This question turned up in my Daily Forwards Step. There was also this quote:
Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out – it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.
Robert Service
Question: If you knew that in one year you would leave the planet, what would you do today?
DailyOM today is about Fighting Against Our Gifts, here is part of it.
As human beings we often have a tendency to fight against using our natural gifts. Many stories of success start with an individual who is ignoring the call of his or her inborn abilities. There are many possible reasons for this resistance, from fear that the calling will be too difficult to a disbelief in the very work one is being asked to do. We may feel too small, too distracted by other people’s ideas about what we should do, or too uninformed. Whatever the case, the resistance to actualizing ourselves has very concrete consequences, and many of us have been called out of hiding by an illness or a twist of fate that unequivocally dismantled our resistance. In other words, the universe knocks, and if we don’t answer it knocks louder.
The first step on the journey to our calling in life is to listen to our internal voices and respond to the knocking universe at the door. As we do, the symptoms and anxieties that have haunted us will fade into the background, replaced by opportunities, both big and small, to open the door to what we are truly here to do.
Source: DailyOM
This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.
This question turned up in my Daily Forwards Step. There was also this quote:
A goal is created three times. First as a mental picture. Second, when written down to add clarity and dimension. And third, when you take action towards its achievement.
Gary Blair
Question: What happens to your goals after you create them?
This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.
This question turned up in my Daily Forwards Step. There was also this quote:
You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don’t have that kind of feeling for what it is you’re doing, you’ll stop at the first giant hurdle.
George Lucas
This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.
DailyOM today is about control, here is part of it.
Trying to maintain control in this life is a bit like trying to maintain control on a roller coaster. The ride has its own logic and is going to go its own way, regardless of how tightly you grip the bar. There is a thrill and a power in simply surrendering to the ride and fully feeling the ups and downs of it, letting the curves take you rather than fighting them. When you fight the ride, resisting what’s happening at every turn, your whole being becomes tense and anxiety is your close companion. When you go with the ride, accepting what you cannot control, freedom and joy will inevitably arise.
We can give in to our fear and anxiety, or we can surrender to this great mystery with courage. When we see people on a roller coaster, we see that there are those with their faces tight with fear and then there are those that smile broadly, with their hands in the air, carried through the ride on a wave of freedom and joy. This powerful image reminds us that often the only control we have is choosing how we are going to respond to the ride.
Source: DailyOM
This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.
This question turned up in my Daily Forwards Step. There was also this quote:
You seldom get what you go after unless you know in advance what you want.
Maurice Switzer
I am working on my goals for the next year, based on what happened this year and what I would like to achieve in the new year.
What about you, Have you got specific with your goals yet?
This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.
Brian Clark at Copyblogger has a very interesting post titled The Nasty Four-Letter Word That Keeps You From Writing that hooked me because I am in a situation where I have a chance to really change what I do for a living. Brian writes:
based on my personal experience, there’s a nasty demon hiding behind the excuses we make. This four-letter word represents a condition we don’t like to admit to ourselves, much less utter in polite conversation.
Yep, it’s the “F” word.
Fear.
Fear affects us all more than we care to admit
Brian’s article is about fear in connection with writing but his post is valid in many areas of life. He mentions five different fears, the key ones (to me) are fear of failure and fear of risk.
Under fear of failure Brian writes:
Countless psychological studies have shown that the fear of failure is the number one barrier to personal success. We fear failure because we don’t separate tasks from ourselves, and therefore our self-esteem is at risk every time we attempt to do anything we really want to achieve.
If we try and fail then we can get up and try again. But if we do not even try then we lock ourselves in where we are now.
This is a quote worth remembering:
Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.
In the part about fear of risk Brian writes:
Is it really better to be safe than sorry? Sometimes, yes. But when it comes to your writing dreams and goals, being safe is a fate worse than death. Not only do your dreams die, but you get to live the rest of your life knowing it.
Remove the word ‘writing’ before dreams and this statement goes anywhere. Dreams are nice but until they turn into actions they remain dreams.
A while back I came across a quote that says a lot:
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. (Mark Twain)
The feeling of safety makes us often hesitate and take the easy way out (stay in the harbor, no risk, no failure) and not take the exciting way (leave for the high sea, take risks). I think I shall go and check my sails…
This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.
Success from the Nest has a post about When is it okay to work for free…?. It is about setting up your own rules for when it is OK to work for free.
Remember it’s up to you to determine your value. How you approach your work is going to set the standard for the work that you do.
There is also a post titled ‘Bout Free Milk and a Cow. Among other things it says:
Freeloaders are not where you want to be wasting your time. It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to your clients. Your knowledge and expertise are valuable. You know that. Your clients know that.
To sum it up, your brain capital has a value so do not give away too much of it for free. I do some pro bono work but that is the exception, not the standard.
Note: The image is borrowed from Success from the Nest.
This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.
Business Week has a post titled How to Run a Meeting Like Google. The post is around a year old but the advice given is solid and will lead to more effective meetings.
No one wastes time searching for a purpose at Marissa Mayer’s meetings — even five-minute gatherings must have a clear agenda.
Her sixth rule says “Stick to the clock. Add respecting other peoples time (and efforts) and being prepared to her list and meetings will be effective instead of a waste of time.
This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.
Success from the nest has a great series of posts about the Hierarchy of the Successfully Self-Employed. The four levels are Freelancer (physiological needs), Contractor (safety and social needs), Expert (esteem needs) and Guru (self-actualization). The posts are as follows:
This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.
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