Facing resistance

You’re going to face resistance both internally from your doubts and fears and externally from people who don’t believe that you’re capable of fulfilling your duties and achieve the greatness you set out to achieve.

You can believe that doubters and never know if you can be great, or you can dare to be great and either fail and learn or achieve and see what you’re capable of.

Either way, resistance must be faced. This is the essence of most work. Work is the disturbing of that which is still. It is resistance or effort against objects at rest. If we avoid resistance, we avoid all work and all things that would give depth and meaning to our life.

We must train ourselves to get comfortable with facing the resistance from within and without. A few minutes here and a few minutes there. Practice being uncomfortable and retaining your confidence.

Examine yourself and your motivations. If you’re doing what is right with pure motives, you should have the utmost confidence in yourself. At that point, resistance is merely an inconvenience to overcome.

No retreat

You may have to take a step back for a short moment, but retreating should not be a sustained thing in your work or business-building. Retreat only when you must shore up resources and plan in a quiet moment.

I would rather fail in my efforts to press forward than die because I fear progress and forward movement. Die moving forward rather than be trampled while you retreat.

Why things become problematic in our life

Things become problematic in our life when we use them to escape harder things that we should be confronting and overcoming.

We escape into “pleasure-now-but-regret-later” things like drinking, drugs, social media, over-eating, television, Netflix, video games, etc…

The more we spend away our time on these things the further we enter into the vortex of guilt.

We start to feel guilty, inadequate, and anxious because we’re not doing our duties and thus we seek more of those escapes and our life begins to spiral.

The fatal error of taking no action

To be neutral in an important matter helps the oppressor and not the victim. Our silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. We close our eyes to that which we cannot bear to remember, but it ends as a thing we can never forget.

The whirlwind

A storm is coming. You have sown the wind, and you will reap the whirlwind. How do you treat your friends, family, and business partners? It changes everything.

The good kind of obsession

Get obsessed with keeping the fire of ambition burning within you. The fire that drives you to do great things. Seek to be obsessed with doing good, doing right, and delivering value.

Keep the fire burning, or it all turns to ash.

“Just enough” is enough. Sort of.

When paying the bills each month and having “just enough” money is the goal, you end up getting trapped in an endless cycle of just barely making it.

If you can motivate yourself with dreams far beyond having “just enough,” you will drastically shift your goals and expectations which will lead toward actions that allow you to live with plenty and the ability to help others, all while reducing the stress you have with regard to finances.

Just enough is what is needed, but “more than enough” gives you what you need and gives you the opportunity to help others and free yourself for more valuable work.

“I thought”

That’s where the problems began. When we think rather than think deeply, usually we’re finding reasons to do what we’ve already decided we’re going to do. That, or, we make assumptions. Never tell a lady you just “thought” she was pregnant. That’s a bad thought.

Stop thinking and start starting

We can get caught in the trap of waiting to get started because we have more research to do. After all, why not use Google and learn an immense amount about what you need to do to help guarantee success?

The reason is that research stops you from starting. You can still do your research after you have begun. In fact, your research will mean much more because you will understand the context much better and you will be able to apply and test the things you’re learning.

Otherwise, most of the things you learn will be forgotten by next week.

To be successful is like riding a bike, you’ve got to keep moving to be successful and get anywhere. The first step is pushing off and getting started.

Asking for advice

Don’t ask experts for their advice. Witty phrases and a clever quote are fun, but they aren’t always useful.

Ask experts about their story. How they got here and what their concerns are.

Then it’s up to you to extract the useful traits, habits, and practices that will make your life better.

Unrealistic goals and macro plans

Set unrealistic goals when you’re making long-term plans. The realistic and achievable goals are for the day-to-day tasks that drive toward these larger more “unrealistic” goals.

We don’t get excited about the boring, average, and mundane. We get excited about the unrealistic dream.

The point isn’t even to hit that goal, it’s to have a carrot dangling for you to chase and work as hard as you can to get there.

Wherever you end up as a result of this unrealistic goal, it will likely be much better than if you set a “realistic” goal.

You assumed it would be easy. You were wrong.

People are optimistic and we tend to overestimate how well things will go. We don’t understand how much energy and effort it will take to push through.

