1. Live with a mindset as if you were a professional
By implication let's use, prioritize our time and not waste it on everything that doesn't support our own narrative about ourselves. Life is too short to live out other people's dreams and with talent comes a damn obligation to get the job done.
2. Run every morning
Because the well-being of the body is the most important starting point, as the spirit lives in the body and the fact that our body moves in the world also largely helps to keep our mind in balance. I have written about it before but this particular point, along with the next one, is a supporting pillar in my everyday life.
3. Write every day
Because the days we don't are days that disappear without due reflection.
4. Be honest about what you do and what you want
Goes without saying and yet is the hardest thing of all. What if no one cares to look at my work? Or even worse: if others think I'm totally off? What if I'm just a joke. . . ?!
I got news for you: We live in 2021 and are no longer on the African savannah. We basically risk nothing more than being greeted with a bit of wonder, which—forgive me—isn't the end of the world.
5. Seek out new people, even different people
It doesn't feel very comfortable—I know—but that's exactly why it's a great exercise. We humans have more in common than we imagine. And honestly: when was the last time you approached strangers and then regretted?
6. Dance!
Life is a party.
7. —and just fucking learn to swim
Sounds familiar? A mundane circumstance that is neither life-threatening nor (directly, at least) affects your daily life, yet becomes defining for you because it illustrates and exhibits the infinite shame you have carried around for far too many years and never completely has supplanted.
In my case, I could have just told the truth—then learning to swim would have been the smallest problem in the world. Instead, I spent a small fortune on surf gear and was just about to kill myself pretending. In the end I even acquired a cable park without ever daring to face the demon.
In this way, that very demon became the ruler of my life; the thing that made me bow my head and hide my true, creative self.
Lesson learned?
Tear off the patch. After all, confronting your shame is not that dangerous.
