It’s not enough to grind. You have to stop and reflect.
How to get better
My solid guess is that if you read this newsletter, you care about shaping your life.
Me too!
Most of us are hungry to learn and get smarter, to grow and get better.
We’re trekking towards the horizon of the best version of ourselves. It’s in the nature of horizons that you never quite arrive, but in this case, it truly is about the journey.
The simple-not-easy two-step process for becoming a better version of yourself is:
- Do the work (hopefully something close to thrilling, important, and daunting).
- Learn from doing the work (about you, the work, and the world).
How I get the balance right
This is a lifetime’s work. It rests on three pillars:
Figure out the work and if it’s something like a Worthy Goal, have the courage to start it.
Do the work, but don’t spend all your living moments being busy and working.
Hold the space to reflect and learn.
After a decade or three of experimentation, I’ve got a journaling routine that does a lot of the heavy lifting here for me.
The Do Something that Matters Journal has three layers of structure, which you’re welcome to take and adapt to your own use (or, of course, pick up a copy of the journal for yourself).
Daily questions for focus, momentum, and gratitude
I’ve got too much on my to-do list, too much in my “to put on my to-do list when I have time” pile, and often too many things on my calendar.
If my goal is just to get through my tasks, I’m doomed, like Sisyphus.
Each day I get clear on what I want, and what is my one essential task to complete. (Today’s was “write newsletter.” 🙂)
Weekly questions for self-reflection and re-orientation
I start the week with a provocative “go deep” question, I have a mid-week question that provokes me to look up, figure out what’s going on, and adjust, and I have an end-of-week question to help me reflect and learn.
Unlike the daily questions, which stay the same, these questions are different each week.
You can see one of them up above. The “Go Deep” question I answered today was, “What responsibility do you need to assume? What is it time to pick up and own?” (Yikes.)
Six-weekly pauses
In The Conspiracy, our membership group for people working on their Worthy Goals, we work in six-week chapter cycles.
It’s based on a style of project management called Agile, where you pick what’s most important, give it your full focus, then pause before selecting again based on where you’ve ended up and what you’ve learned from the previous cycle.
The genius of six weeks is that it’s enough time to make a lot of progress, but a short enough time to flounder or get things wrong without too much damage. It’s only six weeks, after all.
(The Conspiracy’s doors open again in December for a start in January. More to come on that soon.)
Do. Be. Do. Be.
Not just a line from Frank Sinatra.
The rhythm of a life well lived, where you learn and grow.
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