The gift of the technique comes when we transcend it.
- ESD: Beyond the Habit
- Today is a whole lot easier to see as yesterday than as tomorrow.
- Because “Every other day plus weekends is too complicated.”
- If you could practice more, would you?
- You do it even when you don’t want to do.
- You’ll never again say, “Oh well. Another day where I didn’t get it done.”
- This is how you live to be 103 years old.
- Study Every Single Day
- Every Single Day launches on October 17, 2017!
- Yes, you can force the Flow State. Here’s how.
- You know those things you never seem to get done? What if you could get them done?
- Meditation is the single thing that has helped me create Every Single Day for the past 1,698 days in a row.
- How do you know if you’re ready to make “The Leap”?
- This is what happens when you don’t take ESD.
- When you hear about how a person changed her life, it changes your life.
- When you’re a practitioner of Every Single Day, the “how” no longer matters.
- Sneak Peak: Every Single Day Table of Contents
- How has “Every Single Day” changed your life?
- The gift of the technique comes when we transcend it.
- Don’t have time? Here’s how to make time.
- The ESD Avatar — Who is the Every Single Day reader persona?
- The secret about that “big burst of creativity” you’re waiting for.
- It’s probably not a good idea to upload my book to Amazon while I’m in the train. Unless, of course …
- “Every Single Day” is available for pre-order on Amazon
- Mr. Pantser, meet Miss Plotter.
- 100 Reviews in 30 Days
- A prescription without a pill?
- From shame to lame to blame to aim to fame to game
- Can we become more creative?
- The Conundrum of Comfortable
- Every Single Day: Weight Loss
- If you think you need to do more, it might be time to do less.
- Very little stability in my life at the moment. Oh, yes, well, except for that. #creativelystable
- 2019 is going to be different. AKA: the mountain goat.
- Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.
- Ghost with a Toast
The gift is not the technique. The technique is the gift.
But the gift of the technique comes when we no longer need the technique.
This is part of the Every Single Day series. All building towards the book of the same name coming out October 17, 2017. In it, we help you achieve huge, scary, and never-before-contemplated goals through achieving tiny, Every Single Day goals. Oh, by the way, it’s not the goal, it’s the habit we’re shooting for. Yeah, more on that in the book.
The “goal” of the Every Single Day methodology is not actually doing the thing every single day. ESD is a means, a vehicle, a catalyst to whatever it is you’re looking to achieve. But here’s the beauty of this in a nutshell: although you may think you have arrived or succeeded or even made it to the big time when you have mastered your technique, in a way, you’re just getting started.
Here’s the secret that you won’t even understand until you’re a Platinum Member of ESD, when you’ve been at it “a while” and you no longer wish or try or even dream. You just do. When you get to the point where you’re no longer concerned about the how or the why or the when is when it can happen. Now, what exactly it is that might happen is up for discussion. This is the even more interesting part: it’s unknown. It’s not something you necessarily plan for or even can plan for.
The purpose of the “silly” dribbling drills at basketball practice isn’t so that you know how to dribble a ball around orange cones. It’s so that you no longer have to think about orange cones or about the basketball. It’s so that you can think about what’s next (passing, shooting, dribbling some more). But you have to have the foundation down before you can get further. But the foundation isn’t the gift. The gift is what happens when you don’t remember the training, you just know it.
When you get to a certain level, because you’ve never been there before, you might not even understand what the options are from way back where you’re starting.
If you are currently way back at the beginning (let’s use the analogy of a mountain range) where you can’t even see beyond the first peak, by definition you don’t yet know what’s beyond the first peak. But that’s completely OK. In fact, it couldn’t be any other way. Your first focus is not even on that first peak, it’s on your first step. How are you going to get to the top of the first peak? You’re going to take that first step? How do you take the first step? It helps if you’re in the vicinity of the mountain and know which one you’re going to ascend.
Every Single Day
My goal with writing Every Single Day isn’t to write every day. My goal is to become a better writer. It’s that simple. I don’t fret about how I write or when (in the day) I write, I just write. I don’t debate whether or not I’ll write (that was solved long ago, can you say Writer’s Block?), I just write. But my goal isn’t even the writing. It’s beyond. It’s transcendent. It’s much bigger, deeper, larger than me, more than just words on a page.
The daily habit frees me.
It’s something I don’t think about. It doesn’t take up space in my brain–which allows space for other, bigger things. The gift has come because:
- I wrote Every Single Day.
- I write Every Single Day.
- I will write Every Single Day.
Several paragraphs down into this piece and it’s becoming even more clear what my “goals” are. They are passion, permission to improve and succeed, and freedom. Even after 1,700+ posts, I’m still learning. Hopefully, I’ll never be done learning. Secret for any kids reading out there: learning is the fun part. You won’t believe me, but later you will.
Through my habit, I can live and breathe my passion. I have permission (from myself) to improve and succeed in it. I have the freedom to choose which direction to go from here.
The gift is going downstream.
I’ve paddled and worked, sweat and swore. I’ve reached a point where I was given permission to turn this boat around and let the current take me. I’ve done my duty, I’ve reached where I was supposed to go on the river. Now I guide the boat and use the power of the current to grant me the gift. The gift of the technique.
