How to Make “N Ways to Change Life” Articles Work for You in Reality?
For me applying an advice has never been easy. When I read articles that provide 5 to 20 ways to change my life, it makes me sigh. It is too much. Even 2 is a lot. Can’t there be just one definitive way?
Reading 10 points do inspire me. Sometimes they make me feel relieved. Sometimes the author of an article has a way of tickling my imagination. Then things look logical and obvious. “That’s how it should be. There is no doubt it”, I tell myself.
But as the day catches on, I forget.
Many times, I read articles to gain new perspective.
But when it is about “N ways to change life”, along with a new perspective, I am looking for insights. I am looking for validation. I am looking for help. I am looking for something to apply in life.
“Applying” is where things get tricky.
Here is the thing, if you want to successfully apply some skill, you have to assimilate that skill in. It has to show up in your actions.
You cannot say you are a great musicians, when you can barely play your favorite instrument.
Assimilation of knowledge is very important.
Reading is the first step.
Actually, I think more than reading, it is the hearing that matters. If you observe keenly, you will realize you read to hear.
Having heard, next, you still need to do something more.
You cannot assimilate a skill just by thinking about it. You need to make changes. Real changes. Not in imagination.
For a long time, I kept on imagining about playing my favorite songs on guitar. But that imagination didn’t make any difference in my ability to play those songs.
It didn’t matter if I was imagined deeply playing just one song, or if I imagined playing a list of 10 songs. I couldn’t play in reality.
Sometimes the gap in skills is so much that an advice you are reading is just not meant for you.
You realize this when you start applying. While the advice fitted perfectly well in the mountain of your imagination, in reality it fits nowhere.
When this happens, your first encounter with reality is irritable.
Like a small child, I would feel like crying with my inability to play my favorite songs. I would throw my guitar away promising never to return.
Undoubtedly, you can see, it comes down to practice.
When you start practicing, you hit boundaries of knowledge, skill, understanding & learning. Either you give up in frustration. Or, you hustle to find a way out.
In either case, you yearn for a tiny bit of advice. Just enough to take you to the next level.
The joy of advice is for those who practice.
Even those who attempt to practice.
Only when I started practicing guitar and trying hard to figure out things, that the advices started making sense. I started putting them into action. The value of the articles suddenly changed for me. I started hearing clearly.
The amount of advice you can assimilate is also directly related to the extent of your curiosity.
Not just a usual curiosity of an onlooker. But a curiosity of a mechanic trying to figure out how to fix the things.
Till you practice or apply, you are feeding your imagination; you are gaining perspective; you are manuring your mind.
It so happens sometimes you need to manure you mind enough to plant the seed of action.
But at some point, to make a real difference, you have to step in.
As you pick your instrument to practice, you will find that all that the N advices you had read and heard evaporate in no time.
Assimilation starts to happen when you start building a flow at your end.
The flow is generated by practice or the work you are doing or an urgent life situations.
If you have baby, you figure out stuff. You don’t have any option. There is no practice needed. No curiosity. It is an urgent life situation. You quickly assimilate any knowledge that will help you raise your baby better.
To summarize, it boils down to urgency, practice, your practitioner’s curiosity, the flow at your end and your ability to assimilate. This is how you can make “N things that change life” work for you.
If you want to power up your ability to assimilate & deepen your curiosity then meditate everyday.
Over time you will experience a smoothness in gaining new perspective and applying ideas.
