To predict the worst case scenario makes you a genius, to prepare for it makes you a nut.
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Consistently Into the Swamp
Consistency is hard to compete with. Unless, of course, you’re consistent in the wrong direction. After all, a gambling addict is consistent, and it consistently leads them into the swamp.
The same applies to discipline. Being highly disciplined can obviously be a huge competitive advantage, but only if it’s applied to the right things.
As strength-trainer Pavel Tsatsouline warns, it’s dangerous to build fitness on poor form.
The Thoughts of Others
“No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.” – Turkish proverb
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Current Project Addiction
The current project is often the safest place to be.
Someone asks you, what are you up to? You point to the current project.
Problem is, after a certain point, the current project lets us off the hook. It coddles us, letting us delay the risky challenge of having to venture back into the void and create something new out of nothing.
Hang on to the current project for too long – chipping away at details that don’t really move the needle – and it becomes a crutch; the creative equivalent of a diet heavy on refined-sugar. That is, lots of satisfying dopamine hits from empty calories that fail to enrich, and breed nothing but addiction.
Sure, allow a grace period for immersion and the honing of the finer details, just beware addiction to the current project.
How do you gauge it? Well, there’s a certain threshold, after which the project runs you rather than you running it.
The Thoughts of Others
“Certainty is another word for stalling.” – Seth Godin