Make your accomplishments mean more, and make them more valuable by tracking them.
Reflect on your past victories to remind yourself that you are capable of winning. Do not dwell on past accomplishments; this will WRONGLY lead you to believe that you were accomplished then, but not now.
Your historic trials, whether victorious or defeated, give you the wisdom to succeed in your upcoming trials.
Reviewing your past achievements reminds you of how far you traveled, and how many times you failed and succeeded, and that to succeed you must fail on the way.
Logging your achievements is like counting the mile-markers on a road trip to know how much farther you have to go. It doesn’t matter if it is unclear where the destination is. You must keep walking. Getting better at anything is better than going nowhere while still trying to figure out which path calls to you.
The path refines and builds talent and strips away ego.
If you don’t leave marks on the path, or journal about the path, you won’t recall where or how far you have travelled. Without a log, everything is the same desert with no way forward.
The Adventurer walks forward into darkness
Logging creates light you can see from behind. You aren’t lost anymore. You have bearing and direction.
Adventurer’s fear the false fear of hitting a wall; the true fear is forgetting all the walls you have broken through. This is why we must reflect on our accomplishments.
Facing walls is the human experience. The first wall you face is being taken from the safety of the womb. Overcoming obstacles is the way of mankind.
If you love what you do, and you’re dedicated to the path, all obstacles are the same. They melt down with the same solution; problem solving using past experience to promote future growth.
The artist is afraid to publish his next work but he forgets all of the work he’s published in the past, even if “publishing” means hanging something from the fridge for family members.
Work Is Sacred.
Work is on the path and the path is sacred. Each step forward you get a little better. You must look close to become aware of the progress you are making, and which direction you want to go.
Log your achievements. Journal your failures and internalize the lesson from them. Avoid repeating the same mistakes which is walking in circles.
Endurance for failure grants the wanderer resilience. Resilience is a shield against emotional pain.
Everything you do matters and what you did yesterday will carry you forward today. Every day matters for this reason.
How to Log Your Accomplishments
You can log your accomplishments with pen and paper, which can help with learning and memorization. However, understand that paper is fragile in the physical space, of which an internet solution is not, but still has its own set of fragile characteristics.
Track the accomplishments you earn each month (or quarter) regardless of whether the accomplishment is on or off your path.
Public accomplishments are important based on their networked effect. Personal accomplishments are what matter to us, and help us move farther down the path.
Tracking your accomplishments can be as simple as this:
JANUARY 1997 ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- 01/12/1997 – Took the stairs instead of the elevator for the first time in my life. Want to build this into a habit.
- 01/17/1997 – Told my boss no about working over the weekend.
- 01/22/1997 – Was afraid of getting back to the gym, but not today. Had Fun. Will come again.
Become the greatest version of yourself in 66 days.
A tool like Evernote can be used to track your personal accomplishments. However, Evernote has a history of poor product direction, so an open-source notetaking solution like Joplin is better.
Personal accomplishments
Personal accomplishments may not affect anyone else but you. These are the barriers you must overcome yourself. That could be cutting a toxic friend out of your life, or finally standing up to a parent who is bullying you.
Explaining personal accomplishments to others should be a crime. Don’t share your personal accomplishments. Keep them for yourself. There reaction may minimize the importance of your accomplishment because they do not understand it.
You are the one in the arena. You take the glory. Do not share it.
Personal accomplishments are crucial because they never abandon you; they make you.
The Truth of Your Experience
The truth is always better than the lie. A lie is a debt that will be repaid at some point in the future. The terms of this debt are hidden from you; you may have to pay when you cannot afford it.
Understanding the fruits of your successes and the lessons from your failures are easier if you can see them. In the past, it was much easier to see your successes and failures because they had a direct-impact on your life.
If a farmer was lazy during a crop season, he may have went hungry over the winter, and learned that being lazy equates to going hungry. Many of us are blind to the lessons of are outcomes, so we repeat the same lessons and are fed the same outcomes but still do not change or progress because we are blind to those outcomes.
You may not be able to measure improvements of 1%, or even half a percent per day. But if you are able to get 0.5% better every day, you will be more than twice as far in a year than you were before. Recording your achievements allows you to better see the small improvements you make which may make you more committed to the path.
Life gains greater meaning when the consequences of both victories and defeat are realized.
- Logging your achievements reminds you of where you’ve been.
- Logging your achievements tells you where to go.
- Logging your achievements inspires confidence for future problems.
Walk forward, one step at a time on a path towards a destiny you determine.
Your destination may be different than your chosen one, but where you end up is where you belong.