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Imagine your best friend is going through a tough time.
They aren’t able to succeed or are really sad.
Would you start telling them that they’re no good?
That they can’t ever do any good?
That they should already give up?

No. Right?

We hate going around people who bring us down yet go about doing the same thing to ourselves.

What if we became our best friend, our most loyal supporter, our cheerleader?
How would that change the journey you have with this one person?
How smoother would it be to hang around an encouraging human 24*7?

Treating yourself like your own best friend will make your life fun and positive, just as a best friend does.

If you invest in a stock with the information that everyone has, you will get the returns everyone else gets.
If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

Same choices, same results.
Yet each day, we go about following the rest of the world while making our life choices.

What if we made different choices?
What if we made an attempt to get different results?
What if we made an obvious choice, to resist the obvious?

“To get the results only few have, do only what a few do.” – Robin Sharma

We know we shouldn’t do multiple things at a time.
But how to accomplish the huge list of tasks we have?

One task at a time.
Then moving on to the next.

We’ll be more focussed.
And get things done in less time, which will allow to move to the next task

Our brain craves novelty and works in focus.
When you give it both, it’s productivity quadruples.

The secret isn’t multitasking. It’s doing a single task at a time, multiple times a day.

We are procrastinating.
On that project that is important to us.
On that gig that will get us closer to our dream.
On writing that email that might help us land our dream job.

Not because we can’t.
But because we are afraid.

Afraid of doing it wrong.
Afraid of criticism of people.
Afraid of not being able to do it fully.

The task for you to do it isn’t to do the task you’re procrastinating on.
The task for you is to tackle this fear.

Solve for the fear of the future.
Procrastination will be taken care of, as a consequence.

“It’s raining today. Let me not work today and enjoy instead.”
“It’s a festival today. Let’s skip the workout.”
“It’s too cold today. I’d rather not get to the desk and write.”

These are words of an amateur.

However, a professional shows up to work daily.
Consistently.
Relentlessly.
Even when they don’t feel like it.
They don’t do it for the accolades, they do it for who they become in the process of showing up daily.

The differences between an amateur and a pro aren’t on the basis of their skills or talents.
The pro is the amateur that simply showed up every day.

How often do we find ourselves saying that or thinking to ourselves, “I am rambling”.

Thoughts are coming, but they are unstructured, they are fast and don’t do justice to what I know about the subject.

The solution is to write.
To speak in a manner that is coherent, writing is the solution.
Because writing is the slowest form of thought consumption.
When we write, we filter them. Pace them well.
And over time, our thoughts slow down too. At that point, there is a fine balance between what we are thinking and how we are communicating that.

Write your thoughts.
They’ll get slower.
Your words will find their meaning. One word at a time.

I wrote my first blog post in May 2005.
I posted my first LinkedIn content in 2013.
I posted my first YouTube video in Aug 2017.
I sent my first newsletter in July 2020.
I posted my first IG reel in Jan 2021.
I recorded my first podcast in March 2021.

And guess what was common in all of them?
I think they were all TERRIBLE!

I was an amateur.
I was nervous.
I was rambling.
I was not precise.

And whenever I look at my earlier work, I am always left embarrassed.

So how is it that I have never cared to delete any of my previous work?

Because:
My first work reminds me that I started.
My first work reminds me that I took the plunge.
My first work reminds me of how far along I have come.
My first work reminds me of this beautiful quote:

Here is something you already know of:

Your first work will not be your best.
Your first work will leave you embarrassed.
Your first work will make people laugh, cringe, judge or mock you.

And yet, until there is no first work, there is going to be no other work!

Don’t ask yourself, “Am I ready to start?”
Ask yourself, “Am I ready to improve?”

Don’t dismiss yourself before anybody else does.
Give yourself that chance.

Free yourself.

The one decision that will affect EVERY area of your life meaningfully is picking the right partner.

This is because, your partner affects:

– Your financial life:

To have the same financial goals and use money in similar ways makes life less about convincing and figuring out, and more about living it together.

– Your physical life:

Your workout habits, your eating habits, your binge-eating habits, your sleeping habits – all have a direct impact on how you live your life.

– Your emotional life:

Stability in your relationship with your partner will eventually determine how emotionally stable you are in every other relationship you have.

Making this one decision wisely will determine almost everything in your life, meaningfully.
Not to be made in haste :)

Several years back, I got a call from a current student of ISB.
“I have an offer from McKinsey and Google. I don’t know which one to choose. Can you help?”

I didn’t help. I just asked a question:

“What is the most important thing for you in life, right now?
Something so important, that you are willing to compromise on everything else?”

“Umm – learning. I want to be learning right now in life. Very important!”

“Fair. Is learning so important that you are willing to work in a shitty company with shitty pay and a toxic culture, but you get to learn A LOT?”

“NO! That sounds awful.”

“Then, learning is not the most important thing you want in life right now.
It is ONE of the things you want.
Think again.”

“Okay okay. It is money. I need money.
That’s important!”

“Fair. Is money so important that you are willing to work with a horrible boss, horrible work hours, you learn nothing, but it pays you A LOT?”

“No! That sounds awful.”

“Then, money is not the most important thing you want from life right now.
Think again.”

Here is the thing with us humans…

If we do not know what we truly want in life the most, at that point of time,
The next best thing that we want
Is
Everything!

We want everything.

A great pay. Great work-life balance. Great office. Great manager. Great colleagues. Great offsites. Great promotions. Great increments.

So we settle for something that we think offers all of that.
However, the one thing that we truly want from life, is left unattended.

“What is it that you want most from life right now?”

When I have gone into deep discussions with people about this, they have been mostly surprised at their own realisations.

It is ridiculous how many of us have never asked ourselves this question!
Thus, have no idea what it could be.

The best thing you can do is feed your soul with the one thing it craves for the most right now.