Editor’s Picks — Top 10: Discover Your Sense of What Is Possible Here and Now

Read the top 10 stories to see what’s possible

You want to appear good at the cost of being authentic. This logic becomes your limiting belief. You’d write about topics you know people would like to read.

Your original self is a source of vast creativity. Thoughts grow in you like grass grows in the soil. If you let yourself feel what you want to write and then start writing, you’ll find yourself writing about many topics.

Look and you will find it — what is unsought will go undetected. ~ Sophocles

Feeling something — anything — is life. You are alive, and your emotions are real. As Ray Bradbury said, “The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.”

Wish to write about how life touched you. Then start penning it. Don’t think too much. When you are writing, you get ‘packets of insights.’ Sometimes, you can stop the packet halfway through if you start judging your sentences.

Another reason you don’t tap into your creative possibilities is scarcity thinking. You don’t want to run out of good ideas. You don’t want to overspend your creative energy. You are limiting your flow by imagining your words will somehow become less beautiful. Just believe that you have an inexhaustible supply of creative ideas as long as you have a healthy relationship with your subconscious mind.

The best way to have a healthy relationship with your subconscious mind is to take care of yourself and love yourself. I am not preaching narcissism — I hope you can differentiate between the two.

Discovering your sense of what is possible becomes a matter of self-love, physical health, mental health, and recognizing your strengths and weaknesses.

The best way to discover your sense of possibility is to write what challenges you the most. Write what you think you can’t. Write what frightens you.

You may be afraid of writing in a particular style or a specific genre. You may be nervous about a topic that is close to your heart. I know it is hard. But to become aware of new possibilities you have to do what you have been avoiding in your past.

‘‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” ~ Rita Mae Brown, the mystery novelist said in her 1983 book ‘Sudden Death’

When you trust yourself, explore your authentic style, love yourself for your thoughts, face your fears, and don’t question your limitless creative potential, your sense of possibility will be gradually restored.

Here are our top 10 writers today who are willing to explore what’s possible:

10. How to Deal With Writer’s Block

Armahn Rassuli says, ‘I am a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology sharing mental health articles whenever I have time. I have a Masters Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.’

His writing style is honest, relatable, and charming. If you started reading his piece, you’d not be clicking away before finishing it. Do check his other work.

It has been nearly ten months since my last Medium article, and I have accumulated 16 drafts on my Stories page. With an abundance of story ideas and a bunch of half-written articles, I reflect on 2020 and ask myself, what happened?

My first few articles of 2020 did reasonably well on Medium, and as a beginner on this platform, it encouraged me to keep pushing forward with my ideas. However, when the stress of COVID-19 came, I found this newfound anxiety to be crippling my creativity.

9. How To Break Your Bad Habits

Morten Jensen is a Dane, married to a brit, living in NYC. He is a sober curious distance runner and globe trotter. He writes about running, nutrition, mental health, and more.

His writing style is formal, informative, and very engaging. I hope you’ll like this story.

We all have bad habits. Some worse than others. If we don’t know how to control or break them they can develop into addictions.

Addiction can be defined as “a compulsive, chronic, physiological, or psychological need for a habit forming substance, behaviour, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects…”

Most people tend to think about substances like alcohol and drugs when we talk about addiction. However, as defined above, addiction is much broader than just a physiological need for mentioned substances.

8. “New Year, New Me” Is Setting You up to Fail

Fleurine Tideman writes about mental health, books, feminism, and writing.

Her writing style is frank, honest, and highly engaging. If you like her work, don’t forget to check her other stories.

We see it every year as our social media feeds become filled with the same old post, claiming “New Year, New Me”. Haven’t seen that sickening term? You must have better friends on social media.

But whether or not you actively post it, many of us are guilty of the “New Year, New Me” mindset, even when we don’t categorise as such. We go into the New Year with big dreams and ambitions, setting ourselves up to fail before we’ve even passed the starting line. The aims and ambitions we hold aren’t the issue, but rather how we identify them. Those big dreams and ambitions are more than possible if you simply prepare yourself correctly for the race, as well as determine if this is even the race for you. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s first consider why “New Year, New Me” is doomed to fail.

7. 5 Phenomenal Ways to Write an Irresistible Introduction

Nuno Fabiao is a single father of two girls. Reader addict. His writing style is full of suspense, information, and practical tips.

Don’t miss this piece. Follow him and wait for his next piece.

Without a strong and compelling introduction, the best headline ever written won’t save you.

Why?

You should write an article as you would a thriller.

Both have to have an introduction that sticks the reader to the screen. Whether in a computer, a sheet of paper, or a movie theater.

6. Four Reasons Trump Did Not Wish To Leave Office

I wrote it. I hope you like it.

