advice

Pleasure Or Gratification? Which One Brings More Joy Into Your Life?

/ Stuart Danker / 50 Comments

Pleasure Food - Obi Onyeador

What do doughnuts, sex, and cocaine have in common? They’re pretty danged pleasurable, that’s what.

How about the post-workout high, acing the exams you’ve been studying hard for, and finishing the first draft of your novel? Awesome too, right?

Most of us would lump all of the above under happiness, and rightfully so, but there is a certain distinction between the two (which we’ll be exploring shortly).

We’ve all heard this before: delayed gratification is better than instant gratification. But why? Why is snorting coke off a stripper’s bum not as good as eating salad and working out?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the question of pleasure versus gratification.

Continue reading →

How Morning Pages Can Improve Your Writing

/ Stuart Danker / 106 Comments

Morning Pages Writing - Lilartsy

So you’ve probably heard of morning pages.

I mean, you can’t mention books like On Writing, Bird By Bird, and The War Of Art without including The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. And in it lies one of the most helpful ways to unlock your creativity, and that’s the morning pages.

In a nutshell, this the practice of filling up three A4 pages (Cameron uses letter-sized, but let’s keep things simple) longhand before starting your day.

I’d started morning pages a few years back and I loved it. But that practice slowly evolved into normal journalling, something I thought would function the same.

Only after picking it up again did I realise how wrong I was. Morning pages wasn’t something I could simply replace with journalling, no matter how long my entries were. The entire mindset going into it was different.

Continue reading →

Improve Your Blog Posts And Grow Your Audience In 7 Simple Steps

/ Stuart Danker / 125 Comments

Fans in a concert with someone making the heart sign. Photo by

We need to talk. You, yes you, the typical blogger. No, not you regular readers. You guys are cool, because I check your blogs every time you comment. No, this is for those who’ve found this blog through the Reader. I’m writing this for you.

You need to stop publishing every brain fart of yours on WordPress. I mean it. I say this because I want you to flourish. And if WordPress flourishes, then we all do too, right?

But back to the subject at hand. You can’t half-ass your posts and expect your readers to care. So let’s go back to exploring the basics.

Continue reading →

Interesting Lessons From Working Out For 60 Days Straight

/ Stuart Danker / 50 Comments

A man doing reverse dips on a bar. Photo by Kate Trysh

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you’ll probably have noticed me spamming your feed with my daily workouts.

As of today, I’ve just passed my 60-day streak, and I did manage to learn some interesting things about myself along the way.

And you know the first thing I’ve realised? It’s that exercising is not about getting washboard abs or increasing your bench record. Instead, it does more for your mental and spiritual growth.

Continue reading →

Why Every Writer Needs To Know About Commonplace Books

/ Stuart Danker / 64 Comments
A man with a cap writing in a notebook

Photo: Brad Neathery

You know how you wake up in the morning and think ‘Whoa, that was a weird dream’, and you’re pretty sure you’ll remember it for later, but before you’re done making coffee, all that remains are the vague leftover feelings?

That’s memory for you. Here’s another example. Try recalling what you had for dinner last week. Doesn’t really ring a bell, am I right? What about last month? Last year?

The reason why I bring this up is exactly because of last week’s dinner. There I was, stuffing my face with chicken and rice, and this thought popped up in my head.

What if I wrote a blog post about remembering every dinner I ever had?

Continue reading →