Archives: Goals

When we have decided which boulder we’re going to put our shoulder to, the next question is whether or not we’re able to shift it on our own. 

The size of the boulder is directly proportional to the size of our ambition. The bigger our goal, the bigger the rock.

Our ability to move the rock is inversely proportional to the size of the boulder. The bigger the rock, the hard it is to shift.

That means if our ambitions are lofty, we cannot hope to move the boulder without other people putting their shoulders to it alongside us. We can’t be proud, we can’t be shy, we can’t be ashamed to say that we need help to achieve our goals.

If the rock looming over us is the one we really want to push, other people’s shoulders are the most important part of our efforts. 

When we finally overcome our nervousness about getting started we feel great. The first push of the boulder is always the hardest, momentum will help from here.

The reality, though, is that the hill is often not as steep as we thought it was and the momentum may be halted by tree branches, smaller rocks or even people rather than rumbling its way to the bottom untouched.

When that boulder stops no one can ever say for certain whether it’s gone as far as it can. It may be leaning up against an insurmountable obstacle or an unrelenting opposition, or it might be a finger-push away from barrelling down to its destination. But that’s not the point.

The point is that we have the chance to start again. We have a choice.

We can start pushing the same boulder and see if it’ll budge, we can start pushing a smaller rock on the same hill to see if we can get that one going instead, or we can choose an entirely different hill on which to find an entirely different boulder we think we can shift.

Of course, we also have the option to do nothing, to tell ourselves we can’t do it, that we’re done with pushing boulders.

We must never, ever take that option.

Regardless which boulder we decide to put our shoulder to, we must keep pushing. We must try to see how far we can go with this one, and the next one, and the one after that.

It doesn’t matter how many rocks on how many hills we try to shift, we must not stop starting.

Starting is hard. Things get in the way, we doubt ourselves, we worry that if we start we may not finish, we may not succeed, we may not make it to wherever we’re going.

People will often share the old Lao-Tzu quote, the “a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step”, but they often miss an equally great truism from the same chapter:1

“Rest is easy to hold.”

Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching

And so we hold our rest because if we start we may fail.

“But wait,” people say, “Failure is a good thing.” They tell us that Edison said “I know 10,000 things that will not work” 2 and while it’s lovely to know other people have done it before us, it doesn’t make failure easier to take.

Eventually, when we finally take that fabled first step, we remember: the reason people start is because starting feels good. It’s scary, fun, intimidating, energising, exhilarating, uncertain and, most of all, it’s a beginning. We can say, “I have started.” Our journey has begun, however long it may take and wherever the road may lead.

We can never feel the same regret for the things we start as we do for the things we never begin, so if you’re thinking about starting something, start.

Because you can. I believe in you.

1. Chapter 64, Tao Te Ching, quote taken from the Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo translation [non-affiliate]. [↩]
2. He didn’t, by the way – the quote attributed to him by biographer Walter S. Mallory in a 1910 biography was “Results? Why man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.” Source: Quote Investigator [↩]

January was a terrible start to 2015, but when it comes to the habit change I was looking for, I actually achieved quite a lot and am now meditating regularly.

For February, I’m looking to upgrade my writing practice and stop myself slipping, so I’ll be trying to get into the habit of writing at least 500 words per day.

Writing has taken something of a back seat for me in recent years, subsumed beneath the dense foliage of the working world where the lengthiest pieces I compose are emails on strategy and execution. I miss writing for the joy of writing, I miss writing to solve problems and I miss writing to get people to think, to provoke reactions whatever they may be.

Writing is where my passion lies, that’s where my talent lies, where I’m happiest – pouring out words onto a page to eventually engage and impact, in some form or another, the eventual reader, listener or viewer.

So this month I will be writing something every day. I don’t know yet whether I’ll come to focus on just one writing project or flit from thing to thing, but whichever it is, I will make progress one day at a time, 500 words at a time.

