“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” — T.S. Eliot
How much do you hold back?
How many ideas are you scared to express?
How many goals do you hesitate to pursue?
How many passions do you ignore?
It’s easy (and tempting) to blame other circumstances for our struggles, but that’s a false narrative.
The single biggest factor is often our own choice to hold things back from ourselves, our work, and the world.
Break that habit and let it fly.
I bet you’ll like the results.
Now, on to this week’s ideas…
1. EIGHT CONCEPTS THAT WILL IMPROVE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS
“True social media success is built not by being fake, but by being more honest, authentic, vulnerable, and real than most people are willing to be.”
You won’t find any social media “tricks” or “hacks” in this post, because that’s not what you actually need.
What you will find is my explanation of eight concepts that will improve your social media posts including that not all engagement or followers matter, you actually have two audiences, and you should show what others can’t in ways that others won’t.
RELATED: Four ways to create your best social media post ever.
2. SIX WAYS TO SLOW DOWN YOUR LIFE
“It had never occurred to me to put a limit on the number of appointments in a day. Usually I just figure it has to happen, so I cram it in, but the result is predictably disastrous — a workday that gets extended into the early and late hours to make up for lost time, a rushed dinner and bedtime routine for the kids, and a whole lot of logistics.”
It’s easy to recognize you need to slow down a bit, but not so easy to figure out how to do so.
This Treehugger post suggests six ways to slow down your life and offers specific tactics you can employ to take back control including to limit yourself to one appointment a day, think of your to-do list in a new way, and implement slow evenings.
RELATED: 15 truths about work-life balance that just might help you find it.
3. CREATE FOR AN AUDIENCE OF ONE
“Attempting to fulfill other people’s expectations is a fool’s errand when it comes to creative work. It’s inevitable that you will fail on some level, make compromises you regret, and end up with your worst work.”
This one just might inspire you to do your best creative work.
In an excerpt from his upcoming book An Audience of One: Reclaiming Creativity for Its Own Sake, Srinivas Rao explains why to reach an audience of millions, you must create for an audience of one.
Using examples like David Bowie, Daft Punk, and Maria Popova, he explains what can happen when you separate your work from its results.
RELATED: The biggest misconception creators have about building an audience.
4. SEVEN WAYS TO PRIORITIZE YOUR WORK
“No matter what you spend your time doing, you can never get that time back. And any time spent continuing to work towards the wrong priority is just wasted time.”
If you struggle with time management, chances are the root of your problem is a struggle with priorities — this post can help you improve that.
Rescue Time shares seven ways to prioritize your work including summaries of several different prioritization systems to help you separate the urgent from the important, align with your long-term goals, and separate tasks with seemingly similar priorities.
RELATED: Six decisions that will make you more productive.
5. 25 SECRETS OF ADULTHOOD
“Just because something is important to me doesn’t mean that it’s important to someone else.”
Gretchen Rubin has studied and published multiple books about happiness so it’s worth paying attention when she shares some secrets.
Her 25 secrets of adulthood include to manage what you monitor, recognize working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination, and that what you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while.
RELATED: A pledge of allegiance to yourself.
6. NINE EMAIL PRODUCTIVITY TIPS
“The average adult checks their email 45 times. Yet nobody has claimed to have changed the world by checking email.”
The purpose of email is to increase your productivity, but unfortunately it tends to do the opposite for most people.
In order to change that, Dan Silvestre shares nine email productivity practices including to power up your email with plugins, schedule email time, and learn how to achieve inbox zero in 10 minutes.
RELATED: How to write emails like the military.
7. THE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS USEFULNESS
“Happiness is merely a byproduct of usefulness.”
For all the talk about pursuing happiness, it’s possible you’d be better served to pursue usefulness.
Darius Foroux suggests the purpose of life is usefulness and says the way to become useful is to focus on what you do that makes a difference.
RELATED: The purpose of life, according to a 22-year-old Hunter S. Thompson.
8. TRANSCRIPTS OF GREAT SPEECHES YOU’VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD
“You may see a few famous speeches on this list, but my guess is that most people are not aware of many of them — just as I wasn’t when I first started looking around.”
James Clear has created a great resource that’s likely to keep you busy for a while.
He’s created a page to feature transcripts of great speeches you’ve probably never heard including talks from people like Jeff Bezos, Neil Gaiman, Steve Jobs, and J.K. Rowling.
RELATED: 101 books TED Talk speakers recommend.
9. STRESS PLUS REST EQUALS GROWTH
“I encourage my clients to systematically challenge — to stress — themselves in the direction they want to grow. And then I ask them to follow those challenges with rest and reflection.”
It turns out a system that’s been proven to improve athletic performance can also improve performance in just about any other area of your life.
Outside explains why stress plus rest equals growth and how you can use that equation to grow your career, organization, and relationships.
RELATED: 13 ways to speed up your career growth.
10. HOW TO FINISH WHAT YOU START
“We can’t make a living as a creator until we learn how to finish because we don’t get paid to start things, we get paid to finish them.”
It’s possible there’s no more important skill to develop than the ability to finish things.
In this post I explain how to finish what you start and break down how consistently finishing — even if the final result is a failure — separates those who succeed from those who don’t.
RELATED: Stop wanting to be, start wanting to do.
THE TIME IS NOW!
My 30 Days of Doin’ It program is now available.
If you’ve got something you want to accomplish in 30 days or a new habit you’d like to develop, I’d love to help you do it!
WHERE I FOUND THIS STUFF
I discovered some of this week’s ideas from the newsletters of Creative Mornings, DO Lectures, Kyle Westaway, and Postanly — they’re awesome and worth your time.
Image via Denny Luan.