Tough Days

Some days are just going to be tougher than others. It matters how you handle these difficulties.

No one cares what you can get done when things are going well and everything is lined up for you. People will notice what you can get done when the shit hits the fan, nothing is working properly, everyone is under pressure, the tension is palpable and everyone wants to run away and hide. What you do during these moments really defines who you are. The tough days make us the people we are.

Embrace the tough days. You will learn more about yourself when things are tough than you ever will when everything is working properly.

Be Better

We live in a world where very few people want to make decisions. In school, we were trained to do what we were told. We were instructed on how important it is to be on time, to do the assigned work, to memorize useless facts and to fit in. Failing at anything was the worst thing you could do, followed closely by thinking for yourself and standing out. Many of us spent years and tens of thousands of dollars learning how to be a good, little employee, but nothing else.

This world has enough followers and good employees. Too many people have become so afraid of being wrong, they do nothing. They freeze. What we are desperately lacking are people who can think for themselves. We need leaders. We need people who can make decisions. We need people who can learn from their mistakes. Hell, we need people who have the guts to stick their neck out and make mistakes.

It's okay if you just want to be a cog in the machine. You can be a follower and a good employee, never making decisions, never taking chances and never really making a difference. This blog is probably not for you. For everyone else, take some chances. Make choices. Decide. Think for yourself. Make mistakes. Stick your neck out. Stand out. Yes, you may "get in trouble" or "get called to your boss's office" but are these really things to be afraid of?

What's really the worst that could happen? What happens if you make a choice and it turns out to be a really smart move? We have to stop being so afraid of being wrong. Instead, we should fear being insignificant. Fear doing nothing. Fear being only a cog. Fear being one of the masses.

Be a leader. Start making decisions. Make mistakes and learn from them. Think for yourself. Be better than you have been in the past. What do you have to lose? More importantly, what do you have to gain?

Your Comfort Zone

Sure, you can continue to do what you know. You can take no risks and know the outcome of everything you try. You can eat the same foods and go to the same places and do the same things. You can play it safe. You can shy away from the things that scare you.

But, what's the point? How many amazing things have happened to you because you played it safe and didn't take any risks? How many new and interesting people have you met by hanging out in the same places? How many times have you felt really accomplished when your actions are directed by anxiety and fear?

The really good things in life tend to happen when we are out of our comfort zone. We learn and grow and evolve by challenging ourselves and pushing through the anxiety and fears into new places, ones where we aren't perfectly comfortable. In these places, we can have new ideas, meet new people and do any number of things that are interesting and exciting. Anything can happen when you don't know what to expect.

Start small, if you want. Try a new type of food you normally wouldn't try. Go to a gym you have never visited. Strike up a conversation with someone you've never met. Read a book you wouldn't normally read. Attend a networking event you would normally skip. The more and more you do this, the easier it will become.

Once you start doing the little things, you will find yourself pushing more and more. Once you stop letting anxiety and fear dictate your direction, you will find yourself doing more interesting and life-changing things. Would you prefer to live a life where you have a good idea of what is going to happen, with very few ups and downs or do you want to live a life where you aren't sure what is going to happen, but you know there is a chance for something amazing?

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone...isn't it about time you stepped beyond it?

Winning and Losing

In everything you do, you are going to win some and lose some. While the winning and losing matters, how you react to each is also very important. I'm sure you know people who are terrible winners and terrible losers. You also will know people who are gracious in winning and in defeat. These are the people we should emulate.

We have all heard the saying: "It's not important if you win or lose, but how you play the game." Yet, very few of us really believe this. While doing your best is important, I believe it is equally important how you react to winning and losing. We must learn from every experience and utilize these lessons to continue improving. We need to have a short-term memory when it comes to loss and focus more on what we learn and strive to do better next time.

Winning feels great. We all want to be filled with the euphoric high that comes with winning. But, we also know the pain of defeat, even when we did our best and still lose. When we view everything as a learning experience, we can win and lose with grace. Using the knowledge as a springboard to doing better helps take the sting out of losing. It still sucks, but gives us the motivation to improve. This motivation will help us transform from good to great!

