Daily Yamabushi

See it through

Keep calm. Assess the situation. You’re still in the game. Stay the course. Stick the the plan. See it through.

A tip for new endeavours

There’s no reason why when you start learning a second language you shouldn’t start speaking it straight away. In fact, if you think about it long term, when you’re going to be speaking the language if you’ve learned it successfully, that’s exactly what you should be doing.

When you start a new project, any new project, think about what it would be like to have the project up and running. Think about the sales or how you’re going to sustain the project, and get started on that part right from the offset. You’ll gain valuable insight that can help give you an early boost, and can allow a more realistic experience of what the project would be like to run long-term.

Probably more important is that you get over what can be the first barriers to progress, in the case of language learning this is the speaking in front of other speakers of that language part. Once past that, really the sky is your oyster.

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t.

Stay on your toes

The job’s never done. We are never fully satisfied.

But that’s a good thing.

To be satisfied is to be complacent. It’s to rest on your laurels.

Not completing the job keeps you busy. It keeps you going.

The job’s not done. But that’s not a bad thing.

Sets you back on track

A little bit of adversity, a little setback, a few bumps on the road.

But you’re still on the road.

You still have the chance to prove your worth. You still have the opportunity to right the wrongs, and set the record straight.

With a little bit of adversity, you are reminded of what’s at stake. You are reminded of why you are even where you are.

That, in itself is priceless. Priceless things must be cherished. They must be valued above all else. They must be placed on the pedestal and given the utmost respect.

A little bit of adversity never hurt anyone. It set them back on track.

You be the judge.

Project one fails.

The lessons from the project were taken into consideration and applied to project two, which then succeeds.

Was project one a failure?

Rain or shine habits.

Dan Ariely mentioned in one of his Ask Ariely columns that if you want to lose weight, you get a dog.

Having a dog means you have to give it a walk. Rain or shine. This means that no matter what, you (should) get valuable exercise that (should) help you lose weight.

Even if it’s raining outside, and you just can’t get round to it, think about the dog.

The dog doesn’t care if it’s raining, and in fact it probably enjoys it more. The dog doesn’t care if it’s sunny. The dog just wants to get out and stretch their legs.

And so should you.

Get a dog.

Play the game your way

If you don’t play your game, you’re left playing someone else’s. Or worse, no one’s.

Play what’s in front of you, and play it to the best of your ability. But most importantly, make it yours.

Let your breath help you

Breathing is a fundamental aspect of the human condition, but since we do it unconsciously, it can be easy to forget its other uses at times.

Your breath can be your greatest ally if you let it. It can help you through immense physical pain, what do they tell the mother in labour to do? It can help you with emotional pain too, by focusing simply on breathing, and being.

When you’re facing hardship, whether physical or otherwise, stop and think back to your breath. Use it as your ally. You can get through.

(I’ve just finished an intense yoga class, but this is true in other instances too).

Play your way. Control your game.

You’re playing yourself. You’re competing against your mind in a game of high stakes, the highest stakes there could be. Will you play your heart out, with your heart out on your sleeve? Or will you let the opponent get into your head?

Opposition be damned. Play your way.

Doing things your own way

This is how I’m doing things differently. This is how I’m doing different things. This is how I’m making a difference.

This is me. This is how I do it, and this is how things gets done.

About all you could ask for

I did it.

Not well, but I still did it.

Hopefully next time I’ll be better. No, next time I will be better simply because I did it this time around. Next time I can call on my experience, and do a better job. Sure I may not be the best in the world, and I may not be at my best ever, but it will be my best in the moment, and it will be better now that I’ve done it before.

Your best in the moment is about all you could ask for. But your best in the moment is made all the more better when you’ve done it before.

The key to doing better is the doing part. Get the doing part done first and foremost. Better only comes after that.

Somewhere between here and there

That’s one way of putting it. And you’re probably right too. Being in transition. Not here, nor there, but somewhere in between.

Because when are we not in transition? When are we not moving from A to B? There are times when we certainly feel as if we are not moving at all.

But we are.

We are indeed in transition. We are all some way between our current and future selves. However we get to wherever there may be, we need to recognise that our current selves are not the final version. We are still a work in progress.

Does that mean we shouldn’t expect the best of ourselves? Hell no. Always expect the best of yourself. But when past you wasn’t the best you could have been, don’t fret. Past you too was also in transition.

Stop to take in the moment for a second, and move forward. Recognise that you are in transition, and let it lead you forward in that transition.

