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Category: Thinking Clearly

Dots

Published on April 17, 2025

One of the benefits of daily reflection is you can more quickly identify slumps… plateaus… ruts.

The daily space created for inward looking allows you to more easily notice repeated patterns, downward trends, boring and monotonous ways of living.

…And you can more quickly act on this information and shake things up. You can change a routine, take a different approach, book a trip somewhere different, go and see a show or performance, set up a conversation with someone you haven’t chatted with before or in a long time, and so on.

When you’re fully immersed in the ceaseless urgent… it’s hard to notice any kind of trend. Trends are only noticed when you zoom out… when you can widen your vision from being focused only on one dot at a time to finally being able to see two… three… five… ten dots—only then can you see how they relate to one another.

Don’t get lost or lose your way looking only at one dot at a time.

…Make space to see how all the dots relate.

Unobtrusively Being

Published on April 16, 2025

One of the most useful times of my day… is the time I spend sitting at my computer… staring at its blank screen… as I allow my mind to replay and settle from the recent happenings… and patiently wait…

Feeling bored to tears and drawn to distraction…

Until, slowly, slowly…

I feel the noise… quiet… and ideas start to shine… and imagination start to run… and creative connections start to form… and what’s important resurface… and the urge to do inner work and create gifts and share learnings and make meaningful contributions and take proactive initiatives increase in size…

One of the most useful times of my day… is when I’m not doing anything useful per se—in the sense of getting tasks done and checking things off my urgent to-do lists…

…It’s when I’m unobtrusively being and introspectively observing.

Take Stillness Seriously

Published on April 15, 2025

One of the big benefits of stillness is that it allows you to take a break from the urgent and think about the important.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that stillness is a required ingredient for thinking about what’s important.

  • How can you think about and strategically plan your optimal/ideal career path without stillness?
  • How can you think about the most important relationships in your life and how you can continue to nurture and strengthen them without stillness?
  • How can you understand yourself… your creative potential… your unique keys to happiness and fulfillment… without stillness?

…If your life feels like a never ending fire fight against the urgent, then you have to wonder when the important stuff is going to be considered… because if you don’t make time for it soon… the answer is going to be: when it’s too late.

P.s. ICYMI you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week here.

We Aren’t Born Lions Or Zebras

Published on April 6, 2025

Can you teach a zebra to be a lion?

…Probably not anymore than you can teach a lion to be a zebra.

One thing is for sure though, we humans aren’t born lions or zebras.

We’re born as mostly blank slated creatures filled to brim with potential.

And sure, some of us might be born with more zebra tendencies and others with more lion characteristics.

But, we aren’t born lions or zebras.

The thing about potential is that it’s malleable. It can be worked, cultivated, and changed. We get to choose what kind of existence we want to lead.

If we tell ourselves we’re zebras—so shall it be. But, we can also train ourselves to be a lion and slowly our roar will come to be. If we’re not aware of our potential and how malleable it can actually be…

We’ll end up just becoming the creature society tells us to be…

And we might live an existence that feels out of place… not quite right… lackluster or uneventful… mismatched or frustrating… lonely and like our herd is forever missing…

…And what a tragedy that would be.

Learning To Un-Hide Your True Self

Published on April 3, 2025

What’s a moment from your childhood that taught you to hide your true self?

…For me?

I think back to times when I got my feelings hurt and started crying and was made fun of… which taught me to hide moments of embarrassment and pain…

Or times when I would eagerly answer a question in school or get a higher grade on a test or assignment than my friends and get made fun of for being a goodie goodie… which taught me to answer less questions and be less of that.

Or times when I was made fun of for being chubby… which taught me to hide behind certain kinds of clothes and styles and avoid certain situations—like going to the pool or beach—where my “true” self would be on full display.

Part of growing up and maturing is recognizing these learned behaviors for what they are… innocent behaviors adopted to please others… to fit in better… to avoid being made fun of and improve social status…

…And taking actions that’ll help us realign with our true self once again.

To unlearn the behavior of suppressing emotion and learning how to feel all of it once again.

To unlearn the behavior of holding ourselves back or watering ourselves down and learning how to push ourselves to unleash our full potential once again.

To unlearn the behavior of hiding behind clothes and feeling shame about our bodies and learning how to live with less self-consciousness and more joy once again.

…What are moments from your childhood and what behaviors is it time for you to unlearn?

Making Sense… Easier.

Published on March 31, 2025

I made a very deliberate choice to publish these daily writings with no images.

It streamlines the process and challenges me to make my words the art.

But sometimes, you come across an image that’s so good, you start to question whether there is any possible way to explain the idea better with only words…

And the below image (link here if it’s not showing) felt like one of those ideas:

The power of writing things down. By Janis Ozolins / ozo.art
The power of writing things down. By Janis Ozolins / ozo.art

…This is what this daily writing practice is about.

…This is what having some kind of reflective / therapeutic practice is all about.

…This is what inner work is about.

It’s about taking everything that’s floating around nonsensically and non-linearly in our head—out of our head—and laying it all flat on paper, canvas, or screen… and making sense of it all and giving it some kind of linear understanding.

The people who don’t make time for reflective type inner work… experience a harder type of existence. Not because their existence is inherently harder… but because they haven’t done the smart work required to make it easier.

…Yet.

P.s. ICYMI you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week here.

What Is Your Biggest Accomplishment?

Published on March 24, 2025

One of my associates asked me over dinner the other night, “What is your biggest accomplishment?”

To which I replied, “…In my whole life?!”

To which he said, “Yes” and a long, carefully reflective pause… I answered, “Two things…”

Number one, I answered, was getting to run the martial arts school I got my white belt in. It has been the privilege and pleasure of my life so far to do something I love doing so much day in and day out and I can’t imagine my life or doing work without it. My life has been so deeply enriched by the community, challenge, and creative outlet provided by that school and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Number two was the two websites I’ve created and built: MoveMe Quotes and this blog. MoveMe Quotes has reached millions of people online—and I’ve uploaded upwards of 13,300+ quotes and resources, by hand, that people can access for free. And this blog you’re reading now has a few hundred daily readers who are impacted by the words I take careful time to arrange and email each day.

My greatest accomplishment(s) in life weren’t the college degree, or the six foot martial arts trophies, or long distance runs that I completed…

My greatest accomplishment(s) in life were the things I helped build that helped build myself and others. For if it wasn’t for the school I run… or the websites that completely reshaped my mental landscape… none of those other things would’ve happened. And if my top accomplishment(s) only served me… they’d be pretty shallow accomplishments, indeed.

Inner Work Prompt: How about you? What is your life’s biggest accomplishment?