The only rule I’m setting myself is that the words I write must be easily countable (ie, written in a writing app of some kind) and therefore social media posts don’t count and nor does journalling at home, which I hand-write. Emails definitely don’t count.

If things go to plan I’ll be back here in 28 days with at least 14,000 words written for something, somewhere. Stay tuned!

After the emotional overwhelm of 2014, I wanted to try to keep myself on a more even keel this year. I also want to dedicate myself to something that goes a bit deeper than “trying to be better”, so I’m going to take up monthly challenges to start changing my habits and giving myself the space and mindfulness to enjoy life and be grateful for my blessings.

I’m kicking off this month with daily meditation. I’ve been attempting to get into this for the last 18 months and have dipped in and out with varying degress of success. What I have picked up, though, is that it really, really works for me.

I’ve always had quite a temper, a short fuse that’s easily lit and explosions that could be quite uncontrolled. Granted, as I’ve got older I’ve managed to get them under control to the extent that they are usually aimed purely at inanimate objects, but I know they are a trait about me that K likes least.

Reflecting on that, and wanting to be the best husband I can, I set about trying to embrace mindfulness to keep things in check and I was amazed at the results. When I mediated regularly (my longest stint being about 3 weeks, I think), I was instantly calmer and more relaxed about everything. And that feeling stayed with me even when I let things slip.

I read a lot of the teachings of zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, who helped me see the impermenance and realtive unimportance of the wide variety of ‘things’ that happen to us in our daily lives. Maintaining a half-smile and letting other people worry about their own days is something that has made my daily commuting through the busiest of London stations so much smoother than it would have been even a year ago.

“Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

If things are going well, then, why do I need meditation to be my first habit change of 2015? Because I can always be better at it.

There is one more important element to it that reflects on my own skills and experience, too: I need a quick win. I’ve tried before to change habits – something that most experts will tell you takes a minimum of 30 days to do – and my best intentions fall by the wayside quickly.

Meditation is something I know I can do, but haven’t maanged to keep it up daily yet. That means through January I will not only see the instant daily benefit (the reward feeling that my brain will definitely need), but also be better able to keep it going.

I’m going to be using Headspace, an app I discovered for guided meditation that draws you into meditation without dumping you in at the deep end and expecting you to sit in the lotus position and float off into trancendental bliss in your first session. It’s simple, practical, and starts with just 10 minutes a day. It also has a huge number of extensions so you don’t end up stuck with the same old 20 minutes of guidance every day.

If you’re interested to join me, get Headspace for free and Tweet me that you’re joining in and how you’re getting on with it.

“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

For those of you who just love a list, here’s what you need to know:

1. Write more.
2. Shoot more
3. Relax more.
4. Feel worthy

For those of you who want just a little more detail, read on.

Continue reading

Sometime even the smallest challenges can seem like marathons, the merest bump the greatest mountains.

Other time things seem to fade into the background as something far more significant comes to the fore.

Tor’s transplant on Monday night has thrown many things into sharp focus for me.

Remembering the immense fight she now faces, knowing the risks and rewards at play and reliving what it felt like to be in her position has really driven home the relative significance of everything else in life.

If there’s ever a time when we can take stock, refocus and understand the things that are most important to us, it’s when the life of a loved one hangs in the balance.

Don’t just let these moments pass you by: use them to understand your life and your thoughts and to take definitive action, whatever it may be, towards making your life a little more how you want it and a little less how you’re being lead.

When I first started blogging, back in the dusty days of 2006, I began with a Statement of Intent. At the time, it was designed to remind me of the reasons I started the blog in the first place as well as letting people know what they could expect from me and it.

Over the years my blogs have changed faces many times, but this new facelift is something more. The simplified design and stripped-down visuals serve to remind me of the meandering thoughts and intentions that I let take over here and to keep me sharply, intensely focussed on what this blog is becoming.

