Is your journey worth starting? Well, that would be a question in the rubbish category.
Your journey is always worth starting; your journey literally represents your life. In that sense, we have already started it.
The point is, more, that if we actually walk this journey with intention, and not driven by externals we have no control over.
We don’t really quit our lives if we talk about quitting as an issue. We talk about failing to pursue our own intention, and by that, we don’t really create any potential reality, nor are we in any sort of progress.
The result is a life that was not meant for us, far from who we could be, but exactly where our own Ego wants us to be.
Ego is my declared enemy, not only my personal one. This is the reason why I embarked on the journey to understand the human condition, and its patterns deeply, in order to help others as well as myself, to recognize it and eventually get into control of one's own mind.
What is success?
When we talk about a journey, we assume we must be successful. At best, it’s defined in a goal or desired state. But is this success? We aren’t a business, so we cannot be measured by the same standards.
Success is something you need to define for yourself. But it should never, ever depend on your emotions, or the confirmation of others, or worldly goods, which would be a dependency.
If you ask me, you need to look into yourself. Beneath the habits and thoughts, into your deeper, inner Self. By honest introspection and reflection in discipline.
There, you actually can control everything; no one can stop you from becoming successful on this level – no one, no matter your circumstances.
The question is, are you willing to?
Discipline Is Intent Put Into Practice
If you do something every day because you promised it to someone, or because someone is in some way expecting it, it’s not discipline. At best, it’s a form of commitment, but moreover ends up being obedience and dependency.
Your intentional act of repeating the daily practice to become better and learn is what we would call disciplina – the original meaning of what we call today discipline.
Yet, we have culturally defined it as an “I-must” obligation. Not our own intention, but that of society or the people around us.
The most famous example is if we commit ourselves to something in front of other people, like a gym membership as a New Year’s resolution. We keep the “discipline” up, since we obligated ourselves to. It wasn’t really our intention to actually become the changed person; it was a much lower intent driven by our own Ego.
👉 Discipline is your intention in action.
Discipline is not obedience.
Discipline is not external motivation.
Without discipline, potential remains unrealized.
Personal Growth Has No Definition of Done
Did you define goals for yourself?
How many personal goals do you define, in which periods?
Because that is what you would need to do in order to keep improving.
There is no done, there will never be a state like this. You will never be in a specific state and stay there.
Forget about goals, that is an I-must hustle mentality, but without actual substance.
Who do I want to be today?
Who am I today?
What do I want to change tomorrow?
And what is my potential?
These questions and this loop lead you towards your potential, show you the signals you need to follow, and make you aware of the distractions.
Without that pattern recognition, you will stay an unfinished project, a process never really started, and not shaped in your own intention.
👉 You aren’t a project, you're a process.
Projects have finish lines.
Teams need goals and definitions of done.
Human development is a practice.
Character is never finished.
Identity Drives Behavior
Who are you?
You know you should go and practice today.
What does the inner voice tell you?
Are you happy to skip today? Or do you hate skipping it?
Do you feel positive or negative about it?
Well, you can shape this as well.
If you don’t know yet who you are, I rephrase the question:
Who do you want to become?
Reflection Creates Self-Knowledge
Learn the patterns of yourself and the people around you. It’s possible and less complicated than you might think. Study the nature of humans and things; it’s in its core very similar and comparable, in that it’s recognizable.
You can sense other humans trying to trigger you. And you can spot specific habitual behavior in yourself that you might want to intervene in.
Reflection reveals patterns.
Patterns reveal strengths and weaknesses.
Awareness creates intervention points.
Journaling accelerates self-understanding.
How can you actually navigate your own life and actions if you don’t know these patterns well?
You Are Both the Marble and the Sculptor
And the last set for today. If you aren’t willing to hit yourself to change something, you don’t seek transformation. It’s just decoration. Exactly what your Ego wants.
You know the other name that people call Ego?
Resistance to Change – your most personal enemy, you might not know, yet.
Steven Pressfield put it well: Resistance is so smart, it lets you think it was your idea.
You shape yourself every day.
Growth requires discomfort.
Small improvements compound.
Character is built intentionally.
—Adrian
