Author: Garth Beyer

How You Know That You Are Doing What You Need To

Garth Beyer

If this is at all confusing, it’s because you have a difficult time accepting it. The same went for me at first.

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When there are things that you would rather be doing or that you just want to do, perhaps going to the art museum, hanging around the park more often, or reading more, you know that you have to keep doing what you’re doing.

That craving – when you are actually busy – to do other things (and sometimes even to do nothing) means you’re on the right track and that you need to keep going.

Our minds direct our attention towards things that we would rather be doing because what we are doing is hard work. Our brain wants to distract us, wants to pull our attention toward something more entertaining (and less productive). Often referred to as the lizard brain, this subconscious mental effort for distraction is a cloak of fear. The more we get on the path of productivity, reaching our goals, putting in emotional labor, and putting ourselves and our art out there, the more fear sets in and the lizard brain starts working in every way possible.

The most popular way clearly being the desire to do something more fun than what you are currently doing.

When really, if what you have to be focusing on now didn’t exist, you wouldn’t really be doing what you think you would rather be doing now. You’d be doing nothing.

 

Stay Positive & Outsmart Your Brain. Push Through

Garth E. Beyer

Two Options To Productivity

Garth Beyer

The real worker, the true productive worker gives herself two options when in the zone, in the workplace. Break or Hack

Break a few rules. Break the status-quo. Break the task into smaller steps. Break the consistency and add some more mistakes. Break her back to make it work. Break it down to understand it better. Break away from reality.

or

Hack the job to make it more efficient. Hack your work so you can do more of what makes you happy. Hack away at everything that is holding you back. Hack into the flow.

Both options lead to a productive – very productive – work day.

 

Stay Positive & You Just May Not Even Consider It Work

Garth E. Beyer

Until You Stumble

Garth Beyer

Keep on going and you will stumble on to something remarkable. Notice how I didn’t say that you will find a treasure chest. Notice how I didn’t say you would stop in front of and look up at your reward. Notice how I didn’t say that you would meet your goal face-to-face. No.

We race so quickly to our goals, that when we fall, we never notice the X on the ground. We get back up and keep racing, leaving whatever reward (which often comes in the form of a lesson – at least at the early stages -) on the ground.

 

Stay Positive & Look Where You Stumble Before You Get Going Again

Garth E. Beyer

A Tip Or Two About Asking Questions

Garth Beyer

Why is it that people refuse to ask questions unless they are reallllly good questions. (Yes, this post also applies to yesterdays post: asking for help)

Moreover, why is it that people refuse to think hard enough until they come up with a realllly good question.

Questions do much more than receive answers, they open doors – millions of them – and opportunities too.

The quickest way to get someone (professor, step-family, good-looking person sitting by you) to know and remember your name, ask them a question. The quickest way to an answer, to the solution of a problem, ask questions. The quickest way to learning what you need to know to get what you want … you guessed it, ask a question.

Rarely in life is “the quickest way” ever “the best way.”

But when it comes to asking questions, it is.

 

Stay Positive & Ask Away To Your Goals

Garth E. Beyer

A Not So Gentle Reminder

Garth Beyer

Those who care most about you, don’t care whether you ask for their help, assistance, input, opinion, or need. What I know is that you, I, and most people forget that 99% of the time, the people who care about us are more happy to help us than we ever are being helped.

The two most used reasons you never ask for help:

1. You don’t want to be looked down upon by possibly asking too much.

2. You forget that there are people all around you caring, willing to help.

To the first, realize that you would only ever ask something from someone who cares about you. No one asks someone who doesn’t care about them for something. (If they do, it always goes ignored. The same result as not asking at all.) Then think of all the people that care about you. Don’t measure it. Don’t categorize them by the degree in which they care about you. Don’t group them into those who really care about you because they are family or who don’t care too much because they are just friends. No. The miraculous light that rarely gets shined on the idea of asking for help from those who care about you is that no matter how much they care, they will all be willing to do the same thing for you. Yes, it may take a bit more persuasion and communication of the benefit, but they always will. I could ask my friend that I haven’t seen in years to loan me a grand to fix up my car or I could ask my close uncle. Same result.

To the second: now is when the not so gentle reminder comes in. If you forget that there are people all around you that care about you, it’s not their fault for not showing it. No. It’s your fault for not making it so that they are happy to show they care. It’s your fault for not making them feel good about caring about you. This is where the give-and-take of the world originates. If I ask my friend, who cares about me, to loan me a grand to fix up my car, and I blow $800 at a casino, do you think my friend is going to boast about helping me when I blew most of the money away?

To ask for help is to not only tell yourself, but the person who is helping you too, that you will make them happy that they helped, happy that they cared, and happy that it was all worth it.

The most interesting aspect to asking for help is that it’s one of the strongest paths to growth. Asking for help is far from selfish because in order to reap the benefits, you have to think of yourself and the person helping you. And when you do that, it creates a ripple effect around both of you.

 

Stay Positive & Test It For Yourself, Find Who You Can Help

Garth E. Beyer

Everyone Can Be A Genius

Garth Beyer

Contrary to belief, geniuses isn’t measured by I.Q. It’s not measured by the choices you make on a multiple choice question. It’s not even measured on a scale.

Genius is measured by making continuous efforts. Efforts to grow, efforts to make mistakes, efforts to try and try again until success is reached.

 

Stay Positive & Einstein It Up

Garth E. Beyer

Self-Destruction And The Need For It

Garth Beyer

Unlike most reality shows, Destroy Build Destroy actually sets an extremely positive theme and lesson for those with an open enough mind to see it: monumental creations can be constructed out of the destruction of almost any object.

Take a look at another example: tattooing.

Tattooing, which is a marvelous form of art – yet at the same time, mutilation – is also creation through destruction. The act of being tattooed is destroying your body, your skin. It involves pain, changing an original form, and there is blood (plenty of it) as proof. Yet, after being tattooed, something artistically intrinsic has been printed on your body. Creation through destruction.

We must pay a price for something to be created through destruction. At times it is money, other times it is emotions, personal attachments, relationships, or claimed sentimental objects.

The concept of creation through destruction is clear. If your mind is still open to this theme, can you imagine a way that the destruction of your self could lead to a creation of something greater?

If this concept can be applied to absolutely any object in the world, why wouldn’t it also apply to us, as humans, as people, as moving, being, emotionally thinking living beings.

Can we be destroyed? Yes. But, can we self-destruct? We’re actually pretty good at it.

The real trouble is making it so our self-destruction leads to creation. Most of the time our self-destruction is just that. We will beat ourselves down, criticize our own work, tell ourselves we are not good enough. We will easily toss out our own work, quickly choose someone else before we choose ourselves, we will consciously toss our time away to unproductive matters.

The destroy part, we have that down pat. The creation part though, can use some work. As humans, metaphorically speaking, when our heads get chopped off – or when we chop them off ourselves – we have the ability to grow two back. That involves creation. That involves different perspectives, an open mind, and an incessant need to learn from our mistakes and everything around us.

Contrary to belief, the world is pretty easy on us, especially if we comply, follow orders, and never make a rumpus. In fact, it’s a smooth operation as long as we don’t try to change anything. It’s for this reason that self-destruction is a necessary process for creation, for art, for growth, and most importantly, for experience.

We can let the destruction of our selves ruin us, or we can create something remarkable from it.

 

Stay Positive & Become Part Of The Tribe Of Fireweeds

Garth E. Beyer

For those who don’t know, fireweeds mainly grow only after a forest fire.