Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
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2. 27 unspoken suit rules every man should know (look/read)
3. The art of negotiation (watch)
4. Lessons from the New York Times (read)
5. The danger of telling poor kids that college is the key to social mobility (read)
6. Best music journalism of 2013 (read)
7. 16 of your beloved childhood icons reimagined as psychopaths (look)
8. US Obesity spike brings bigger coffins (read) (potential counter-point)
We all have our ebb and flow. This time of year, though, typically marks the start of the ebb. School starts, numbers from last year’s sales get thoroughly reviewed and new strategies implemented, we’re kicking ourselves to meet our new year’s resolutions. It all adds to a busy lifestyle.
I’ve had the ebb of life smash me against the wall enough times to learn two valuable necessities to making the ebb more bearable.
1. Have plans ahead of time, before you schedule all your work deadlines and meetings. Make it so you work around scheduled times of fun and freedom. Not the other way around. It’s essential you make the plans now. It’s easier to cancel them than it is to plan them a week in advance while you’re already feeling behind on work. And even if you have to cancel last-minute, it’s the idea of having something to look forward to that makes all the time leading up to the last-minute cancel worth it.
2. Have a playful, maybe even pointless habit. For me, I make sure to do a word search or some type of brain game every day. Sometimes what stands between you making it through the ebb and just crashing is a little habitual, grounding nonsense. Doodle. Juggle. Play with legos. Make it weird. Make it you.
Stay Positive & Prepared, Always
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Two Yale students made news recently with their creation of a better version of the school’s course catalogue.
The site didn’t make Washington Post news for being a useful website. It made news for being blocked and shutdown by Yale. Just another example of higher education gatekeepers restricting student innovation.
It’s frustrating that while universities endorse the idea of innovation and creativity, they don’t provide the instruments to effectively create within policy guidelines.
Instead, school systems use their policies to restrict innovation. It’s their glass ceiling to creativity.
Some might argue it’s not a ceiling; that it’s the last roadblock to success. I say no.
Ideas aren’t like cars with a cinderblock pressing down on the gas pedal. Ideas have momentum, but when stopped, have to work at building the momentum again. And when two students get so far with an idea, restarting (to accommodate school policy) is more daunting than building some new idea.
The positive part?
It’s much more difficult to stop a passionate idea fueled by frustration.
Stay Positive & Take The Dyson Approach
the thing that makes people happy is simply making progress at meaningful work.
It’s not just about reaching goals. It’s about moving toward reaching them.
That’s why I have an issue when someone says they are unhappy. It’s obvious they are just standing still.
And you know what I say about standing still. Don’t you?
Stay Positive & Progress For Your Own Sake
I do a lot. I’m not bragging. Just stating the truth. Nor am I undermining others (you) or suggesting that no one does as much as me. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s why I’m writing this.
If you sparked a conversation with me one year ago about how motivated people are these days, I would have been blunt, conceited and a bit disappointed in the answer I felt I had to give.
These days, I still see people not doing much. However (!) what I failed to notice before is people are simply doing a little for a long time.
One editorial board meeting for me lasts no more than 30 minutes and I’m on to the next thing on my agenda. For most, the editorial board meeting would last an hour or more. What get’s done aside, everyone is doing something.
On a similar note, people don’t do a larger variety of things (like me) because the hustle and attention it takes is exhausting. I can’t count on two hands how many times I’ve crashed. The result of having a packed schedule is wishing you had more time to relax.
That’s where I’ve realized the bigger picture comes in. The bigger picture isn’t how I do all that I do, but it does help me do all that I do.
My busy schedule doesn’t make me feel like I need more time to relax and do nothing because any time that I feel overwhelmed, I stop to think of the bigger picture; that this is only one meeting that I’m getting frustrated at over out of the entire year or that I’m lucky enough to go home in 20 minutes to someone who is damn need bouncing off the walls with excitement to see me or that not much was accomplished at this seminar, but there’s always next.
It’s beautiful when people stop their lives to just sit down and relax and view the bigger picture.
It’s even more beautiful when you can keep moving in your life and view the bigger picture.
Stay Positive & Sometimes A New Lens Helps
Photo Credit
Two questions to ask yourself at any given time.
1. How do you want to feel?
2. What will make you feel that way?
It’s okay to ask those questions day in and day out. Actually, it’s encouraged.
Stay Positive & On Track
1. What every creative person with a product or service needs to know (read)
2. 15 funny quotes (& why we should laugh, like, right now) (read)
3. SHHH! How silence can make you a better leader (read)
4. 365 grateful (watch/read)
5. Ego depletion: your willpower is finite (short read)
6. 50 Problems in 50 days: The power of not knowing (read)
