Tag: goals
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How to stem the fright
The actor slips over their words; the violinist freezes mid-song; the shortstop misses an easy grounder. Mistakes happen, no matter the expert. But how many errors are due to overthinking? We worry as a preventative, living through hyperbole in our heads before experiencing any such horror in real life. Dizziness of anxiety indicates a lack…
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The perfect life is non-existent
Living the perfect life is a canard. Chasing exactitude is the primary cause of unhappiness. Instead, we should give in to life’s imperfections and invite more ambiguity. Being right leads one to forget how the world works. And for God’s sake, we don’t need another reality check. Alter the thoughts, alter the beliefs — everything…
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Growing one block of reality at a time
We take one step forward and two steps back. Effort never guarantees success but it always ensures learning. All great things happen because of discomfort. If we can persist through the pain and develop patience, there’s usually a rainbow waiting for us at the other end. But whatever we’re chasing needs to give us purpose.…
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Fleeting motivation
Here today, gone tomorrow. Motivation is fickle. But what if you promised yourself you’d get it done regardless of how you felt? Going to the gym, doing homework, emailing the boss — there is no time like now time. You’ll feel incentivized if, under no circumstance, you have to do it anyway. Good habits are…
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Faith can move mountains
“There is a positive correlation between the fear of death and the sense of unlived life,” writes Oliver Burkeman in The Antidote (Amazon). Futuring is a tough business. We toggle between our present number of choices along with desires and goals that reinforce the prioritization of time. Knowing that we can’t do it all, most people…
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Guided by the dream
Try to think without images. You can’t. Pictures make up the mind. Try to make a decision without some sort of confidence. You can’t. Even uncertainty snags onto temporary absolutes. Try to remain calm and dictate your inner talk. You can’t. Be prepared to hear the monkey mind instead. But try to achieve a goal…
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Live to work and work to live
We love to feel embattled because we like to think we labored for it. If we haven’t struggled, we haven’t yet lived. The urge to grind away at the remarkable supersedes trepidation. So we feel the fear and do it anyway. “I’ll tell you what freedom is to me: No fear. I mean, really –…
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You’re better off going into the wilderness
The game of goal setting is a choice. Instead of leaving your future to the whims of nature, you can create your own course and chase an ideal outcome. As Hunter S. Thompson advised: “a man who procrastinates in his CHOOSING will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.” Choice, however, does not…
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The nothing special
Look for a way of life, unmoored from staring at the donut hole. Conversely, the hybrid of work and life is what makes the donut whole. The game of goal-setting is paradoxically non-interventionist. You don’t attack the carrot, you chew on it slowly. The policy of non-engagement holds into force the inertia of nature’s progress.…
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Your vocation chooses you
We all start out with a dream, a goal of someone or something we want to emulate. We keep that dream close, putting up bedroom posters and memorizing phrases that propel us to keep pushing toward our goal. But then something else happens along the way? The creative gods tell us to do something else instead.…