Harsh Kanwat

Category: Self Mastery

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  • How the mind over rationalize constraints and how it stops growth.

    Our mind naturally slips back into default state and rationalize what we don’t have or what we lack and use it as a justification for not doing things.

    I might not be able to bring my body fat to 10% or even 15% but I can bring it to 18%. This is explaining why sometimes we cling to extremes and fail to operate on the middle path.

    This is crucial because extreme path doesn’t always leads to true long term change. Bycreating an ecosystem for 18% I set myself easily on 15% once I can invest in nutrition.

    And even then it has biases like why do I think nutrition supports that? How much nutrition Ineed? What are the trade offs?

    The whole focus is not limiting oneself particular notions like I need capital to grow business, or I need a lot of money to be fit etc.

    These are biased tendency of the mind and this stops us from really making progress.What can I do with what I have, where I am.

    It is better to build a real $1k per month than fantasizing about $100k per month.

    Constraint doesn’t restricts growth but it actually forces one to make decisions differently than giving justifications of all kinds.

    Why we think that we need big investment to build a great business? How we are so sure of it? Which information has shaped our notion about capital? What if it had blind spots?

    Once we understand this then we will think differently about resource management and how we use the resources for growth.

    There are many trade offs, for eg. one company might have only $100k in capital and another $10M.

    The prime factor is not just capital alone which will impact their growth but how they use it and Why? For eg. One hires less people and works on creating a better ecosystem.

    This doesn’t require capital and another might hire more people, better equipments but it doesn’t change anything fundamental.

    Growth often comes from bearable psychological discomfort which accompany Identity change.

    And it might be true that not having required money has limitations but understanding how much it limits? Where does it limits? What are different ways to compensate it? What are trade offs?

  • The Achievement Trap: Why Success Never Feels Enough.

    We have become so attached to achievement that we turn everything in life into something to attain.

    What we fail to see is that this pursuit never really ends. Beneath it lies a quiet belief: once I achieve this, I can finally rest.

    This belief distorts how we live. Instead of building something sustainable, we chase an imagined future—often at the cost of what actually sustains it.

    This becomes clear in relationships.
    We treat a relationship as something to achieve.

    We invest effort, create attraction, build connection. But once it feels stable, something shifts. The same attention and care that created the relationship begin to fade.

    Effort turns into entitlement.

    We forget that the other person owes us nothing. They chose to be there because of how they felt in our presence. And the moment we lose sight of that, we begin to take them for granted.

    The same pattern appears in business. A business grows because it aligns with certain fundamentals—creating value, understanding customers, delivering consistently.

    But once it starts generating results, we assume those results will sustain themselves.
    We lose sight of the fundamentals that made it work in the first place.

    In both cases, the problem is the same: we treat outcomes as something to secure, rather than something that must be continuously supported.

    This is where humility becomes essential.
    Humility keeps us grounded in reality. It reminds us that nothing is permanently earned—everything is continuously maintained.

    Growth does not come from achieving once, but from staying aligned with what creates it.

    When we see this clearly, our focus shifts. We stop chasing achievement for its own sake and begin to engage with the process itself.

    And in doing so, we don’t just build something— we learn how to sustain it.

  • The Hidden Power of Ordinary Days.

    Most of the time, we spend our days on simple tasks that don’t seem to produce massive output.

    True growth comes from repetition and continuous refinement.

    We often fail to notice that great output is usually the result of doing simple things that build leverage over the long term.

    We seek leverage through capital. But unless it is transformed into daily behavior, no amount of money can truly create meaningful leverage.

    Behavior change always begins small. It cannot be forced, and it takes time to transform identity.

    Growth lies in the small choices we make in moments we often overlook.

    For example, refining the website flow when I feel bored instead of scrolling social media, or taking deep rest when I am tired instead of watching a movie.

    It becomes a kind of game. I don’t feel bored when I write, exercise, or read, and I increasingly prioritize them over other forms of entertainment.

