Matterfulness: Volume 1

Anthony Newman
Nov 2 · 2 min read

Rock Bottom is a very real place. And a very scary place. Sometimes, when you think you’re inside the city limits of Rock Bottom-ville (population 1), a sinkhole opens up, causing you to fall further than you imagined was possible.

Rock Bottom is a bitch.

“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” — David Allen

In simple terms, our lives are really a binary system. We’re either doing a thing, or we’re not doing that thing. So in the case of ideas, I love this quote from David Allen for many reasons.

If we take the second half of the statement seriously, the process of having ideas — of coming up with new thoughts and new perspectives — takes on a Hot Potato-like urgency. Suddenly we realize that if our minds are not designed for holding ideas, all the value proposition of having an idea becomes focused on throughput. On results.

It matters very little how many ideas we have if we never act on any of them. If we never test them out and we never risk failure, we’ll never experience great success.

So, that’s a long way around for me to say this: now that I feel like I’ve hit Rock Bottom in a few different areas of my life, I have two choices.

I can sit here and use my failures, mistakes, and poor choices as shovels, digging into the dirt to see if there’s a lower Rock Bottom under this one.

Or I can take David Allen’s quote seriously and recognize that my mind is not designed for holding ideas, and focus my efforts on throughput. On production. On results.

On action. Failure becomes less of a looming presence if you maintain a focus on throughput. Get as many reps in as possible in something, and you’re sure to gain mastery as all the negativity and failures produced by lack of skill begin to fall away.

At least that’s my hope.

Next time, I’ll share my thoughts on the kaizen productivity method and its usefulness in terms of anxiety, depression, and climbing back from Rock Bottom.

Peace.

Anthony Newman

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Rediscover the Matterful You.

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