7 Uplifting Principles for Writing and Losing Weight
#3 A little of something, practice every day
I never have a lack of imagination.
Fortunately, I always had more ideas than time to build new articles.
In my draft, dozens of new ideas await on the waiting list. It only remains for me to select those ideas that I think are most desirable for my audience.
The magic formula I always use is walking. Long walks give me the best ideas for writing.
6 months ago, I got injured. I used to run ultra-marathons on the mountain. Unfortunately, my back is a worn product resulting from highly competitive sports.
I should be treated, but I don’t dare walk inside hospitals and physical therapy clinics with this pandemic. So, I have only been controlling my body weight through long walks.
I leave home, always on foot, and go on trails one hour away. Then I delight in listening to nature for hours. And in the end, with my soul refreshed and my spirit clean, I return to base for a few more typing sessions.
As I listen to the silence of the mountain, I reflect on life. In an environment of peace of mind, dozens of new ideas come to my mind, which I carefully record on the phone.
When I get home, I download all the material to Medium and select the best. Then I put my hands typing to offer some more quality content to everyone who dares to read.
1) There Are Two Types of Pain, One That Hurts You and the Other That Changes You
I practice intense sports since I was eleven years old. From swimming to soccer. From basketball to beach volleyball. My body suffered a lot of tension since I remember. And, of course, injuries and pain have always been by my side.
That’s why I treat pain like my youngest sister.
And fortunately, I always feed on pain to pursue my goals with even more determination.
When I started writing on Medium, as a non-native writer, my pain was constant.
I composed the sentences in English, as I did in Portuguese. Result? Nothing sounded right. So, I decided to study articles from the best writers.
That was when I started to remember my English classes in school. I immediately bought an English online course to help me with grammar and structure.
Gradually, the growing pains disappeared. Like when you start training to lose weight, and everything hurts. You start slowly, but still, your body screams, and your mind despairs.
On writing is the same thing. You have to absorb the pain and know how to feed on it.
2) Make Everyday a Little Less Ordinary
When you start writing, you go through different processes. First, you suffer growing pains. Then, at the first small success, you already find yourself the new Ernest Hemingway.
There is the precise moment when you get your first hammer. Your work still sucks, but no, you think you manage it like a ballerina on a dance floor.
The first lesson is the toughest one, but also the best of all. Some people don’t resist and quit. Others struggle like hell, but the tough survive.
It happens all the time with people that want to lose weight. They start like there was no tomorrow, but they also give up with the same speed that they start.
Beginners usually come up with the lamest excuses possible. They felt muscle pain. And their minds started to imagine all the creative reasons to give up.
The best skill of all, for beginners, is humility.
Self-awareness is also something we can improve, whatever stage we are in. Focus on simple tasks. Make it really simple at the beginning.
Don’t forget you are starting a process that other writers and athletes dominate for months or years.
Like in a workout session, start small. Little steps. Enjoyable ones. And try to grow at a steady pace.
3) A Little of Something, Practice Every Day
If you’d look to my desk, I have fewer support tools than I had at the beginning of my writing journey.
Yet, I built a work process, putting small things together in a single work structure.
On the left side of my desk, I have a stack of four books to promote my ideas based on the experts. On the right side, I only have a white sheet, which says ‘Medium Masterplan’ at the top.
It’s a script with simple tasks that I have to do every day, during my writing process.
My ‘Medium Masterplan’ it’s an unfinished process. It’s a script built over the months, where I added essential items to complete the entire writing process.
It’s like a training plan where you design the number of series, the time intervals between exercises, the volume, and the number of days.
In each cycle of exercise, you add more volume and intensity. Yet, always start with few tasks.
One month from now, in my writing masterplan, I add some more items, so I can deliver to my audience a better ‘product.’
If you don’t create a day to day task guide, you’ll find it very difficult to maintain a high-quality level in your work.
A little of something, practice every day, will improve your level of writing and stamina.
4) Willpower Is Not Genetic. It Requires the Will To Resist.
I honestly believe that willpower is the differentiator between winners and losers.
Even more honest, I don’t believe there are losers. Those who we call losers are only people doing the wrong things repeatedly.
Yet, willpower is the ability to make a conscious choice. We all have free will. The way we desire to use our free will align with our willpower.