    These choices compound over time. Growth is not separate from emotional mastery. In many ways, it stands on it.

    I believe the real purpose of financial growth is not merely to increase purchasing power, but to transform oneself.

    Money can amplify a person’s ability to grow, but it cannot replace character development. It may provide stability and comfort in relationships, but it cannot replace emotional intelligence, self-awareness, or body intelligence.

    These traits must be cultivated through efforts unrelated to money, yet they are often what enable a person to build lasting wealth.

    We are often disillusioned into thinking that money builds love. But it is not money that builds love. It is emotional intelligence—the ability to recognize unconscious patterns and act from presence.

    I remember that investing in domain purchases did not transform my writing output. It only gave me temporary relief.

  • Passion Is Built, Not Found.

    Everything depends on what we want to get out of our work.

    I don’t think we find passion — I think we create it. How did I find my passion for writing?

    As far as I can remember, I never wanted to become a writer. I was trying to start and build a company, and there were a few problems I was facing that forced me to learn how to write.

    Over time, I realized that writing is one of the fundamental life skills in this complex world and essential for making an impact.

    I learned about the importance of externalizing the mind and how it helps navigate complexity.

    So, in simple terms, I didn’t find my passion for writing on its own. The passion came from its usefulness in my life.

    I love writing not because I want to become a writer, but because of how it helps me in my life.

    Passion for work is built from usefulness.

    If work doesn’t add significant value to our lives, then no matter how much it pays, we will never find real meaning in it.

    Writing helps me because it allows me to make sense of complexity and makes it easier to navigate and build for the long term.

    We only find things useful when they help us solve problems we care about.

    I find writing useful because of the complexity I was dealing with and my overwhelming mind.

    In the end, our real passion always lies in the problem itself. Solving those problems makes something useful, and that usefulness builds passion.

  • Why Grounding Is Essential in Life.

    The greatest barrier to long-term growth is making short-term decisions that do not build leverage but instead entangle the clarity of long-term purpose.

    We make decisions that shape our future commitments. Therefore, making decisions rooted in the long term is essential for sustainable growth.

    One of the reasons we tend to make short-term decisions is our desperation for quick gains, which often arises from emotional dysregulation.

    Therefore, maintaining a regulated and grounded state is essential to grow in the long term.

    Grounding allows a person to derive their sense of worth and meaning from the essence of their work rather than from validation from the crowd.

    If a person is well regulated, they can sustain efforts that build long-term leverage.

    A regulated person becomes a better leader, a better thinker, a better worker, a better lover, and ultimately, a better human being.

    This allows us to build for the long term. As Charlie Munger wisely said:

    “The first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily.”

  • How doing simple chores can build focus, resilience, and joy.

    Every evening I find myself doing simple household chores, and it is something that I don’t dread but look forward to doing.

    Why? Because there is a limited cognitive bandwidth we have per day, and we cannot do things that require higher cognitive effort throughout the day.

    Therefore, it needs grounding, whose purpose is simply to absorb the emotional and cognitive load we go through during the day.

    I have realized from my life that when I do household chores as a way to relax myself, I feel deeply fulfilled and calm afterward. It allows me to enter a flow state, which makes me feel deeper joy in life.

    And even if I don’t do them, I find myself mostly not utilizing my time for the highest leverage either. I end up mindlessly using my phone, which actually hinders me from doing deep work later on.

    Earlier, I used to dread doing chores. I always tried to do them at a hurried pace, as if I were trying to run away from them. But now I no longer dread them. I actually look forward to doing them to ground myself.

    What changed, and how does it allow me to enter a deep flow state?

    Removing friction — both physical and mental. I no longer listen to music while doing chores. I simply follow the same patterns while doing them, which allows me to enjoy them. I also no longer believe in the narratives sold by the media about them.

    I know doing chores is not going to uplift my life dramatically, but it teaches me the fundamentals that are required in doing things that really matter.

