Hello hello my friend,
First things first, I am exactly 24 hours late for this week’s edition. I am sorry.
For what you are going to read today, I wrote the material in my notebook on Tuesday afternoon. It came as an afterthought of something I was deeply engrossed in while working, so much so that I felt relaxed only when it left my body through me writing down the words.
It was Friday night I realised I was going to be late for shipping it, though, because I had not yet typed it out and then edited it twice or thrice.
I could very well spend 15 minutes yesterday morning and write a random Raw and Real on one of the ideas, but today’s edition is super important. I did not want to swap this for anything.
I hope it is worth your time and worth my delay :)
Raw and Real Conversation
Everyone must have a project to work on
Something that you are obsessed about building
Whether you are in a job, or are an entrepreneur, everyone must have a project to work on.
Your project could be anything that Something that you are obsessed about building. It could be something as big as making a movie, or something as little as knitting a matching handkerchief with your bag.
It cannot be the thing you do to put food on your table (whether you love it or hate it), because the goal of the project is to make you stay dedicated to it like a free spirit.
At some point it holds the potential to become commercial, but the best projects do not start with that intention. They start with the internal need to build this project, no matter what.
Do not do it like your life depends on it. You must be independent of it in order to create the best outcome.
All the bad habits, self-doubts and negativities fail in the face of a project that makes you come alive.
But your bad habits and self-doubts are suppressed at the start of the project. If you abandon it, these will come back with greater force than before.
You cannot have a project to work on all year long. It comes to you when you are ready and willing to take it on.
A project, by its very nature, will not stay in your life forever. Once you have completed this project, you will mostly feel a dire need to take a break from “projects”, and once the universe has ensured you have taken the right amount of breaks, it will bring another project to you.
There needs to be adequate periods of forced boredom in order for a new project to be brought to your subconscious again, ready to turn into conscious.
A project puts you in a flow state. You are neither working too hard that it is difficult beyond your capacity, nor are you working on something too easy that you are frustrated with no challenge sitting right across you.
No one will ever understand your project like you do, because it is so so personal. Which is why I believe we must announce our projects to the world only when we are ready to ship them. Anything before, and somehow the evil eye has entered the evidence, even if no one is rooting for you to fail.
You cannot document your way to the project on social media. Some pains need be personal and not public in order to truly produce pure outcomes.
You are doing the project for the joy of doing it, not for the applause and performance on social media.
No one can guide you or mentor you into your project. But you are always called to it, even if the logic says otherwise.
The project comes to you as an idea, when you are experiencing a relaxed, a calmed down state of nervous system, over extended periods of time. Consistent stress is the biggest enemy of a project.
The other biggest enemy of the project is yourself. Your OTT subscription, too much screen time, keeping up with the Insta stories of your favourite influencers, and too much screen time do nothing but rot your mind and brain. And creation cannot stem from rotten things.
The other big enemy of a project is sunk cost. For anything that is draining you and is not your project, we often say, “I have been doing this for so long. It is draining me pro max ultra, but let me just continue doing this, because I have invested so much into it.” Your project does not care what your past has been. It only cares about what you do today.
The most fulfilled people (in personal as well as professional lives) have built their life around a series of projects they want to do.
The right project will nonetheless drain you. But you will come alive through it like never before.
When ready to be shipped, the project goes on to make an impact for the right audience. But only if at the inception stage, its intention is for nurturing the soul of the creator.
That said, projects must be shipped. Projects make you fearless.
You are NOT your project. You are doing your project.
But who you become as a result of that project is lighter, happier, more confident, and more loving; while not caring what others think of you.
Projects come with practising things you love doing. I as a writer can never be obsessed with music as a project because I have never played a musical instrument. Music may become my hobby to de-stress, but the fact that I have never been driven towards it like I have been towards writing, my core project would often revolve at the intersection of what I love + what I am great at.
When you commit to your project with this seriousness of a child at play, others relate to your project in ways you had not thought.
In extreme moments of being in the work-in-progress stage of your project, you are dancing and jumping. The exhilaration is inexorable.
The project tests you mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and in all ways you had not thought at the start of the project. Which is what the project was in the first place: to make you someone who deserves to come alive and become a better version of themselves through the project.
Lastly, everyone’s life offers them ample opportunities to create their own projects and go build them. You can choose to ignore all these signals, and this (and nothing else) is the recipe of a miserable life. Even when (despite when) you have all the treasures of life disguised as pleasures.
PS: I believe this is SO important, that I decided to put it up on a PDF for you. Prices double next week. Go get yours for this ridiculous pricing.
2 Raw One-Liners:
Everyone will walk over a kind person. But a kind person is the happiest, because they don’t give that back.
The kindest person is the one who draws boundaries. Otherwise you are merely a fool with a flower’s clothing.
3 (for) Real things I am grateful for:
To have sitaphal. Great for energy.
To have curd at home. Great for everything in life :)
To be able to sleep well at night. Ain’t there anything better than this.
Chalo chalo, I hope you spend your life building projects and not building a fragile ego.
Thank you for reading, as always.
Nishtha Gehija
rawreal.in || nishtha.blog