a champ without ever being a boxer himself.
I think Arrigo Sacchi, coach of the AC Milan back to back Euro Cup champs (88-89) and former shoe salesman, said it best: "I never realized that to become a jockey you have to have been a horse first."
I haven't been posting as frequently on here lately. I’ve just been working, writing, and spending time outdoors. I had a guest visiting throughout April. If you interested in staying updated on what I’ve been up to, check out my Substack: https://t.co/MndbNosZ0s. It’s gone through different styles.
Lately I’ve been writing in a combination of personal journaling and self-help. I wrote one essay each day in March which helped me nail down a particular style that I plan on continuing with once a week. I look at personal problems I’ve faced or am currently facing and how I have or will process them. It usually involves a writing practice, mindset reframing, and concentrations practices like tea, yoga, and meditation.
This style feels like a natural progression from my experimentation with persuasive salesy style writing that you can find in the posts from the end of last year and the beginning of this year. When I started making it more personal, it felt more natural. So, I’ll stay with this style once a week, and add another essay of a different style. Then I’ll be posting twice a week. I’m thinking of making the 2nd essay more conceptual and focused on the topics I find both helpful and interesting like tea, movement practice, Buddhist teachings, and meditation. We’ll see how it turns out as I go.
While I was writing one essay a day in March, I discovered something interesting. As I researched the issues I was facing, many of the strategies I encountered came from sources that were designed to help adults with ADHD. Whether I have it or not, I have the symptoms, and I have collected strategies for navigating them unmedicated.
While the practice of writing is rewarding on its own, what inspired me to start sharing my writing on a blog is my desire to help people. So if you’re an adult navigating life with unmedicated ADHD, check out my Substack: https://t.co/zwUFuhC6FX.
Your "perfect" routine is a hidden trap.
A routine that only functions under ideal conditions isn't a practice, it’s a performance.
Be a gardener, not a machine. Create the conditions for growth, then respond to the season you are actually in.