You’ll notice the old name, SmileThroughIt1, is back because rack my brains as I may, I couldn’t think of a better way to sum up the purpose of this site or the ideas I live by.

What is SmileThroughIt? Put simply, it’s a philosophy of life that helped carry me through some of my toughest times. While waiting for my transplant, not knowing if it would come in time, I learned to focus on the good things in life. More than that, I learned that if I could find just one thing every day that made me smile, that day had been worth it.

This site is here to help me make the most of the second chance I’ve been given and if, through that, I can help, inspire or motivate other people, so much the better.

Before the lengthy break in updates, I’d started blogging to please others, to write what I thought people wanted, to ‘optimise’ my posts. But looking back over my archives, both on here and the original site’s archives, I saw that my best writing and the most effective posts came not from targeting an “audience”, but rather writing something for myself.

Although I hate to admit it, it’s not just my blog that has been through many twists and turns and a distinct loss of focus. Everything that’s happened in this blog has been mirrored in my day-to-day life and it bothers me that I feel like I’m letting this second chance slip past me without grasping every second.

This blog will reflect my change in mood, attitude and approach to my second chance at life and, hopefully, will help guide others through similar changes in their own life.

This story has no planned ending, no final goal, no means by which to measure its success or failure. This blog, like all of us, just is. And what it is comes from what’s inside and the people who read, contribute and support its aims, ideals and author (that’s me) along the steps of its journey.

Come along for the ride.

1. and I’ve moved all of the archives onto this single site, instead of stripped across two blogs [↩]

This week I have been engaged in numerous discussions of the organ donation system in the UK, mostly spurred by my appearance on Channel 4’s 4Thought.tv strand which asked, “Should Organ Donation Be Compulsory”.

Over the week, the show has featured a variety of views both for and against presumed consent and organ donation as a whole. One of these was Derek House, a Jehovah’s Witness who believes that all organ donation is fundamentally wrong.

While his views raised ire among the transplant community, it struck me that Mr House isn’t the man we need to be targeting. His religious beliefs preclude him from supporting organ donation: we’re not going to change that.

If we want to see the number of organ donors in this country increase, we need to tackle the vast disparity between the 75% of people who say they would be willing to donate their organs1 and the 26% who have signed the organ donor register. Those people don’t need convincing of the merits, they just need to be drawn out of their apathy.

Focusing our energies on a battle we’re already winning seems like a better use of resources than fighting one we will inevitably lose.

The same goes for any kind of battle you may be facing as an artist or entrepreneur: look at the fights you face and work out which ones are worth your energy.

Picking your battles is not the same as taking the path of least resistance. It’s about using your focus and energies on strategies and tactics that will make a difference, not banging your head against a brick wall.

1. the oft-quoted figure of 90% is, infact, the people who support the idea of organ donation; 15% of people support the idea, but say they wouldn’t donate their organs [↩]

A large part of our lives is taken up looking for new and exciting things to do; peering into the future to see what we could be doing six months, a year, five years from now.

I see things differently. Perhaps because of the perspective two-and-a-half years on the transplant list gave me – knowing little else from sitting, getting worse and waiting for (a) death or (b) a second chance – I don’t see the point in looking that far into the future. Six months is about my limit.

Even now, my fiancée is being incredibly patient as we try to plan our wedding for July 2012. I’m just about grasping it, but it’s a long way off.

I prefer to live a life that focuses not necessarily on the cliché-heavy ‘here-and-now’, but rather on the soon-to-be. Not focusing on what I dream of down the line, but on the actions – however small – I can take now to take a step closer to those dreams.

As I move forward in my own, personal brave new world, I’m already committing to things, exploring things and taking action to make them happen.

If your life is full of things you’d love to do ‘some day’, be they personal, professional or otherwise, now is the time to take the next step, the next action and set the wheels in motion for whatever it is you most want to pursue.

Just because it’s not laid on a plate, doesn’t mean it’s not there for the taking.