    I don’t consider doing chores as something low, but as something essential to ground my nervous system and transition my energy.

    This helps me embody deeper characteristics in life like humility, patience, and peace, and it allows me to enjoy simple things, which is essential for doing deep work. This shapes my character and helps me contribute more effectively to the world.

    Most days we will find ourselves doing the same work, and therefore learning to enjoy simple things is essential in life.

    Real change always begins with small iterations every day for a long time, until we pause and see how far we have come. This teaches the importance of enjoying the process more than the outcome.

    Let’s face it — we live in a world where the rewards for our efforts are mostly delayed. Therefore, it is crucial to enjoy the normal work we do every day. Nothing grand, just simple work.

    If you are a business owner, you might not see profits for months or sometimes years. If you are an artist, it may take a long time before the world sees your craft.

    Therefore, it is crucial to learn to enjoy the boring work, and doing chores effectively teaches that.

    In short, if someone can enjoy doing chores, then they can enjoy the boredom of their work too. And when they can enjoy their work, their output will be enhanced massively.

    This way, the results become a byproduct, and we train ourselves to extract our sense of meaning and fulfillment from the work itself.

    Ultimately, real fulfillment lies in the work itself. Learning to be fulfilled by one’s work allows one to play an infinite game — relentlessly refining the craft without waiting for validation from others.

  • How to build Clarity in Life.

    • Clarity comes in layers.
    • It needs a process, a structure to hold it.
    • And that process is writing.

    We all seek clarity in life. It helps us navigate complexity and make better decisions. Yet, instead of clarity, we often find ourselves confused or overwhelmed.

    Some people appear clear about their life’s direction, while most remain stuck in uncertainty.

    The reason is simple: clarity rarely arrives in one sitting. It unfolds in layers.

    Most people remain confused not because they lack intelligence or effort, but because they lack a process to hold and integrate these layers of understanding.

    Confusion arises when we are unable to hold contradictions. Life is not linear—it is multi-layered.

    When we try to force it into simple answers, we feel lost. True clarity comes from the ability to hold multiple realities at once and understand how they interact.

    Life operates as a system. Every decision produces consequences that ripple across multiple layers.

    Clarity, therefore, is not about knowing one isolated fact—it is about understanding how one action affects the whole.

    Consider company building. It is never about just one thing. It involves product development, marketing, finance, sales, public relations, and culture.

    Each layer affects the others. Neglecting even one slows the entire system. This is why clarity is essential—it allows us to see structure within complexity.

    At its core, clarity is about structure.

    How Writing Creates Clarity.

    Clarity is not something which happens on its own, It is something which we refine through deliberate practice and to do that we need a system.

    To become clear, one needs a process—a system that can capture, hold, and interconnect multiple layers of insight. Writing is the most fundamental tool for doing this.

    Writing allows us to externalize thought. It helps us capture insights and build clarity gradually.

    What we often call “clarity” is not just a single insight. When thousands of such insights are accumulated, organized, and connected, they become clarity.

    Enhancing clarity, therefore, requires a system:

    • to capture ideas effectively,
    • to layer them over time,
    • and to compress them into fundamental principles.

    Clarity is not about knowing everything. It is about having an externalized system you can rely on—especially when the mind feels overwhelmed.

    With such a system, you can trust that things will be handled, even in uncertainty.

  • Why Writing Is a Fundamental Life Skill.

    Life is too complex to be handled by the mind alone. It is unpredictable and deeply interconnected—when we focus excessively on one area of life, other areas quietly deteriorate. Life is not linear; it is an ecosystem.

    To navigate such complexity, we need a tool that allows us to engage with uncertainty without losing sight of the whole. Writing is that tool.

    Writing is not reserved for writers. It is a fundamental life skill—one that helps us manage complexity rather than be overwhelmed by it. Without writing, the mind becomes a closed system, looping endlessly within itself.

    Writing externalizes thinking. It moves thoughts out of the mind and into a visible space where they can be examined, organized, and refined. This act alone reduces chaos.

