Goals

Habit Is A Daily Thing

Garth Beyer

Habit is what you do today, not what you did yesterday or what you will do tomorrow. If you disagree, let me ask you this:

The first day that you begin something that you want to consistently do each day, is that not considered a habit?

If not, then when is what you do finally a habit? I love habits because you can only measure them by the day. I love habits because you can only break them by the day. I say this, not to persuade you to agree, but to encourage to keep at your goals each day.

It’s much like the idea of being one bite away from getting back on your diet. Don’t let the lack of doing something yesterday stop you from doing it today. Just the same, don’t let the inability to do something over the weekend stop you from doing it today.

When it comes to habit, numbers mean nothing. All that matters is today and if you do what you set out to do.

 

Stay Positive & Deal With Tomorrow,  Tomorrow

Garth E. Beyer

Catch Yourself

Garth Beyer

When you fall, fall hard. Learn from it and get back up.

But before you fall, try to catch yourself.

Too many artists get the two confused and try to catch themselves falling or rely on some other safety net to prevent getting hurt, to prevent failure. Don’t.

safety-net

What you want to do is to catch yourself losing track of your goals, or your motivation, or swaying into oncoming traffic. To do so, you have to develop three elements to your psyche.

1. Cautiousness

2. Observation

3. Mental Risk Taking

If you’ve read any of my content before, you’re likely wondering why I am advising cautiousness. I am all for a gamble, but you need to know the consequences going into it. To be cautious is to acknowledge the potential negative consequences.

To understand a decision, you have to observe everything about it. Have other people made a similar decision? What factors may affect your choice later that are not now? What are all the pieces that need to be in place before a decision can be made effectively? Essentially, what’s changing, in constant motion and how does it affect you?

Mental risk taking means to think through the unthinkable, the impossible, to explore every avenue available. Have you ever heard someone say there are only X number of ways to do something? The obstacle of mental risk taking is to think of one more way then what has already been thought of. Better yet, think of Parkour. Ask a regular pedestrian what is the fastest route to get from A to B and they will give you directions. Ask a tracuer and they will tell you to jump over this fence, run through that lot, leap over this creek and race across the rusted bridge. Something a layperson wouldn’t.

 

Stay Positive & Try Not To Fall, But When You Do, Fall Hard

Garth E. Beyer

A List Of 30 Lists

Garth Beyer

Lists

A list of…

  1. What you are thankful for
  2. The moments in life you felt most alive
  3. This week’s goals
  4. Goals to be met within five years
  5. 99 ridiculous things you want to do before you die (no limit on possibility)
  6. What is stopping you from doing what you need to do
  7. What is stopping you from doing what you want to do (yes, they’re different)
  8. Every book you have read (not a list of every book you want to read!)
  9. Sources of inspiration
  10. Places you want to visit (test: can’t be on the first page of a Google search)
  11. Websites/podcasts that you must visit weekly, if not daily
  12. Your top 10 bad habits to break
  13. All the contacts you have made and something special about them
  14. Songs that get you moving
  15. Every source you have been quoted or mentioned
  16. What you want in a significant other
  17. Ideas that have been rejected, laughed at, or you didn’t deem as “good enough”
  18. Things to feel okay about (here is a start)
  19. What you don’t need to make a list for (things you do naturally, habitually)
  20. What you want your kids to know that you didn’t know growing up
  21. Mistakes you have made
  22. What you learned from those mistakes
  23. Things to admit now that you will later, anyway (here’s some ideas)
  24. Hurdles that have stopped you in the past
  25. What you love
  26. How you are different from other people, what makes you a niche
  27. What is happening right now without your effort that is building your brand
  28. People you want to meet in the next 10 years
  29. Your personal bests (running, blogging, audience count, viewers, subscribers)
  30. What is stopping you from making these lists when you know it will only help you

Stay Positive & Get Going

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

The Three Whales

Garth Beyer

Twitter Whale

The killer whale and the serial whale are always out to get you.

The killer whale is that large weight holding you back from completing your project (or for some, starting it). The killer whale, well, kills. It kills your passion, your motivation, your hope, and eventually your art (or for some, just the idea of it).

The serial whale is the whale that you actually come face to face with while you’re doing the hard work of making your art. The serial whale doesn’t communicate through loud screeches and cries. No. The serial whale has a voice that it uses to tell you you’re not good enough, that your goal can’t be reached, that you should just give up. (Who knew the little voice syndrome was actually a whale talking to you. Things get more and more weird.)

Then you have the fail whale (pictured above).

The fact the whale is smiling says more than words can right now.

 

Stay Positive & The Fail Whale Is Okay, It’s The Other Two That Need To Be Poached

Garth E. Beyer

Steps To Comfort

Garth Beyer

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I’m still smirking from when the idea for this post first popped in my mind.  I am far from ever liking the idea of getting comfortable. In fact, I advocate the complete opposite, that you get uncomfortable.

Then I read the following advice,

“Challenge yourself. Take greater and greater risks. Don’t stay in your comfort zone; enjoy the comfort at the end of each step.”

How true is the last statement. It means that when you finally get your cake, make sure to eat it too. Enjoy the accomplishment. Enjoy the new sense of familiarity. Enjoy being comfortable with meeting new goals.

I never thought comfort could be associated with moving forward. Proved me wrong.

 

Stay Positive & “Get Comfortable” Still Feels Weird Saying

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit

How Do YOU Know?

Garth Beyer

Whether you’re the one asking or being asked, the answer has little to do with the mind.

You can analyze, strategize, and organize a project so that the results you want are surely the results you will get. But you never actually know.

Boy asks girl what her favorite color is. Girl says purple. Five years (or five months, or five minutes later – it doesn’t really matter) go by. Girl asks the boy what her favorite color is. Boy says purple. Girl frowns. “It’s blue,” she says.

Everything is networking and networking involves connecting with people and people change their minds more often than their clothes. What needs to be understood, though, is that despite these changes (e.g., fear based step-backs, road block detours, juxtaposed worldviews, popped filter bubbles.) the results aimed for can still be attained.

When you are at the phase of “how do YOU know,” you are immediately the authority, the leader, the one looked up to.

Truly, what they want to know is if they can trust you. If they can benefit from following you. And if you answer with “I just do,” you’re answering with your heart, not your mind.

And THAT is how you know.

 

Stay Positive & If You Don’t Feel It In Your Gut, Aim For Different Results

Garth E. Beyer