In my life, I try to imagine events don’t exist at all. That there will never be some major “thing” that happens which changes anything dramatically in my life.

See, I’ve noticed a lot of people go through life waiting for events. Waiting on external validation to let them know their efforts haven’t been for naught.

And I see this destroy 99% of would be entrepreneurs or creatives. They get started, get worked up and start building, produce something, and then bam.

There is no event they were looking for.

The major media they expected for their project never arises, the customers don’t magically show up, and the idea doesn’t go viral.

Back to square one? Or quit?

But there are no events, see? You don’t just have things happen overnight. You don’t just sit down, and write the great american novel, or build the greatest company.

Instead, you build a process, and you start a practice.

A few weeks ago I decided to teach myself guitar. So I started researching, and found a way to make sure I practiced.

In two week’s worth of daily practice with the help of Rocksmith and a great beginner guitar, I’ve began the path of playing the my first instrument. Now here I am, a few weeks later, starting to play along with my favorite music.

With that daily practice I know mastery is coming. The only thing I have to do is show up for practice consistently. No matter what, put in the time daily, and you will get results.

Life works in the same way. We don’t have these cosmic shifts, except by daily practice, and by things we see way down the road.

There is very high latency in our results as humans.

Some tiny little adjustment we make now, and reinforce daily might not be seen for years. And it’s specifically the type of people willing to commit to trim tabs, daily micro improvements, who end up with monster companies and published books and great health.

A great life doesn’t happen alongside any event. A great life is a series of practices. Practicing being a friend, practicing being a cook, practicing being a coder, practicing being a writer.

In every piece of life, we can only make these daily practices. There are no events which propel us into something radically different.

When people talk about breakthroughs, what they’re really talking about is accumulated results adding up to something more.

And I see this daily, with people sabotaging their long term interests for short term gains. And sacrificing a lot for events. Always looking to buy into an event.

An education, a partner, wealth, health.

In fact, this is the way almost all of the world is hypnotized into doing things they hate. The daydream of the event, of the product which changes everything.

But that event changes nothing. Buying that car or that house, or having that cash in the bank doesn’t change the things that matter most. I think the hypnosis of imaginary events is what keeps 90% of the economy rolling.

How much different is a purchase vs mastery at a chosen field? Which would you rather have, a 5% chance of a Porsche in 5 years, or the ability to play guitar, paint, or write like mad?

We’ve been hypnotized to chase the wrong goals. What matters is what we can create, independent of external circumstances. The way we become creators is through practices. External circumstances never arrive when we want them to.

We practice being a good partner daily, we practice creating wealth daily, and we practice creating health daily. It is the accumulation of our previous results that determines where we stand today.

And in that is something completely radical.

We are all starting over today.

We’re all given the day to do with it what we will. What practices will you implement? What trim tabs will you create for you future self?