How Do I Know What I Think

One of the biggest mistakes I made early on in my coaching business was about thinking and content

I used to think that insight was a prerequisite to make content

Writing was kind of like transcription in that somewhere in my head there was a fully formed constellation of ideas that were all perfectly aligned and matched up and coherent and cohesive and explained everything that I thought about what I did.

I almost thought like if I could empty my head completely of everything that I thought, it would all make sense together.

I would often sit around waiting for ideas to arrive, waiting to have something to say before permitting myself to even try and say anything.

The thing is that causality is backwards.

Writing isn’t how you report your thinking, writing is the thinking.

The pages where your half-formed hunches mix them with each other and occasionally produce something that neither of them could have generated on their own.

You don’t have ideas and write them down.

You write things down and discover what you think about them.

This is why ‘I’ll start when I have something good’ is the perfect trap because it sounds like it’s the right thing to do.

It feels like you’re being professional.

The waiting isn’t even procrastination in the traditional sense.

It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of where insight comes from.

The uncomfortable part of having something to say is that the quality of your thinking is downstream from your willingness to write badly.

The people who seem to always have interesting ideas aren’t sitting on a huge reservoir of thoughts - they’ve just processed more raw material.

I’ve written more terrible drafts than you’ve had hot dinners.

Once I started sharing more, what I shared got better - which made it easier for me to connect ideas, and share even more.

Want to know what you think? Share more.