Empty jars can take you far

Yesterday, I was watching a TEDx talk about marketing yourself as a product and the lifelong benefits of adopting this practice. I loved everything that the speaker was sharing. I was fascinated by his theories. Everything made so much sense and I thought: ‘Wow. This is just amazing. And super simple because he’s done all the work. All I have to do now is to follow his tips and voila, I’ll get whatever I want’

Immediately after thinking this, I realized that I’ve had this thought atleast a hundred times till now- when reading books, hearing someone talk about their inspiring journey, finding out about a new piece of technology etc. Countless times, I’ve heard or seen something new and imagined it to be my saviour. Imagined that the simple quick fix will take my entire life and put it on the path that I’ve been waiting for it to be on.

Guess what, it doesn’t. And I’ll tell you why.

It’s not because the theory or technology is bogus. The theory works- you were inspired by a living example of its successful implementation. It doesn’t work because in that moment of inspiration, we also start looking for the exact things that worked for the other person. We look at the theory as a full glass jar of knowledge that we need to consume in order to have the same results.

We fail to account for our humanness and life. For the theory to work for us, we need only the jar itself and not its contents. We need to load up the jar with our personal experiences and expectations.

So if you want to lose weight through intermittent fasting just like I did, you don’t need to follow the exact routine. Just because I eat from 10–6pm doesn’t mean that’s the right plan for you. It might actually be bad for you if you work in a night shift and aren’t even up by 10am to break your fast.

You can’t imitate somebody else’s jar to create success for yourself. You need to make it your own. You need to fill it with candies that work for you.