Last fall, back when things were normal, I joined a singles tennis league.
I had started playing tennis only a couple of months before, but one of the reasons I started playing tennis in the first place was to develop my competitive side. My penchant for seeking win-win solutions had been causing me to back down in situations where it was arguably inappropriate to do so.
Read MoreA friend of mine has taken up the guitar, at long last.
On some level, she wanted to prove to herself that she could do it. She wanted to overcome a lifelong block about her potential as an instrumentalist and heal the damage that was done to her self-concept many years ago when she tried and failed.
But mostly, she is doing it because it’s fun. She’s not out to save the world.
Read MoreJerry Seinfeld, when asked about his method for success in comedy, shared a very simple strategy: He wrote new material every day. In order to accomplish this, he drew a big red X on his wall calendar for every day he wrote. A day without an X became unthinkable.
“Don’t break the chain!” he said. In other words, keep that streak going — do whatever it takes to earn that X.
Read MoreJason Fried, co-founder of Basecamp, doesn’t believe in goals. He claims he’s never had one.
Imagine being able to succeed by just wanting to make things — and make things better for everyone. Fried is proof that it is possible.
So often, we focus on an external timeline that we have to satisfy in order to be acceptable. We believe that if we fail to keep up with others (or with our own imagined future self), our efforts have no value — or even that we have no value.
Read MoreYoga is a complex practice with many spiritual, physical, and emotional dimensions. For one thing, it is a tool for observation.
As we practice yoga, we discover the literal and metaphorical places where we may be tense, resistant, or in pain. We notice the difference between the way it feels today and the way it felt yesterday. We experience growth, not only in the sense of being able to do new things but also by seeing changes in the way we approach things we’ve tried before.
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