A word flip to make your Friday better
Oh, hi friends!
We made it!
I’m going to tweak some advice I shared a few weeks ago, about changing “only” to “already.”
I was talking about it in the context of a single day.
I only responded to three emails today.
I already responded to three questions today.
Now that it’s Friday, try it in the context of your week.
I only pitched two stories this week.
I already pitched two stories this week.
As someone who can barely remember (or appreciate!) anything I got done yesterday, much less all the way back on Monday, it’s so helpful to reflect on the sum total of it all.
Take a look through your calendar or Post-Its or your sent messages.
Add 'em up!
“Why them and not me?”
Despite being mildly obsessed with Charles Duhigg’s books The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better, I’d never listened to his podcast called How To! But this conversation with Taffy Brodesser-Akner, in which she gives advice to an aspiring novelist to stop journaling and start writing — and to ask herself the above question about other writers who put their work out in the world — well, it got me good.
Need Some Reasons to Be Cheerful?
For the last few weeks I’ve been helping the team over at Reasons to Be Cheerful, the solutions-focused site founded by David Byrne. (Yes! Solutions! David Byrne!)
Yesterday was launch day for We Are Not Divided, a six-week collaborative editorial project focusing on all the ways we’re actually much more similar than you might think.
I love the opening essay about how difference and division aren’t the same thing and this story about depolarizing college. Most of all, I love the feeling of optimism you get after spending time on the (beautiful!) site reading its thoughtful stories.
Visit often and follow on Instagram for a daily dose of hope.
Do you like these daily emails? Please share with a friend!
You can also support my work by checking out my new motivational journal, Do It For Yourself, designed to help you through your creative and work projects.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara