Pushing your capabilities through practice and ritual.
“When you do something every day, you’re only going to get better at what you are doing.”
— Joshua C. Green , Ep. 10 of The Renaissance Life Podcast
Do you want to be an extraordinary writer?
How about an insanely good artist or musician?
A super-connector? An exceptional conversationalist?
Health Shaman? Master Yogi?
All the above? (Me! over here!)
Then it’s time to take on a daily challenge.
Inspired by a couple friends (Josh Green and Travis Knight) who I’ve interviewed recently on The Renaissance Life, I’ve decided to take on a daily writing and blogging challenge. I am going to write and blog every single day for an entire year. This is day 20.
We all have these dreams of greatness and desires to live an extraordinary life, but getting from where we are to where we want to be can be hazy. It’s like we can see the peak of the mountain but the journey up is covered in a cloudy malaise of discomfort. (Like a kid who needs glasses and can’t see the whiteboard in class) Most people have dreams but not everyone has the belief system and is bold enough to step into their discomfort zones and challenge their capabilities.
Your mountain is your own, I can’t tell you precisely how you can get up to the top —
But I can show you what you what has worked well for others and what I am going to do to climb my own mountains:
Deliberate practice and daily ritual.
Deliberate practice meaning we aren’t phoning it in. We’re pushing ourselves to our limit every day, and practicing and trying out new strategies that will make us smarter and more creative at what we do.
And Daily being the key word here.
My daily challenge is writing and blogging, so the amount of time I will spend will depend on the types of blogs I want to put out and how long it takes me to make them happen.
Imagine yourself one year from now after you decided to take on a daily challenge. You put in the time, energy and effort to practice every day. After practicing every day for an ENTIRE year, where do you think you will be?
Much better than you would have been if you didn’t decide to challenge yourself.
This is how time can be our ally. Time — like money — has a compound interest effect. By investing in small daily practices that add over time to something great. Small actions lead to big change.
This isn’t going to be easy — and that’s the point. Our goal here is to push ourselves to be something more than we thought possible, and to grow our abilities faster by putting in more time than we would normally give if we were practicing ‘whenever’. I’m writing this at 9:50 PM after finishing one job and about to start another job. (I’m crazy) But I’m taking on a daily challenge because I believe it can change my life, because I’ve seen it change the lives of others.
I’ll be talking more in-depth strategies and examples about daily challenges soon.
Action Question (AQ): What daily challenge do you want to do?
Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner
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Related Wisdom:
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” — Chinese Proverb
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” — Zig Ziglar
“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” — Richard Branson
