{"id":14139,"date":"2021-03-05T03:13:49","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T19:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?p=14139"},"modified":"2025-07-29T02:09:28","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T18:09:28","slug":"do100things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/do100things\/","title":{"rendered":"do 100 things"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Do 100 Thing” is a phrase I came up with when riffing around the idea of being prolific, making lots of stuff. It’s obviously not an original idea \u2013 Nietzsche suggested it, \/r\/thexeffect could be thought of as “do 49 thing”<\/em>. I was also influenced by the parable of the pottery class<\/a>. But for some do100things seems to have caught on with people, so here we are. I have a twitter thread of examples<\/a> of people being prolific here.<\/em> (2025jul29: see also Tasshin’s notes on ‘do 100 thing’<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
You only close the gap between what you make and the image of perfection in your mind with a sea of imperfect work.\u201d \u2013 \n@seanwes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How different people interpret Do 100 Thing:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve talked to hundreds of people about \u201cdo 100 thing\u201d – some people get it right away, lots of people warm up to it in time, but most interestingly I\u2019ve started to notice a common feature among those who \u201cdon\u2019t get it\u201d, and it is that they have Expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The magic of \u201cdo 100 things\u201d is that there\u2019s nothing else in that sentence. But people with Expectations add their own words that aren\u2019t there. They read it as \u201cDo 100 good things well\u201d, or \u201cfinish 100 things or you\u2019re an incompetent failure\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if I had to design the sentence specifically to counter Expectations, I\u2019d maybe have to add things like…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do 100 Crappy Things For No Reason, With No Agenda To Live Up To, At Whatever Pace Feels Comfortable, However You Like.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s an old video of a bear pacing in a circle<\/a>. In a sense this bear remains trapped by her Expectations, her learned helplessness, her assumptions about her limits, about what she can and cannot do. and so are the rest of us pacing in circles in our heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People tell me things like \u201cWhen my progress fails to meet my expectations I get disheartened and quit\u201d Or \u201cRepeated failure is scary\u201d \u2013 these aren\u2019t final statements, though they are delivered with a tone of finality. They are starting points for investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where do your expectations come from? Why is it disheartening to fail to meet your expectations? Why are you scared of failing? What if you approached failure with joy? A lot of tenderness and sensitivity is required when dealing with people who are psychologically caged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fun of Do 100 Thing – and also the profound thing about it (if you can see it and receive it without grasping too tightly)- is that it allows you to experiment playing in an expectation-free, failure-friendly environment. It\u2019s worth doing this in a domain you don\u2019t care about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I search my heart for resonance with people struggling with this, I realize I have my own version of this too. The areas of my life which are most burdened with Expectations are \u201cironically\u201d the areas in which I perform the worst. I Expect to get strong in days when I lift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lift for a month, I don\u2019t get Strong, I get Disheartened, I Quit. It\u2019s silly because I know in every other domain of my life that a slow and steady consistency over years is how you get good anything. But there\u2019s something about Expectations that are interwoven with Trauma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside: I had a breakthrough recently as a musician, which helped me bust a rut I\u2019d been in for about a decade. I Expected to become a better musician and my Expectation kept me from becoming a better musician. I suddenly started becoming better when I Accepted failure & LISTENED.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God, it\u2019s Empty Your Cup<\/a> all over again. Everything is the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Fear of being Unmusical made me avoid Truly Listening to my mistakes, which were the teachers I needed to listen to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Fear of being Weak made me averse to testing my strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it\u2019s really the same goddamn story every time, lol. I excel in domains where I\u2019m playful and I have no expectations. I allow the world to surprise me and I delight in the surprises. I write my threads one tweet at a time, shot from the hip, no expectations. And joy comes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did not have Expectations about what would happen when I talked to 100 people about Do 100 Thing. I certainly didn\u2019t expect to make breakthroughs on my OWN Expectations in \u201cunrelated\u201d areas. I was trying to help others and instead they helped me. Life is wild<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2731 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

to be updated<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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