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Lauryn Hill said it best.

But what comes to mind when I hear that phrase is something I’ve learned from life and my mentors over the past few years: everything is a metaphor for everything else.

Put another way, there is a clarity that comes from slaying dragons that demonstrates what’s required in order to repeat that process in other situations. Subsequent battles become easier, and you learn what’s needed to ensure victory.

You also learn how to better pick your battles (and weapons). [See? Metaphors abound (smile). ]

The next step is figuring out how to go faster, and how to leverage force multipliers to your advantage. To the uninitiated, it will look like magic. To those in the know, it will look like growth and evolution.

That might not actually be true.

Sometimes we conflate our inability to accomplish a monumental task…with our inability to care enough to see it through. Maybe you just need to get fired up.

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Meaning matters.

Find it.

I’m currently on a weight training routine that involves lifting five to six days a week. In addition to the encouragement that comes from knowing that I’ll be ready for my long-awaited mermaid photo shoot by the time winter rolls around, a notable consequence of this routine is fatigue.

One hallmark of effective workout regimens is that they prevent the muscles from adapting to the workouts. This translates to frequent changes in workout duration, intensity, and the very exercises employed.

But being sore sucks.

Yes, it’s a great feeling to know that I’m making progress (I think) but sometimes I want to take a few extra rest days for recovery. This is of course a luxury I don’t have, and this rest would undermine what I’m trying to accomplish.

By the same token with personal development and professional growth, remaining in a holding pattern is tantamount to suicide.

In a great podcast with Dave Asprey, Tom Corley (author of Rich Habits) explains that rich and successful people devote hours of their day to personal improvement—from physical activity to networking to content creation for books, trade journals, and publications.

Another “rich habit” is waking up about three hours before going into the office. What this says to me is that these people aren’t generally getting 8-10 hours of sleep per night.

They’re tired. They get sick. Their kids need attention. Their employees create problems that need to be solved.

But the solution employed isn’t to take a vacation or sleep in, the only option is to keep going.

Do you want the kind of friends who say what you want to hear, or friends who say the things that you need to hear?

Is your career optimized for maximum safety and stability, or do you proactively seek out responsibility and opportunities to create meaningful art?

Do you show up to play your heart out every day, grateful that you’re in the game rather than watching from the sidelines (regardless of the score when the whistle blows)?

And are you internalizing a limiting narrative about the heights you can reach in your lifetime and how likely you are to reach your goals?

I don’t want to know your answers, but you should have them.

It’s impossible to control what happens to your work once it’s shipped. It’s subject to criticism, misinterpretation, and praise alike—this just comes with the territory.

What we can control is what people come to expect from us based on the quality and nature of our art. Setting an expectation of excellence is perhaps our best ally in this regard.

A creaky door hinge on a Kia is going to elicit a different reaction than the same thing on a Rolls-Royce.

I took a break from the gym for a couple weeks, and decided to make my return this evening. It was great.

And by great, I mean pitiful and humbling.

I felt weak and uncoordinated, which reminded me of how it feels to get out of the habit of writing.

“Man, this sucks.”

“Whatever, let me just get it out there.”

There doesn’t appear to be any correlation between my satisfaction with a post and the impact that it has, so I generally ignore the voice in my head criticizing the work.

The next step in the evolution of Resistance-conquering is overcoming the force that drives me from doing the things I set out to do.

Right now a still, small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times before, the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you.

And unless I’m crazy, you’re no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or you will be tomorrow. You think Resistance isn’t real? Resistance will bury you.

—Steven Pressfield

Indeed.

P.S. Listen to this, it’s great.