Do your best. Learn from every experience. Put in the work to do better next time. These are the most important things in competition. Yes, winning feels amazing and losing hurts, but feelings are fleeting. The knowledge we gain lasts much longer and helps us become better. This is success. This is what we have to do to be the best we can be.

What Will You Learn Today?

Life is about learning. Each day, we should all strive to learn something new. Every interaction we have is an opportunity to share and gain knowledge, but we have to keep an open mind. By setting aside our ego, we open ourselves to the realization that everyone, no matter how different, has some knowledge we don't.

In this age of technology, we have opportunity at our fingertips. With the Internet, we can do things our ancestors were never able to do. We can have immediate conversations with people we will never meet. Through websites like Duolingo, we can learn foreign languages in ways that our convenient for us. With the proliferation of blogs, we have the ability to learn from an assortment of amazing people. Major universities are putting many of their courses out there for anyone to take. The amount of knowledge we have access to is astounding.

Even with all of this, we can still learn much from the people we meet each day if we set aside our judgments. It is impossible to learn from someone if we go in to each interaction with preconceived notions about who they are or what they know. We can't label people and expect to learn anything from them. You never know what these people know or what experiences they may have. The barista in your coffee shop may have a Ph.D. in physics. The man playing the violin at your subway station may be a virtuoso playing on a multimillion dollar violin. You just never know who you are going to meet or what knowledge they can impart.

A hunger for knowledge allows us to grow. Trying to learn something new can also be scary. We are not going to be good at everything we try, but with practice, we can get better. I will never learn Spanish unless I try. You will never have your beliefs challenged unless you open yourself to new ideas and new ways of doing things. If we choose to keep our minds closed and to believe other people have nothing to teach us, we stagnate. We will not grow. We will not learn. We will not get any closer to the truth. What will you learn today?

Mistakes

People make mistakes all the time. In fact, I'm pretty sure we are all going to make a mistake today. It may be a small one or it may be a huge mistake. We can either dwell on them or we can acknowledge them and learn from them while moving on with our day.

There is a good chance you are going to do something to disappoint people today. It happens. If you are trying to walk the line between learning from your mistakes or dwelling on them, you are also going to have to be careful when dealing with the people who are disappointed because of your mistake. You don't want to seem as if you don't care about it, but you also don't want to dwell on it with them. This is a fine line you have to walk and it isn't always going to come easy. Some people love to point out the mistakes of others and will continue to bring them up over and over again. Don't let these people goad you in to dwelling on them. Learn and move on.

No one likes to make mistakes, but mistakes are no the end of the world. Learn from them and move on. Don't let others pull you in to dwelling on them. Acknowledge the mistake and let people know what you will do differently next time. Don't become afraid to make mistakes. As long as we learn from our mistakes,  we can become better at anything we try to do.

Go out there and live. Make mistakes and learn from them. Do the best you can and if something goes wrong, know you will do better the next time.  Everyone makes mistakes...how we deal with them makes all the difference.

Learn From Each Other

We can (and should) learn from everyone around us. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has something to offer. Sometimes, we have to search to find it, but it is there. All we have to do is remain open and learn.

This can be very difficult. There are people in our lives who just rub us the wrong way. We don't like them and we don't want to spend much time around them. Sometimes, these are the very people we can learn the most from. There is something about them giving us a negative feeling and it could be this is what we need to learn. Our ego pushes them away knowing we could become a little different with the knowledge we could obtain. Learn from them.

Surrounding us will be people we like, people we respect and people we admire. All of these people have something to offer as well. We can do well to study them, to see what they do and how they do it and then learn from them. Everyone has talents, even if they don't realize it. Figure out what you can learn from the people around you and gain the knowledge.

