Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
New years is about goal setting.
Sure. Go for it. I love goals.
But here’s a twist for you this year.
Write out all the accomplishments of the year that you are proud of. Only write down what you would honestly consider a real accomplishment.
Now you have something to beat for next year. Now when you get the ol’ “who’s counting?” you can respond, “I am.”
Stay Positive & Compete With The Best
Garth E. Beyer
Another question I get asked…
Here is my response
Stay Positive & A Major Competitor To Your Fears
Garth E. Beyer
but is that a good reason to not follow through?
Terrible Reasons To Not Follow Through:
– Someone else has done it already
– It sounds too much like another persons idea
– Your afraid it will end up looking like someone elses concoction
It’s an easy excuse not to ship something, not to follow through with an idea for fear of it being too much like someone else’s. However, that is even a greater reason to complete your project. Why wouldn’t you create something that’s similar to what you already know works and is a success?
Take for example the original comb, dating back over 5,000 years. Then innovators (most likely with some gruesome hair styles) ended up making the comb in different styles to accommodate different people. They stole like an artist.
So what if your idea feels too much like someone else’s. Either you will find a way for it to stand out or you will feel like the next Fonz. We don’t laugh at people for dressing up like him, we laugh with them.
Stay Positive & You’ll Enjoy This
Garth E. Beyer
You’re going to be criticized, judged, influenced, and swung at.
There’s no preventing it and there’s no reason to prevent it. Getting swung at will help you redirect what you want to say, what you mean, what you want the audience to understand. If you look at criticism as a opportunity to calibrate your crosshairs, then you can better succeed next time (There will always be a next time.)
However, the best of the best have a tough time handling brutal criticism. While there is no preventing it, you can weaken any future criticism.
Take a swing at yourself before anyone else gets a shot.
Look at your work from a critics point of view, from your audience’s point of view, from a random-person-just-coming-across-your-work’s point of view. Dont just criticize yourself before others do, make the adjustment so no one will criticize you the same way you just did. Run a self-evaluation before you release your work. It’s only then that you can really benefit from the input from your audience. If they make suggestions to what you already know, how do you learn anything new?
Stay Positive & Just Don’t Keep Swinging (everybody wants a turn)
Garth E. Beyer
Aside from when it’s frozen, I could tube on Lake Geneva endlessly. All the same, I could fish on Lake Michigan year round. Yet, YET! I need my happy time sitting on a bench beside a still pond, a serenely calm lake or a smooth flowing river.
We can’t have our yin without our yang. We all need our calm water.
Today seems as good as any to go find it.
Stay Positive & Work Smart, Rest Smarter
Garth E. Beyer
I’ve written a bunch about starting fresh this new year. This post is by far my favorite
Taking Inventory
Nah. It’s more like getting rid of your inventory. Very cut and dry.
Go through all of your lists right now: your projects, your folders, your notes, your journals, your goals, and either ship or delete them.
Simple right?
Well you’re going to come across a project and think to yourself, “Well this is something that I can’t ship right now because it’s unfinished and it’ll take time to be finished.”
Decide right now whether you will actually finish it within the next two months. If yes, then do it. If no, then either delete it or ship a short version of it. Put it out there for someone else to work on.
There are a couple of concepts at play here.
The first is that if your idea was remarkable enough, you would be working on it constantly or would be passionate enough to complete it within two months.
The second is that if you can withhold one of your ideas, one of your projects, then you are saying it’s not important enough to be delivered right away. (If it is, then now I’m mad that you’ve made me wait so long and won’t buy into it when you finally deliver it.)
The new year is about starting fresh. You have 21 days to go through all you have and either ship or delete. Ship or delete. Ship or delete.
In order for a door to open, you must close one. Actually, the cool thing about life is that when one door closes, a million open for you. How many will you have opened for the new year?
Stay Positive & Make Room For New Inventory
Garth E. Beyer
