by Paulo Coelho
Short riffs on work, life, and the patterns that shape both.
People love the dreaming part.
The notebook.
The plan.
The version of life that exists somewhere ahead.
Visualising feels productive because it’s warm.
It’s safe.
Nothing can fail there.
Discipline is colder.
It shows up on the days nothing is inspiring.
When the mood hasn’t arrived.
When the result is still invisible.
Goals live in your head.
Results live in your calendar.
Discipline is the quiet habit of moving between the two.
Not heroic.
Just repeatable.
New Year’s Day shows up carrying expectations.
Promises. Resets. Big intentions.
Some people lean into it.
Others push back and say any day should do.
The truth sits in between.
A new year doesn’t make change happen.
But it does make the choice visible.
You don’t need a vow that lasts twelve months.
You need one honest move today.
Real commitment doesn’t wait for symbolism.
But it doesn’t need to dismiss today either.
You’re moving fast.
Head down. Days blur.
It’s easy to stay inside your own world and miss what actually matters.
Then a casual comment lands.
Unplanned. Unpolished. True.
It cuts through the noise and pulls your attention back where it belongs.
Most real resets don’t announce themselves.
They arrive quietly, from the side.
It’s wild how much smoother life feels when people say what they mean.
No guessing. No reading between lines. Just truth offered calmly.
Silence can look gentle from the outside, but it leaves the mind doing laps.
Clear words land softer. They give shape to what’s next.
They let everyone walk away steady.
Most tension comes from what’s left unsaid.
Three rosellas perched beside me today.
Close enough to hear the tiny crack of their seeds.
Leaves drifted down in slow spirals.
Kookaburras called across the river.
Currawongs and magpies answered like they were all in on something.
I always thought I paid attention to nature.
Turns out I was only skimming the surface.
Something in me softened.
The noise in my head backed off.
The world around me stepped forward.
Maybe presence isn’t about trying harder.
Maybe it’s about finally being still enough to notice.
On a long drive today, old ideas bubbled up.
Problems I’d shelved, questions I’d stopped asking.
Without trying, answers formed. Connections appeared.
It’s funny how the mind works when you stop pushing.
Brute force rarely builds clarity.
Sometimes you just need to give your subconscious room to run.
I saw a sticker on a crossing pole. Just two words: thrive together.
It made me think how rare that is in practice. We chase independence like it’s the goal. But most things that grow do it in clusters. Trees. Ideas. People.
The strongest roots are often the ones intertwined.
You see something small. A car creeping out too far. A friend’s tone slightly off. A gut feeling that flickers, then fades.
You tell yourself it’s nothing. You move on.
Then what you feared happens. And deep down, you knew.
Intuition doesn’t shout. It whispers once and waits.
Where are you holding back when you already know?
Two mornings in a row, my side mirror spider has come out to say hello.
The same one that built a web on the glass months ago, steady through rain and wind.
Spiders are weavers. Connectors. Patient builders of invisible lines that hold more than they seem.
Lately I’ve been dreaming of them too.
Maybe it’s not coincidence. Maybe it’s a reminder.
To keep building quietly, to trust what’s unseen.
We often know when it’s time to move on. A quiet sense in the body. A flicker of boredom. A hunch that the work is finished.
But instead of acting, we reason ourselves out of it. We say it pays the bills. We tell ourselves we might lose everything. We wait for a certainty that never comes.
And so we stay too long. Not because the work still matters, but because insecurity whispers that leaving is dangerous.
Leaving early carries risks. But so does waiting. Because fear doesn’t fade with time, it just trades places with regret.
Fear doesn’t vanish the moment we decide. But acting in spite of it is the only way to avoid looking back and wishing we’d listened to our intuition.