We like to assume things play out in a stable and linear fashion. It’s as simple as a straight line from here to there.

That’s never how it works and you need to work much harder than you think. It’s going to be far more difficult than either of us ever expected. If you’re not prepared for the effort required, you will fail.

How to achieve big things

Do you want to write a novel? Don’t just go and write. What does it mean to just start writing? Is it throwing words into a blender until you get 300 pages mashed together? Probably not.

With any big task, you must set goals that are achievable and specific. i.e. “I will work on this project with zero distractions for 12 hours a week.”

That is the input you can control. Focus on that. The idea of “just write a novel” is far too vague and you will never stick with it.

Working for 12 hours of intense focus each week is possible. Now, you must break down that big task into bite-sized pieces that you can sit down and start work on in those 12 hours you now have dedicated to writing a book.

Achievable goals paired with specific yet small tasks is the way to success. You can start right now.

Giving up when it’s hard

It’s tempting to give up and retreat when things get hard.

When business slows down we must not be swallowed up in sorrow that things aren’t as good right now as six months ago. This drains us of the optimism and energy needed to press on effectively.

The difficult part about encouraging another person to pick up and keep running forward, to keep making efforts to improve, to ignore the flaws of those around them and fix the flaws in themself, is that it must be believed by the person themself.

You can’t force it to happen. It’s a bit of a game of hope and usually, it is a failure.

So often it fails because we live in a very self-centered society. Some might even argue that the whole world suffers from this plague.

Those in the process of giving up will often spend immense energy defending why it’s the good and proper thing to do. There is typically no arguing with them. They have made up their mind that this is the best way to survive. It’s the safe route and therefore the best route.

But the truth is, they’ve given up already and the work left to do is the work of convincing themself that it’s actually the best thing to do.

It’s hard to watch, but at least you can observe and take lessons to apply in your own life, business, and relationships.

Complainers and excuse-makers

If you really, really don’t want to take responsibility there is always a reason not to take responsibility. Each one of us can find a convincing argument that assures us that it is absolutely unfair if we have to take responsibility. We "know" we're right in refusing responsibility.

But there is a big problem. People who don’t take responsibility as a default mode of action are not capable of success and they very rarely find great personal peace in life.

It’s not that they’re incapable of success or peace, they are. However, excuse-makers allow the world to happen to them, rather than taking the action required to happen to the world and make the success they wish to see. It is impossible to do something positive when you spend your time making excuses instead.

The excuse-maker finds very little peace because his life is typically plagued with three things. 1.) Bad things always happen to him. 2.) Bad things happen often. 3.) Bad things happen because of someone or something else. He is never to blame. Before he finishes bemoaning his first malady, alas! Here comes another!

The excuse-maker lives a life shackled by the actions of other people. He doesn’t take responsibility and therefore he does not take action.

If you find yourself complaining, blaming, or making excuses in order to “be right” know that your position is poisoned at its very root. It will not end well.

The truth hurts

The truth hurts and it’s hard to take. It’s difficult to listen to. So we make excuses. We suffer from cognitive dissonance and we hate to admit that we’re wrong.

What would happen if we looked at our own weak spots and flaws instead of excusing them because we see flaws and weaknesses in others?

Don’t underestimate your enemy

Always assume they’re the most competent and intelligent in doing what they do. I operate by this principle in business and other areas of life when and where enemies arise.

The sudden strike is only sudden and surprising when you are diligent enough to operate wisely on your end. The motivation to do careful work comes from assuming the enemy is competent.

Keystone habits

Writing these blog posts isn’t taking me to the next level. They aren’t going to land me a deal with Penguin Books publishing company.

However, they are a keystone habit of mine. They are a small exercise I do to keep my mind fluid and thinking about specific things throughout the day. They also give me an extra reason to sit and spend time reading and learning new things. I want to gain new thoughts and ideas to write about.

This writing habit has been something that is far more important to me personally than it is about making any kind of impact on the world through my mindless banter on this blog.

It is this idea of my writing being a keystone habit that I am trying to strike as I adjust my writing from morning to evening. I’ve now missed a number of days in the past 7-10 days and I am reminding myself to keep busting away and setting aside the time in the evening to write a blog post.

I’m probably going to miss more days, but eventually it’ll be a new habit and I’ll be better for it.