I worked with a TV producer once who prided herself on being disciplined. “I get up every morning at 5am to run,” she told me over dinner. “I hate it, but it needs to be done.”

And she went on to explain that for Lent, she gave up swearing and hadn’t cussed in four years, (“Even though it would feel sooo good to just say the F word sometimes!”).

The following Lent, she swore off soda pop and hadn’t had so much as a sip for three years, (“Even though a Coke with these tacos would be grrreat!”)

“Well that sounds like a whole lotta f*cking fun.” I said to her. And I asked the waiter to bring me a Coke.

Here’s the thing:

As hard-wired achievement-bots, many of us subscribe to systems of success that actually become blockages to our instincts.

Structures, programs, regimes, all disciplines and theories should be used to support your freedom and independent thinking, but many serve to stifle our truth.

Curiosity and sensation are exponentially more effective than obeying the rules.
@DanielleLaPorte (Click to Tweet!)

Danielle LaPorte is the creator of The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul — the book that turned into a day planner system, a top iTunes app, and an international workshop program. A Desire Map workshop happens every weekend somewhere in the world. Author of The Fire Starter Sessions and the wildly popular #Truthbomb series, Danielle is also the co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan and co-host of the Beautiful Writer’s Group podcast.

Entrepreneur Magazine calls her “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.” A speaker, poet, former business strategist and Washington-DC think tank exec, she writes weekly at DanielleLaPorte.com, where over four million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice — a site that’s been deemed “the best place online for kick-ass spirituality,” and was named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes. The Huffington Post named her Twitter feed as one of the “12 of Wisest Twitter Accounts Worth Following.” You can find her @daniellelaporte just about everywhere.