    By writing, we create structure—not rigid plans, but flexible frameworks that allow growth without overwhelm. Writing makes complexity workable.

    This is especially true for people whose lives are volatile and non-linear—entrepreneurs, writers, artists, investors—where decisions compound and uncertainty is constant. But this is not limited to any profession. Everyone lives inside complexity, whether they acknowledge it or not.

    What I Mean by Writing.

    When I speak of writing, I do not mean the mechanical writing taught in schools—writing for grades, answers, or correctness.

    I mean writing as a way of thinking.

    True writing is a tool for understanding. It sharpens perception, reveals blind spots, and helps us build internal frameworks for better decision-making.

    The quality of our lives improves as the quality of our thinking improves—and writing is how thinking becomes visible.

    Writing does not require sophistication. A pen and paper are enough. Over time, writing reveals patterns in our thoughts that the mind alone cannot detect.

    How Writing Changed My Life.

    Like most people, my early experience with writing was mechanical and uninspiring. It trained me to produce answers, not understanding.

    Everything changed when I discovered writing as a way to express and understand myself. Journaling was my entry point.

    Through it, I gained clarity about my perceptions, emotions, and assumptions. Writing showed me parts of myself I had never noticed before.

    That is when writing stopped being a task and became a practice.

    A practice that made thinking clearer. A practice that reduced inner noise. A practice that allowed me to navigate life with more awareness.

    To learn more about my story behind writing, see About Section.

  • The Pursuit of Happiness: Why We Chase What We Could Practice.

    Why do we chase happiness when all we really need is to practice it?
    Most of us have been subtly conditioned to believe that happiness is the result of achievement.

    The media repeatedly tells us that once we reach a certain level of success—money, recognition, status, or lifestyle—we will finally feel fulfilled.

    So we chase bigger goals, bigger milestones, and bigger outcomes.

    Yet the question remains: does it actually make us happy?

    Over time, I’ve come to realize that happiness does not come from achieving big things. And because of this, I no longer feel the pressure to chase happiness in the future. I believe you don’t need to either.

    Happiness Is Not an Achievement.

    Happiness is not a destination—it is a state of being. It comes from embodiment, not accomplishment. It is an effect of how we live, not what we attain.

    In this sense, happiness is a practice. Something to cultivate, refine, and return to again and again.

    Money certainly plays an important role in the modern world. It is a central node in a system that runs on exchange and value. But money is a tool, not a purpose. It flows naturally from value creation.

    And value creation requires inner stability. An unhappy person cannot truly solve problems for others. This is why happiness must come before external validation, not after it.

    When happiness depends on approval, comparison, or recognition, it becomes fragile. Real happiness has to be internally generated.

    Happiness Comes From Embodiment.

    If happiness is a practice, the real question becomes: how do we practice it?
    Do we need to achieve something extraordinary before we allow ourselves to feel alive?

    I believe happiness is a shift in emotional state—when life feels vivid, present, and grounded. This shift comes far more from embodiment than from success.

    To experience it, we must understand the rhythm of our mind and body. Life becomes easier when we design it from first principles rather than external expectations.

    This way of living aligns closely with the principle of wu wei—the idea of neither forcing nor resisting life, but flowing with it. Wu wei is not passivity; it is alignment.

    The Role of Rhythm

    I have noticed that I feel happiest when I live in harmony with my natural rhythm.
    This means:

    • consistent sleep
    • clean, nourishing food
    • regular movement
    • meaningful work
    • connection with loved ones
    • exposure to sunlight
    • limited screen time
    • simplicity

    These are not luxuries. They are fundamental human needs.

    A life that violates these basics will never offer lasting happiness, no matter how impressive or attractive it appears from the outside.

    Conclusion: Playing the Infinite Game.

    Happiness emerges when we align with the fundamental needs of the human body and mind. Growth that respects this alignment is slower—but far more meaningful and joyful.

