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Here’s a question I think about often: If I repeated what I was doing today for a year, who would I be? Ideally, you in one year more closely resembles the person you aspire to be, compared to who you are today.
Below are three ideas that should help all of us do just that.
1. Learn your blind spots
In September I wrote an essay on how writing is a skill everyone can learn to clarify and improve what they do on a daily basis, in nearly any line of work.
In one sense writing is just a more concrete version of thinking, and it always pays to be a better thinker. The best part is it’s practically free today — all you need is pen and paper.
Writing for me has helped me discover my own blind spots, and this alone I think makes the practice worthwhile. Experienced writers know that the point of writing is not to show off your expertise, but to figure out how little you actually know.
Putting thoughts into words changes your original ideas because it specifies them.
It’s an attempt at coherence and understanding. Learning your blind spots is ultimately a tool to determine how much more you can learn, do, and create.
2. Prioritize failures
If you want to do quality work, you have to be comfortable producing an enormous amount of inadequate work.
And, you have to come to terms with how your first attempt at something will not resemble someone else’s final product. Most ideas are short-lived, and few survive contact with reality.
The bigger the idea, the smaller the chance it works as expected.
In theory, then, fears of not being good enough should be ruled out.
It’s hard, but embracing its likelihood is the only way to get better.
Imagine if no one was able to stomach failure. Society, in turn, would produce fewer good ideas, and eventually we would have no examples of excellence to look to for inspiration.
3. Act out your ideal before you become it
A powerful and simple concept but difficult in practice. Any material change in your character or role in life can only happen one day at a time.
That means you have to adopt the habits you think the best version of yourself would adopt, dress the way you think you’d dress, and speak and act as if you’ve already achieved your vision.
To transform yourself, you must force your future into the present.
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