Archives: achievement

Do Less

LESS

Actors, writers and filmmakers have been saying for years that less is more. Sometimes it doesn’t make any sense – less cake is just less cake, if you ask me – but every now and again it strikes a chord.

How to we go about creating what we want in life when we’re constantly barraged by messages, projects, ideas and things that we really, really want to do/see and people we want to meet/read/talk to?

The trick isn’t in stretching your day to the sleepless limit of its 24 hours. It’s learning to do less to get more.
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How specific should we make our goals?

I’ve been mulling over a lot of the things I want to do in 2012 since I posted my list of goals. The question is, was the list enough?

That list represents the essence of everything I want to do over the next 12 months, the things I want to focus my life on and what I think will bring me the most happiness and fulfilment throughout the year. But is striving for “more” of something too generic an aim? Should I have more specific, more focussed goals?

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External motivation

Inspiration has rarely been a problem for me. From the remarkable friends I have in my life to the memory of my donor, there are myriad ways for me to keep focused on my ambitions.

Motivation, on the other hand, has often eluded me. Despite the best of intentions, there always seems to be something that holds me back – just that little tiny bit – from pushing on.

Leo Babuta, a guy who regularly blogs on motivation and goal-seeking over at his Zen Habits blog, suggests the smallest step to get you started. While that works for me on many levels (and many projects), I frequently need external motivation to keep me on track.

What is external motivation? For me, it’s simple: fear of public failure.

Although I’ve blogged before about failing and how it’s OK ((and how we often learn more from our failures than our successes)), for something like my marathon challenge I knew that only if I committed to it publicly would I hold myself accountable, simply because people would be watching.

Today I went for my second run; tiny steps, maybe, but a big leap forward for me, as getting past that first run/next run hurdle has always proved a sticking point. If I can nail it next week, I should have formed the habit and can only go from strength to strength from there.

This, then, is a blog readers call-to-action. It’s you that will keep me on track, on target and motivated to succeed. I need all the support you can muster, and probably a good deal more as the time gets closer.

Will you join me for the ride? And what do you need help with motivation for? Reciprocal motivation and support is all set to come your way!

On The Absence of Fear

You’ll remember that my Lent resolution this year to give up fear, inspired by my Twitter-buddy Jeanne who consistently inspires people with her utter lack of fear and her stubborn unwillingness to give in to it at any point.

Giving up on fear is at once much, much harder than you may first think and much, much easier, too.

#571 No fear!

–The Easy–

It’s easy to ‘say’ you’re giving up fear. It’s definitely a plus to be able to get the words out and feel emboldened by the commitment you’ve just made.

It’s easy to stop yourself fearing the everyday kind of things that used to bug you – it’s a conscious choice whether you’re going to allow yourself to worry about how you pay the bills or if your energy is better focused on how to generate the income that’s going to cover them. A fact that’s especially true for freelancers like me without a steady paycheque ((or paycheck for our American cousins)).

It’s easy to take advantage of the initial freedom that giving up fear brings you. It’s easy to float yourself away from the day-to-day issues and focus on your fear-free living–for the first week or so.

–The Hard–

It’s hard to genuinely beat your brain into submission when it tries to stir the old fear about those everyday items you shrugged off in the euphoria of your first few days or weeks. The rumbling in your subconscious feels like it’s never going to go away.

It’s hard to tackle the “new-found” fears that crop up without your being able to plan for them. You land a new job and you’re suddenly worried about being “the new guy”. How will you fit in, will you get on with your co-workers, will you be good at your job? All these things that life throws at us are wont to prompt a significant rise in our fear levels that isn’t easy to ignore.

It’s hard knowing that this new way of life is forever. There’s really no point in giving up fear for a few weeks or a month ((or 40 days)) – it’s a lifetime commitment. And that is scary.

–But, But, But–

When you’re successful, when you manage to rise above your fear, to master it, control it and stop it from being the boss of you, it becomes very, very difficult to revert back to your old ways. The idea of being scared becomes almost laughable when you think of your old fear of making that phone call, or attending that networking event on your tod or of introducing yourself to the hottie across the room who’s been making eyes at you all night.

When you truly commit to stepping up to the plate and facing Fear’s most crippling fastball, you can do so in the knowledge that you’ll swing for it, you’ll hit it and you’ll be running for home before you can say “I’m scared of getting my kit dirty”.

Striving for ‘Better’ not ‘Bigger’

quality over quantity; better not biggerThis weekend, I caught up on the BBC’s awesome BTS doc on COME FLY WITH ME, the new series from LITTLE BRITAIN creators Matt Lucas and David Walliams.

One thought from an interview with Matt Lucas really struck me. Inevitably, there was a question about how you follow up a series as successful as LB was ((and love it or hate it, you can’t deny its success)). Lucas commented, on topping LB:

Can we do something as big as that? No. Can we do something better than that? Certainly.

And there’s the rub: whatever we’re setting out to create, the aim should never be about creating something bigger, simply creating something better.

Striving for size and reach will bring pressures and compromises; striving for quality will not only better ensure excellence, but also come with its own–much wider–rewards and may end up being both bigger and better.