Around 47% of American voters chose to ignore Trump’s 20,000 bogus attacks, conspiracy theories, brags, and incorrect information. He claimed, for instance, that Obama spied on his campaign, the U.S. economy was in its best shape, his promised border wall was being built, his tax cut was the biggest in history, etc. The Washington Post has written a 384-page book about his lies: Donald Trump and His Assault on Truth: The President’s Falsehoods, Misleading Claims and Flat-Out Lies.

5. Time Blocking and 6 Simple Ways to Use It to Increase Productivity

Ana Writes is a 23-year-old kid. Master Student. Likes to talk a lot.

She is a superb writer. Her writing style is charming and very engaging. Please check her other work as well.

Setting a schedule to go about your day is a not so secret technique to make sure you get everything done. The problem with schedules arises when you write down way too many things you need to get done. Looking at all of these tasks is definitely overwhelming and results in not getting anything done.

A to-do list has no boundaries, no priorities, and no designated times for the tasks you’re trying to accomplish.

4. A Brief Psychology of “Hustle Culture”

Chris Wojcik writes about philosophy, martial arts, and everything in between.

He is an excellent writer. His style is simple, direct, and engaging. You’ll love his other work as well.

In sports, the business world, or a presidential election, results are the only thing that matters.

We live in a results-driven world, and as such we have a results-driven culture.

We have a “hustle culture”, and many people have had enough of it.

The message is not just that hustling is good, but also that not hustling is bad, and a sign of deep character flaws. The notion of hustle culture is ridiculous, but powerful.

But yet, why are we drawn to it? What about motivational quotes and serial productivity is so attractive to our brains?

3. It’s Time to Empower Reason, Not Excuses.

Pix'elle is an excellent writer. Don’t miss this story about productivity.

We are so weak sometimes. We don’t talk enough about this laziness, this destructive scourge, and in particular the partisan of self-sabotage (but what would our life be without a pinch of drama, really). And it’s to this spreading laziness that we take malicious pleasure in adorning it with excuses to reduce the growing guilt attached to it. We embellish it; we double our efforts to prove laziness is right.

2. I Got A Great Job Offer, But It’s In A Racist City

Rebecca Stevens A. is a global nomad-Sierra Leone-Switzerland-Canada-Sociologist-Philosopher-Writer-Swimmer-Paraglider-Dog lover-Passionate-Kind-Impatient Optimist-Pro-Democracy-Brave.

If you read the intro of this list, she is using micromessages to narrate her entire life story. That is the spirit of writing short.

She is an extraordinary writer. Follow her. Read her. Wait for her next story.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve been offered a great job, but you realize you’d have to move to a city with a largely racist population? Do you decide to go and suck it up as best possible, or do you decline the offer and stay where you are? This type of dilemma is common when you are a black professional.

I don’t deny that white people also face dilemmas in deciding to move to a whole new city or country for a job, but I would argue that when you’re black, you have that additional amount of stress in trying to determine how the racism in that new place will affect you and your family. You can’t just ignore it, you need to take it into consideration in order to ensure you don’t land up in a place that may for example destroy your marriage or negatively affect the members of your family.

1. The 7 Mental Habits of Successful Leaders

At number one, it is Paul Myers MBA. He is a top writer in business, leadership, entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation.

He is somebody you should follow if you like to learn about business and leadership. I have selected many of his stories in the Top 10. Do check his other work.

Our mindset has a huge impact on the way we perform at anything in life. Your mental model in a given situation influences whether you embrace or avoid something, quit altogether, lose sight of your goal or simply enjoy the journey of discovery.

“The problem human beings face is not that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim too low and succeed.”

— Michelangelo

This post is part of the Top 10 Series:

1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9–10–11–12–13–14–15–16–17–18–19–20–21–22–23–24–25–26–27–28–29–30–31–32–33–34–35–36–37–38–39–40–41–42–43–44–45–46–47–48–49–50–51–52 –53–54

Final Thoughts

If your story was selected as one of the Top 10, please share another one of your stories in the comments with a brief introduction and a short review that can convince a reader to read your piece. (Please write the review in the third person and start it with your name.)

I must have missed something today. I cannot read every story on Illumination and Illumination-Curated. Dr Mehmet Yildiz, the Chief Editor and Founder of Illumination and Illumination-Curated, read, highlighted, and applauded every good story when he started his publications. He still reads almost all of the good ones. I try — and fail daily — to read all of the masterpieces.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz has kindly allotted the top 10 series a full shelf on the front page of Illumination-Curated and Illumination:

If you find any mistake, typo, or other error, please leave a private note for correction. Thanks.

Happy New Year!

To improve your chances of success as a writer, read these curation guidelines.

You can read my curated stories here.