There is a lot written all over the ‘net about getting started. Often including the wonderful Lao-tzu quote:
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
My journey will only be 26.2 miles, but my single step happened incredibly quickly.
Some people say it’s impossible to be truly happy with everything in your life. As the first noble truth of Buddhism tells us:
If you are alive, you will suffer.
While that may be true – and may make life sound unappealing – it’s also true that the best way to get closer to true happiness is to know yourself.
Not merely by identifying your wants, needs and ultimate goals, but to really dig deeply into yourself and understand what drives you, what de-motivates you and what causes you to go running for the hills.
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?
Last week, I registered to take on the Brentwood Half Marathon and I’ll shortly be registering myself for the Edinburgh marathon in May. Yesterday, I sat and mapped out my training programme for the next 31 weeks to take me up to race day in Scotland’s second city, which is a scary-looking ramping up of mileage from Christmas onwards.
Like Tor1, over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be getting used to a new normality. Early rises, pre-dawn runs, strict training diet and abstinence from alcohol on all but the most special of occasions.
Any change in the normality we know and love2, it’s going to be tough. But the difficulty of the adaptations and motivations are a huge part of why I want to do this.
I want to challenge myself, I want to push myself, I want to really see what I can do with my new life, my new lungs and my second chance.
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 OK1, 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!
Such was the inspiration factor from the Gary Vaynerchuk video I posted yesterday, I’ve got two more posts looking at some of his ideas.
Today, I want to pick up on his phrase, “everything is exposed”.
Using the ‘net as extensively as we do, it’s so important to remember that every single act of ours in the public arena, from social networking sites to job sites to personal blogs, is being followed, copied and archived around the world.
We no longer live in a world where mistakes simply disappear, confined to the annals of history and remembered only by those most directly involved. Now, if you make a mistake, it’s everywhere.
Facing the reality of the permanence of our online interactions is key to making sure we always consider carefully what we’re saying, doing and thinking out loud. Posting a Tweet, updating your Facebook, uploading some photos? Think. Look before you leap.
Do you want your great, great, great, great grandkids to see what you’re about to put out there? Because they will.
Even after my apologetic post last week, I was unable to return to the flow of posting daily.
Instead, I’ve been having something of a break to focus on developing other things, including a programme of motivational speeches and presentations to help re-engergise and re-focus businesses, upping my programme at the gym in preparation for the 3 Peaks Challenge and working towards the launch of my new website theindiefilmhub.com – a content curation site for independent filmmakers, now just 5 days away from launch.
Although I’ve previously suggested that breaking your routine in blogging – whether about your film, your business or your personal life – can be punished with a significant drop in your readership, sometimes it’s good to take a break for a while.
Taking a break doesn’t have to mean not doing anything at all1, it’s simply about re-focusing, allowing yourself to be immersed in a different project, a different goal or even a different world.
The old cliché goes that a change is as good as a rest. Remember, clichés are generally only clichés because they’re true.
As part of my training for the 3 Peaks, I swim twice a week (in between the full-on gym workouts), thanks to the lovely people at Topnotch Healthclubs who’s sponsored my challenge.
Today while I was swimming I noticed a curious phenomenon that I’m going to name the “hottie effect”. There were three guys in the pool, including me. One of them was pretty much just sitting there, the other doing some slow, steady, not hugely dedicated breast-stroke lengths and me, somewhat beasting myself churning out my 500m.
In the middle of my 3rd 50m set, a girl came in.
I should immediately qualify this by saying that when I swim I obviously don’t wear my glasses, so I can’t actually see anything beyond the end of my nose in any kind of clear fashion.
This girl came in and, from what I could make out, she was young, slender and wearing a bikini. Suddenly and remarkably the layabout starting cranking out some lengths, the breast-stroker suddenly upped his speed and improved his technique and I… well, I mostly carried on doing lengths while wondering how hot this girl must be to inspire the other guys to such great feats.
The point of all this isn’t swimming pool-based voyeurism, but to suggest that we all in some way or another adapt our behaviour in the presence a a pretty person1. In the gym especially, it makes be act “up” – trying to show ourselves to be fitter, stronger and faster.
What if we could apply that “hottie effect” to our creative lives? If we created in the shadow of the “hottie” – that single person we’re all desperate to please.
Impressing people – whether it’s an agent, a producer, a client or a partner – is an innate desire in all of us. We want people to love what we do. Creating that voice of approval and encouragement in what we do is a perfect way to motivate yourself and keep focused on creating the very best that you can, whatever it may be.
Struggle with getting down to work some days? Most days? Every day?
If you’re trying to think creatively and get yourself into the right mood, but can’t seem to settle your brain to the task in hand, you need to create yourself an inspiration pathway.
IP’s (as I like to call them1 ) are a form of hypnotic process that allows you to reach the right state of flow to achieve your creative goals.
We all recognise the feeling: when you’re reading the blog of an inspirational online mentor (Tim Ferriss, for me); listening to that track that gives you goosebumps; sitting in that perfect spot that fills you with feelings of limitless ability and peacefulness. The trick is to find a way to tap into that feeling and apply it to your work routine.
By recreating that feeling of invincibility – of total creative power and freedom – you can access the flow state that will see you glide through the challenges that face you over the next couple of hours, or the ten pages, or that sales call to your dream client.
If you’re trigger is musical, so much the better – just hit ‘Play’ and take yourself there. For other triggers, find a way to access them each and every day when you sit at your desk to get cracking. Bookmark a favourite post or posts, stimulate your sense and psych yourself into inspiring yourself to make the most of your day.
Inspire yourself and you’ll reach new heights you never imagined.
What lights your inspiration candle? How do you help yourself reach a state of flow when you sit down to work in the morning (or afternoon, or whenever you do your best work)?
It’s a very badly hidden secret that I’m a loyal supporter and devotee of Seth Godin, the man I can most single-handedly credit with re-energising me in my low moments and helping me believe that anything is possible.
Never more so than with the latest free eBook from his Domino Project publishing company. Not only is it a great example of using something you give away for free (the ‘SXSW Pokes‘ eBook) to promote something you’re selling (the full-length ‘Poke the Box‘ book and eBook), it’s also full of stories that help you realise that anything really is possible.
The single most important element of SXSW Pokes is that it’s not just a few people telling stories that make you think, “Well, I could have done that if I’d thought of it first,” but instead contains 50 stories from people who make you think, “If they can do that with their lives, just think what I could do with mine.”
I cannot stress just how important I think this book is for anyone to read. Go get it.
If you are the only one getting in your own way of going after your dreams, stop and realize that you are the last person who should be doing that!
What’s your lifelong dream? As you step out to make it real, reach out to someone you’d like to know and emulate. That one phone call may change your life forever!
The initiative I took for myself will always remind me that I’m teh one driving this train, and that I’m accountable to ther person in the mirror most of all.