We can learn from the constructive feedback others give us and we can even learn from destructive feedback we receive. All we need to do is enter into every situation knowing, no matter what happens, we have something to learn. Don't take things personally (easier said than done) and focus on the learning process. This will not always be easy, but usually the best things in life aren't easy. Learning and knowledge building doesn't stop when you grasp the degree...in fact, it should never stop. Look for ways to learn something new each and every day and then see how the world around us changes.


All knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.
Leonardo da Vinci

Ignore the Voice

Getting things done is to be applauded.
Getting things done well is even better.
Getting things done and putting forth your best work is what we all should strive to do.

Doing your best work each and every day is difficult. To really do this, you must believe in yourself. Believing in yourself is the easiest way to quiet the voice of fear we all have. You know the one that whispers you can't do something or tries to convince you that you are in over your head or you are not good enough to get the job done. We all hear this voice from time to time, some of us more than others.

Don't let this voice stop you from putting forth your best work. The more you listen to this voice or give it any credit, the louder and louder it speaks. DO NOT LISTEN.

Wake up every day knowing you are going to put your best foot forward. Go through the day striving to do your best work. Put in the time and energy your best demands. Speak up. Take some chances. The more you do this, the quieter and quieter the voice gets. It never goes away completely, but you can train yourself to ignore it and do what needs to be done. It's not going to be easy, but learning to ignore the voice will change the way you live your life. You have something (probably many somethings) to offer, don't let the voice hold you back.

Live Your Life

I read a lot of blogs. I get some through twitter and some through e-mail and some I just pop on from time to time to read. I am interested in what other people do and what they think and how they are trying to change the world (if they are trying). I am fascinated by people doing things I can't or would have never thought to try. With today's technology, it is easy to get lost in the exploits of others (with stunning photos or videos or narratives) and not do anything yourself.

I read these blogs to learn and find inspiration and to see what makes people tick. All too often, I find myself living vicariously through them instead of doing my own things. There is a very fine line between finding inspiration in others and living vicariously through them, even if you don't personally know them. Many of us who are searching will come to this point at one time or another (I hope) and strive to do something of our own. 

We have the initial drive to create, but keeping this motivation is hard. It's especially hard when we hit snags or roadblocks or we just aren't sure where to go next. Finding motivation when times are tough, when we are uncertain or afraid is the key to doing what we want. This doesn't mean that we should never quit; we just need to know when it is the right time to quit and when it is time to push through the fear and keep moving. No one will ever be able to teach you the difference, but you know. You just have to learn to tell the difference between the resistance and your true self. This sounds easy, but they sound a lot alike. 

I wish I had the perfect roadmap for you, a way to easily tell the difference. The truth is, I don't always know, either. But, I am still learning. This is one of the reasons I read so many blogs...I want to see how they do it, how they can tell the difference. We can learn from everyone around us. We have to keep learning. It's the only way we will grow and develop and chase our dreams. Just don't fall in to the trap of living vicariously through someone else. Live your life.

Aspirations

"What are your aspirations?" An innocent question posed last night as I snacked on some veggies at a holiday gathering. My answer...I have no clue. This isn't entirely true as there are lots of things I would like to do, but I have never been sure where to start. The question of what I want to do with my life floats through my mind at least once a day. In fact, I think about this all the time.

Many of us have lots of ideas and thoughts and dreams, but I can't seem to latch on to just one whenever I try to decide on my next move. I have thought about trying lots of different things, but the more I think about them, the less I actually do. I wish I had an answer for this question each time I was asked. I really wish I could say I was doing it right now. I love animals and I have a passion for their welfare, but I don't think this is where my aspirations end. I am still searching for my true self. I am learning who I am and what I have to offer the world.

There are some people who know exactly what they want to do or who they want to become. I am envious and a bit distrusting of anyone who claims this. I don't understand how someone can be so sure of what they want to do and how this never changes for them. Maybe there really are people like this. I just know I will continue to search, to learn, to try new things and one day I believe I will be able to to figure this out. I just hope I have the courage to jump at any opportunity to keep pushing forward.