Let Your Dragons Train You

I help people build systems. They use these systems to create periods of focus. They use these periods of focus to accomplish big projects.

It sounds simple enough, until we see the enemies in the way. Standing between us and the goal are three fire-breathing dragons.

The first is the dragon of distraction: all the dings and dongs and emails and texts that can feel like actual flames on the human brain.

The second dragon is the dragon of difficulty. These projects aren’t just big. They’re also hard, although not hard in the way we thought of hard for centuries. We don’t have to move bricks or stones or piles of firewood. Instead, we have to move information, which is a hard job because it’s abstract. And even the best dragonslayers have trouble with abstraction.

The third dragon is the dragon of self-doubt, which might be the scariest dragon of all. We’re not sure we can do the thing because we’ve never done the thing before, whether it’s a blog post, a pitch deck, or a podcast episode. There are so many ways it could go. An infinite number, in fact. No wonder this dragon is so scary.

But there’s hope for the fight with these dragons. If I can help someone build a system for regular focus -- one they can count on no matter where they are or how they’re feeling or if they didn’t get any mutton or mead last night -— then they can slash their way through the dragons like a professional swordfighter: artfully and swiftly.

The problem -- the dragon I have to slay -- is that people think they’ll only have to slay these dragons once. They’re tempted to throw all their swordfighting energy at the three dragons they can see, unaware that the real challenge with these dragons isn’t that they’re so fierce. It’s that there are so many of them. There will always be another post, another pitch, another podcast. This can seem exhausting. Until we realize that these dragons—the ones that terrify us each morning—aren’t actually our enemies. They’re our friends: trainers, coaches, and allies for the fight we’ll face again tomorrow.

The supply of dragons is endless. But also: the supply of dragons is endless.

There’s always another chance to practice—-another chance to let your dragons train you.