Giving things their best chance

Are you truly giving it its best chance before chance truly takes over?

Don’t be too quick to say ‘she’ll be right’. You have to truly give things their best chance before you let chance take over. That’s the only way to guarantee you did what you could.

Otherwise, you better hope she will be right (she probably will).

Is how we train

‘We train how we play.’

• Deon Fourie, Springbok.
  

Only worry about that which you can control. You can control your attitude. You can control how much effort you put into your training.

You worry about how you play on the day, so you should worry about how you prepare as well. Take things seriously to give you the best chance. Then you won’t have anything to worry about.

Are you getting it?

To get the best of someone is to have their number. It’s to get into their head and control them, or to get them to do something they’d rather not.

What if that someone was you? What if you were the person getting the best of yourself?

Initiative and Daring

You want to be spectacular. Great is great and all, but spectacular is something special.

You want to do the spectacular. But you can’t do that just by following the rule book. The spectacular takes initiative and daring, two qualities not everyone is prepared to utilise, but everyone has.

You have the capacity to be and do the spectacular.

How will you use it?

Put your mind to the task

By making taking a guess the default stance, we train our intuition. By doing, by trying, we train our intuition. No ignoring, no putting it into the too hard basket. Just putting our mind to the task.

A strong intuition leads to sharp decision making. This in turn leads to greater intuition.

You’ll get there.

You just gotta keep at it. One foot after another after another after another.

Trust in the process. Trust in your ability. Trust in your self.

As long as you keep at it, soon enough, you’ll get there. Wherever there may be.

Get your next foot ready too

The first step is always doing. This is the only way to get the feedback you need to push forward. So the trick is, once you do get started, once one foot is in motion, the second foot should also be in motion. Then when you step, your other foot naturally follows, and it keeps you pushing forward.

But it always starts with doing.

People just being people

Leave them to their own devices. Let them do as they please. That way there’s no need for excessive worry, and people can just get on with doing what they need to be doing.

We need more places like this. Where people are just required to be people. No unnecessary restrictions or rules, people just being people.

A matter of perspective

When you wish for things to be the way they were, or for things to be not the way they are, what you get in reality could objectively be called better. Equally, it could also just be called different.

Whichever you choose is simply a matter of perspective.

(Now there are tons of things that objectively could make things better for us humans. No poverty, no war, no disasters. Etc. I’m not talking about that here.)

Leave it at that

So why worry about it. To not know something falls under the category of ‘things you can’t control’. Sure it would have been nice to know it, but you didn’t, and therefore the repercussions of you not knowing are not something you should worry about.

There’s really not much else to it than that.

Be generous and hard on yourself at the same time.

Doing something daily is how you give yourself a backbone. It’s the foundation of a whole lot of other powerful habits, and therefore should be highly encouraged.

Get your daily routine down to a t and there’s nothing you can’t do. Or so they’d have you believe.

A lot of things can take you off the rails. The daily routine is but one way you can all but guarantee you stay on track. But daily routines aren’t perfect either. We need variation otherwise we overwork certain muscles, or simply get bored.

We need to make variation a part of our daily routine. We need systems in place that mean we can and should change things up every once in a while.

Plus, we need to be generous to ourselves. We need to allow ourselves to do the bare minimum if necessary.

We just need to make sure we get it done.

Aiming to never be satisfied?

Perfection is boring. It’s a good aim to have, but predictability isn’t always as fun as you’d like. Shoot for perfection, you always need something to work towards. But be satisfied with what you’ve already achieved at the same time. If anything, it keeps things interesting.

Have faith in yourself to see a better future

Self belief and acceptance of ourselves is the first step in getting past where we’ve never been before, and in overcoming and achieving the as yet unknown.

To get there we need discipline,. Self-conviction without discipline is a recipe for disaster. We need to be able to follow through with the faith we put into the unknown, so that we can achieve what we set out to do. But we’ll only ever get there by staying true to the course, and this involves self discipline.

Strong convictions come from having a strong soul. A strong soul comes through experiences that test our character multiple times in multiple ways. But to get to be able to do these experiences in the first place, well, that takes strong convictions.

You’re going to have to anyway

Your experience of the world is yours. It’s no one else’s. Your realisations are yours. No one else’s. Take what others say on board. Just be weary of taking it to heart.

Make your own conclusions. Let others guide you, but give yourself the permission to have the final say. You’re the one who has to live with the outcome either way.