I came across this mini-essay today morning by David Perell and it covers the message very well but I wanted to add a few thoughts of mine. (Read the mini-essay first to get the context)
On Working Out
The actual muscle gaining process happens outside the gym while you are resting. The damage which your muscles go through while you train in the gym needs to be repaired by the tissues to get stronger the next day.
Before you start questioning that all the professional bodybuilders train 7 days a week and set that as your base for hitting the gym daily, you need to consider the amount of supplement they take.
One can speed up this recovery of muscle tissues by taking supplements which provide them with the right nutrients to make the process faster. Most of the time the process takes time because people don’t have a good diet.
Being consistent is important but not on an absolute daily basis, rather focus should be your workout routine which could vary from 3-4 times a week. In case, you are not doing any weight lifting then perhaps one could go daily as regular light workout would not stimulate the body so much that it needs to rest.
This video could help in understanding the recovery phase.
On Writing
In Jan 2020 that is the first year of my writing, I used to publish one article per week.
It was a great exercise as I had just started writing online and many times it is necessary to force yourself to do a task to inculcate that habit.
I did this for a year and then stopped, as I started to realize that the quality of my articles was going down.
Forcing yourself to write will make you write unnecessary content which you yourself don’t want to read, and the first rule of making any type of content is that it should be what you would like to consume yourself.
Make something which would help you if you were on the other side of the content consuming it. Add your thoughts, experiences, what you have read, etc. and make that content useful for your readers.
Morgan Housel has said that he used to write 3000 words each day and the quality used to be pathetic but that’s where he learnt to write. For him, a better way to learn to write is writing itself.
In one of my previous articles I had talked about How To Start Writing Online, here is what I had recommended:
“After you have decided your purpose for writing, I would suggest starting with spending some money like buying Domain name, etc. as this would act as an external motivation for you to write (This is what I did). Once you inculcate the habit of writing then you can switch to a free platform (if your goal is not to earn money from your blog).”
I had mentioned about bringing in external motivation like spending money which would force you to write so as to avoid the feeling of your money going in vain.
My approach towards writing has now shifted from quantity towards quality in the sense that it should help at least someone out there.
My idea generation also happens in that mindset.
I would be talking with someone or they would ask me a question and I would write down my answer then publish it here, so that it can reach out to more people. This is the best approach so far as it helps you clear out your mind and you don’t have to repeat your answers every time, just send them the link!
Inshort
When you are starting out, force yourself to do that activity and as it reaches the stage of your habit then you relax and focus on quality.