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mantra. “I will not do my best.” Why is it good to do your “best”? Who says? Can you see how substance-free and arbitrary it is, as a rule to live by? I straddle two cultures that make a religion out of Earn-Your-Worth, Do-Your-Best-ism: Anglo-Protestant Culture, and hyper-competitive, achieve-or-die Korean culture. When I tell my clients, “Do not do your best!” (and you better believe I do, often), a lot of them
being released. Those are tears of self-forgiveness. Then they laugh, and find new hope that they can go after their dreams. Half-ass it, for God’s sake. There is nothing you can’t do when you’re feeling light and agile, totally un-invested in best-ness, ready
guarantee of success as you’ll ever get in this life. Nearly everyone knows that much. But what people don’t say is that the only way to sustain that
not to grit your teeth and push, push, push… … but to have fun everyday. And the only way that can happen is: 1) For the love of gods, don’t do your best. 2) Make this magic mantra yours: “I am willing to do bad or mediocre work. I look forward to doing bad or mediocre work!” 3) Do it your way, or the highway. Insist on your own needs, rhythm, quirks, pet peeves, and standards. Love your “personality flaws,” kiss them and cuddle them, and work around them, rather than fighting to overcome them (because honestly, good luck with that.) Being a slave to others’ rules, expectations, milestones and systems will burn you out so fast you won’t
It takes a little rebelliousness, not willpower. Fun is better fuel. about cowering in fear
tremendous amount of
I had never written a book. I had no idea how to write or publish a book. So I had to figure out a strategy. I did, and in the next three months, I had written over 12,000 words. Pretty damn good words, too. How’d I do it? I invented a productivity technique. It is called The Garbage Method™. It’s very simple. You commit to writing 500 absolutely garbage words each day. If your inner perfectionist or procrastinator (which are the same thing, really) protest, you tell it: “The average woman speaks 20,000 words a day. Surely, you have 500 garbage words
Quantity over quality. Insist on the set quantity, and be wantonly flippant about the quality. And that’s the practice. More than once, I began writing as follows: “I suck, this is a horrible idea and I have nothing useful to say. Wow, this is really garbage.” (Word count: 19. Boom!) This applies to more than
The idea is to trick your brain into thinking you’re
done this.) ( … just kidding, I have totally done this.) … and you will still be loved and lovable. You will still be a gift to the world, knit with beauty, wonder and genius. That’s gospel truth, baby. We don’t do things to earn our right to be on this earth. Oh, hell no. We do things instead so that we can enjoy this life more. We do things so we can go to bed at night and actually sleep well. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Our hearts love to be honest. It loves the sting of humbleness
AI Summary
Don’t Do Your Best by Simone Grace Seol presents key insights from the Taoism tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
This entry was generated from Readwise highlights. Expand with additional context as appropriate.