    When we live this way, we play an infinite game. We don’t delay happiness until a future achievement. We live as though we have already arrived at what truly matters.

    Handing over our right to be happy to other people’s validation only creates unnecessary suffering.

    Happiness is a fundamental human right. It may be influenced by money, but it is never dependent on it. We deserve to be happy even if we never achieve what society calls “big success.”

    So forget what the media portrays as success. Focus on the fundamentals. They are the real foundation of lasting happiness.

    Life, after all, is a complex system of interconnected nodes—and when the foundation is aligned, the whole system flourishes.

  • The Art of Being Authentic in a World That Wants You to Conform.

    Why individuality is your biggest asset in life, business, and creation.

    To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”— E.E. Cummings

    Why Even Begin?

    Why should I do something when so many others are already doing it?

    That’s a question I used to ask myself. It’s a question that stops many people from starting. But over time, I’ve realized—it’s the wrong question. It’s not what you do that defines you. It’s why you do it.

    We shouldn’t do something just because it looks promising or profitable. We should do it because something within us feels it must be done.

    The point is to follow the spirit. To uplift the art. To do the work not from a place of strategy, but from a place of soul—whether it’s business, writing, music, or anything in the world.

    The Power of Standing Out

    You don’t do something just to fit in. You do it to stand out. If you’re only trying to blend in, there’s no point in doing it at all.

    The real power lies in individuality—in creating your own form, your own way of doing things.

    It starts by learning the rules… so you can eventually break them.

    Change the Field. Not Yourself.

    Yes, every field has its norms. But when you adjust yourself too much to fit the field, you risk losing your true voice. Without that voice, you become part of the crowd—and easily forgotten.

    The single greatest thing you can do in this world is to be truly yourself—and create from that truth.

    A Lesson from the Past

    I used to think writers were boring. All I could picture was someone sitting in silence all day, typing. That image didn’t excite me.

    And thank God I didn’t start with that image in mind—otherwise, I would’ve fooled myself for a lifetime.

    That’s when it hit me: it’s not the label that defines the life—it’s the spirit you bring into it.

    Don’t Let the World Define You

    People often live based on distorted images. Just because the media portrays successful businessmen as cold, overweight, or materialistic doesn’t mean I need to follow that mold to build something meaningful.

    You are not here to imitate—you are here to reimagine.

    Authenticity Needs Sacred Space

    Most of our desires aren’t really ours. They’re shaped by society—by what others say is valuable.

    That’s why authenticity requires a sacred space. A place to unplug from noise and reconnect with yourself. A place to listen deeply to what your soul is actually asking for.

    Essence Over Form

    Authenticity doesn’t mean rebelling without reason. It means understanding the essence—and discarding the unnecessary.

    Look from the outside and everything seems the same: all businesses, all music, all creators. But when you look deeper, what matters is how they approach their work, and why they do it.

    True authenticity happens when form and essence are in harmony.

    In a World of Copies, Be Irreplaceable

    Here’s the truth:

    If you’re not truly valuable, you’re easy to replace.

    AI can replace you. Robots can. Other people can. And the world won’t even notice.

    But if you create from a place of truth—if you refine your unique voice and style—you become irreplaceable.

    Steps to Be Truly Authentic in a Crowded World

    1. Create Inner Space

    Regularly unplug. Disconnect from social media, trends, and external noise. Listen to yourself. Journal. Reflect. Sit with your own thoughts.

    2. Understand Before You Break

    Study your craft deeply. Respect the tradition. Learn the foundations. Then reshape them in your own image.

    3. Refine Your Voice Through Practice

    Keep creating. Don’t wait for clarity—clarity comes through doing. With every action, your voice becomes stronger. Your style emerges.

    Closing Thought

    “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” — Carl Jung

    There are many people who can mimic your moves. But no one—not AI, not another creator—can mimic your spirit.

    So in everything you do—create from there.

    Read this for more information.