Stillness Is The Key by Ryan Holiday

Mind
Become Present - You have plenty on your plate right now. Focus on that, no
matter how small or insignificant it is. Do the very best you can right now Limit
Your Inputs - It is in this stillness that we can be present and finally see truth. It
is in this stillness that we can hear the voice inside us.
Empty The Mind - Whatever you face, whatever you’re doing will require, first
and foremost, that you don’t defeat yourself. That you don’t make it harder by
overthinking, by needless doubts, or by second guessing.
Slow Down, Think Deeply
Think about what’s important to you.
Think about what’s actually going on.
Think about what might be hidden from view.”
Start Journaling - It’s a few minutes of reflection that both demands and creates
stillness. It’s a break from the world. A framework for the day ahead. A coping
mechanism for troubles of the hours just past. A revving up of your creative
juices, for relaxing and clearing.
Cultivate Silence - Each of us needs to cultivate those moments in our lives.

Where we limit our inputs and turn down “the volume so that we can access a
deeper awareness of what’s going on around us. In shutting up—even if only for
a short period—we can finally hear what the world has been trying to tell us. Or
what we’ve been trying to tell ourselves.
Seek Wisdom - Put yourself in tough situations. Accept challenges. Familiarize

yourself with the unfamiliar. That’s how you widen your perspective and your
understanding.
Find Confidence, Avoid Ego - Confidence is the freedom to set your own
standards and unshackle yourself from the need to prove yourself. A confident
person doesn’t fear disagreement and doesn’t see change—swapping an incorrect
opinion for a correct one—as an admission of inferiority.
Let Go - What we need in life, in the arts, in sports, is to loosen up, to become
flexible, to get to a place where there is nothing in our way—including our own
obsession with certain outcomes.
Choose Virtue - Each of us must cultivate a moral code, a higher standard that we
love almost more than life itself. Each of us must sit down and ask: What’s
important to me? What would I rather die for than betray? How am I going to
live and why?
Heal The Inner Child - Take the time to think about the pain you carry from your
early experiences. Think about the “age” of the emotional reactions you have
when you are hurt or betrayed or unexpectedly challenged in some way. That’s
your inner child. They need a hug from you. They need you to say, “Hey, buddy.
It’s okay. I know you’re hurt, but I am going to take care of you.
Beware Desire - Only those of us who take the time to explore, to question, to
extrapolate the consequences of our desires have an opportunity to overcome
them and to stop regrets before they start.
Enough - It’s perfectly possible to do and make good work from a good place.
You can be healthy and still and successful.
Spirit
Bathe In Beauty - See the world as the temple that it is. Let every experience be
churchlike. Marvel at the fact that any of this exists—that you exist.
Accept A Higher Power - It is probably not a coincidence that when one looks
back at history and marvels at the incredible adversity and unimaginable
difficulty that people made it through, you tend to find that they all had one thing
in common: Some kind of belief in a higher deity. An anchor in their lives called
faith.
Enter Relationships - Stillness is best not sought alone. And, like success, it is
best when shared. We all need someone who understands us better than we
understand ourselves, if only to keep us honest.
Conquer Your Anger - When we feel our temper rising up, we need to look for
insertion points (the space between stimulus and response). Points where we can
get up and walk away. When we can say, “I am getting upset by this and I would
like not to lose my cool about it.”
All Is One - We are all strands in a long rope that stretches back countless
generations and ties together every person in every country on every continent.
We are all thinking and feeling the same things, we are all made of and motivated
by the same things. We are all stardust.
Say No - Always think about what you’re really being asked to give. Because the
answer is often a piece of your life, usually in exchange for something you don’t
even want. Remember, that’s what time is. It’s your life, it’s your flesh and
blood, that you can never get backs.
Take A Walk - Stress and difficulty can knock us down. Sitting at our computers,
we are overwhelmed with information, with emails, with one thing after another.
Build A Routine - When we not only automate and routinize the trivial parts of
life, but also make automatic good and virtuous decisions, we free up resources
to do important and meaningful exploration. We buy room for peace and
stillness, and thus make good work and good thoughts accessible and inevitable.
Get Rid Of Your Stuff - You were born free—free of stuff, free of burden. But
since the first time they measured your tiny body for clothes, people have been
foisting stuff upon you. And you’ve been adding links to the pile of chains
yourself ever since.
Seek Solitude - People don’t have enough silence in their lives because they
don’t have enough solitude. And they don’t get enough solitude because they
don’t seek out or cultivate silence.
Be A Human Being - It’s human being, not human doing, for a reason.
Moderation. Being present. Knowing your limits. This is the key. The body that
each of us has was a gift. Don’t work it to death. Don’t burn it out. Protect the
gift.

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Mind

Cultivate Silence - Each of us needs to cultivate those moments in our lives.

Seek Wisdom - Put yourself in tough situations. Accept challenges. Familiarize

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