Site icon Matt K. Head

Rilke’s sage advice, your next breakthrough, and the power to change

Matt K Head
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Welcome to The Looking Glass, my weekly newsletter – A journey of personal growth into mindset, self-mastery, meaning in work for creators and solopreneurs.

#40 – 27 Jan 2023

💡 Rilke’s sage advice to new creators 

I recently read the classic, Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke for the first time.

Rilke wrote the letters over 100 years ago, but they are still relevant today. He taps into the essence of the creative process and the journey of personal fulfilment. I can now see why so many people across the globe adore these letters. 

Rilke’s first letter spoke to me the most, and I think you can benefit from it too. 

Here are 10 inspiring quotes from Rilke to make you a better creator.

1. Ignore criticism.

Focus on creating.

Nothing touches a work of art so little as words of criticism: they always result in more or less fortunate misunderstandings.

2. It takes time to find your voice. 

Go easy on yourself and keep exploring. Over time you will build your voice.

Your verses have no style of their own, although they do have silent and hidden beginnings of something personal.

There is something of your own trying to become word and melody.

3. Stop looking outside for validation.

You ask me whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this.

You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work.

Now I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing.

You are looking outside, and that is what you should avoid most right now.

Instead, look inside yourself.

No one can advise or help you – no one.

There is only one thing you should do.

Go into yourself.

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.

This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write?

Stop trying to be grandiose in your writing.

Write about your everyday life, your challenges and your desires.

So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty – describe all of these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember.

It’s your fault you have no inspiration for your creations. 

Pay attention. Reflect. You have material once you start truly looking and notice that everything is content.

If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. 


And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories?

Turn your attention to it.

Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance.”

Create what you feel compelled to create.

And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not.


A work of art is good if it has risen out of necessity.

That is the only way one can judge it.

Do you feel called – must you create?

I can’t give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question of whether you must create.

If so, take it seriously. 

Follow your intrinsic motivation.

Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking for what reward might come from the outside.

Keep growing and listen to your inner feelings.

That provides the best material. 

One more bit of advice: to keep growing, silently an earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn’t disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer.

❔ Your next breakthrough

I was browsing through YouTube during the week and stumbled across a free five-day live challenge Tony Robbins was running. 

At first, I was like, “meh”, but suddenly I was hooked. 

Tony has still got it. 

He is a powerful communicator on the subject of personal transformation.

He lures you with his captivating storytelling, which makes you feel emotion.

I heard of Tony maybe 15 years ago when I read his book, Awaken The Giant Within, which I wasn’t sold on as some of it felt a little dated. But I later heard him on the Tim Ferriss Show podcast. His energy was infectious, and he had some great strategies for personal change.

Back to YouTube – I was shocked at first to see that a lot of the same stuff Tony was saying was basically what he was saying 15 years ago, and the same as his book written 30 years ago!

Hah, he even said the same old joke he has been churning out for years: “We say we should do this or we should do that, and we don’t actually change. We ‘should’ all over ourselves.”

And here I am, getting hung up, thinking I must constantly create all these fancy new ideas.

But in reality, we can get away with a few good ideas. But explore them deeply.

We don’t need to be continuously reinventing the wheel.

Instead, we must pick a few themes that resonate and keep saying them repeatedly, but in different ways.

If Tony can do it for over 30 years, surely we can for some time.

We don’t need to be making it harder on ourselves.

Reminds me of this from Justin Welsh:

Unfortunately, most people don’t have a system for squeezing out different content from one idea. 

Because of that, they talk about several ideas and confuse their readers.

They end up saying 1,000 different things, 1 way.

You want the opposite.

Learn to say 1 thing 1,000 different ways.

This consistency builds familiarity with our audience. 

Even though I felt like I had heard it all before from Tony, it was like a trip down memory lane with an old friend. 

You could be building this relationship with your audience.

On to breakthroughs 

Tony reflected on how we often feel stuck in our lives.

You can probably think of areas in your life where you struggle to make the desired progress.

No matter what you do, you always fall into the same old traps.

You can’t see an easy way out. 

This low point is when you need a breakthrough. 

But what actually is a ‘breakthrough’?

Tony defined a breakthrough as:

It’s a moment in time when everything changes.

When the impossible becomes possible.

And you act on it.

Your whole life can change in a moment.

That’s powerful!

But those moments don’t happen regularly in our lives.

We usually need to hit some kind of rock bottom.

You know the feeling – you get so fed up with your own BS, and you finally say, “that’s it, I’ve had it with this.”

And then you make the change – you quit the job, you leave the relationship, you join the gym, etc.

It all changed in one moment.

By understanding our past breakthroughs, we can gain insight into how to create your next breakthrough.

Here are some guiding questions from Tony which I will leave you to ponder:

Write your breakthrough – one personal and one business.

1. What was your breakthrough? What was the situation you struggled with for a long time and then finally broke through?

2. What was the moment that changed it all? What triggered it? What made it a must?

3. What made it possible for that change to last? New belief, strategy, insight?

💬 A quote to ponder
 – We have the power to make a change

We often don’t realise we are in control. We are in control of our own lives, and we can make different choices if the things in our life are not bringing us joy and happiness. 

If our career that we have devoted all of our lives to isn’t bringing us joy, we can change them. 

If we decide our relationship is not the right relationship, we don’t have to suffer in that relationship. 

We have our own power, and we can make a change, and it takes courage. 

But it’s in everyone’s best interests for us to take care of ourselves. 

To be in a relationship or in a job where you are phoning it in because you think it’s your responsibility to do the job, there’s probably someone who would do that job with passion and bring more to it than you are. 

In your relationship, if you’ve fallen out of love and you are going through the motions, you’re not doing anyone any favours. It’s not real. 

And if you feel depressed and you can’t manage the life you’re in, you can go move to another part of the world. You can live on a beach. 

There are so many options available to us. You know we’re stuck in our small story of who we are and what our lives are, and it’s all a choice. And we have the power to change it. 

Anything, anything in our lives that doesn’t give us joy, we can change. 

And we can find the version that suits us. It’s not only in service to us. It’s ultimately what’s best for everyone. 

You know, when you’re on an airplane, and they say if the plane is going to go down, these masks are going to fall down, put your mask on first before you put on your child’s or anyone else’s, which is counterintuitive, we always think we take care of our children first.

But if you’re not taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else. 

I would say, primarily, take care of yourself first. 

If your want to save the world, save yourself, then save your immediate family, then save your immediate neighbourhood, then save your town. 

Start with small circles and build out. 

Rick Rubin

📣 What happened this week 

C.R.U.S.H. for business success

I heard Brendon Burchard say something thought-provoking during the week. 

He said if he was starting over again from scratch, this is roughly what he would do:

Interesting to hear his faith in the power of being disciplined, showing up consistently and adding value – through going live every single week. 

Are you applying that level of dogged determination to your business?

Finally, Brendon shared his C.R.U.S.H. model for succeeding in your business:

💭 Thanks for reading!

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It would be great to have you on board!

Cheers!

Matt K. Head

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