The power of choice characterizes our journey. Different obstacles come our way, but the power of choice gives us the free will to decide what to do and when to do it.
Tim Denning writes four articles all Tuesdays and Thursdays. In two days, he slams eight pieces. It’s his discipline, his masterplan. And he does it because he has free will to do it.
The thing is, it’s easy to do, but it’s also easy not to do. There’s where willpower takes action.
Two weeks ago, I tried Tim’s strategy. All Tuesdays and Thursdays, I write four articles each day. Then, the next day I edit them. It works for me too. Why? Because I choose to do it.
I manage my energy and flow, and I can write eight articles in two days.
It’s my ultra-marathon now. My injury won’t let me go back to the mountain. So I carry that energy and mindset into writing. It’s not easy to produce four articles a day, but it’s also not easy to run at two thousand meters in altitude for a whole day.
You can do whatever you want if you choose to.
5) A Good Example Has Twice the Value of Good Advice
I love to read biographies. Right now, I’m reading Tim Cook’s biography. Apple’s CEO has surprised me since the beginning of the book.
Why biographies?
It’s the best way for you to understand all the highs and lows of remarkable people. What they did, how they did it, and whom they learned from.
One of the things I most learn about biographies is about what not to do.
Knowing what not to do saves you a lot of time and headaches. With that extra time you save, you can add value to your life that you wouldn’t do otherwise.
Many people spend thousands of hours doing the wrong things. I try not to do that because time is the most valuable asset we have.
Knowing what not to do, I only perform the tasks that really make real changes in my life. And above all, things that make me happy.
6)You Didn’t Come This Far To Only Come This Far
You can’t do everything on your own.
The power of outsourcing is tremendous. And since the beginning of my writing journey, I knew I would need outside support.
The first thing I did was investing in an online course about writing.
Fortunately, I came across [arlie] PEYTON. And realized that he was the ideal person to help me understand the world of writing. Better than that, Peyton’s online course showed me the world of Brand Journalism.
I was absorbing the best content about an industry that is growing overwhelmingly.
My second step was to learn grammar and structure. Thus, and at the suggestion of other writers, I started by taking an initiation course on the Udemy platform. Nor will I tell you about the value for money of this course. It’s ridiculously cheap.
I also needed in-depth training on the Medium platform. So, I joined Sinem Günel and plunged deeply into our platform. This was the last step, which made my journey boost my cruise speed and gain traction every day.
When I go to the high mountains, I never go alone. Usually, I go with better athletes than me. They push me every day to the limits. If I went alone, I would never have made it to 50 miles. I love to run with athletes much better than me. They push my strength to the limit. And so, the next day, I am stronger.
You can’t do everything on your own.
7) Do Something Today That Your Future Self Will Thank You For
The person you’re going to be five or ten years from now will be more different than you expect.
This is one of the critical myths of personality. Your personality comes from your view of your own future, but most people weren’t educated to think that way.
Benjamin Hardy, Ph.D., is doing brilliant work on a psychology project. He basically works our minds in creating our future selves.
The thing is that we have this notion that our lives stay the same way for the long run. We, humans, have hard times projecting our future selves. It blocks the human potential that we have within us.
Redesigning your future self is the ultimate challenge. Projecting your mind into the future facilitating your future persona.
Final Thoughts
Our success in life is a constant work in progress. It’s not a static thing.
You have to cause a kind of restlessness within yourself. You cannot conform to what you are and what you have.
If you don’t like how things are, change it. You are not a tree.- Jim Rohn
I am obsessed with knowledge. I am always reading about everything.
Especially about the things I love the most. Every paper that appears in front of me, I read from start to end. You never know if that text has the power to change your mind forever.
The same thing happens with body weight and training sessions. Before your next workout, you’ll never know if that’s the one. The one that’s going to change your body forever.
Believe me when I say people know the exact moment their body and mind shift. People who lost 25 to 50 pounds remember the day their body shift.
Our body and mind is a powerful machine.
If others do amazing things, why shouldn’t you try?
Words have the power to change the world, to change your world.
Words have the power to change bodies, to change your body.
If words wouldn’t be so powerful, what the hell were we doing here?
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