Struggle

Movement Tells A Story

Garth Beyer

Story Ladder

What you’re passionate about doesn’t necessarily come easy. No matter if you’re doing what you love or not, you’re still climbing a ladder, trying to reach the top, trying to make progress.

Creating art is a method of taking on problems from an outer level with complete focus and forming them into an almost subconscious solution process that allows you to then focus on the next problem. Each step of the ladder presents a new problem to solve. At face value, it’s not enjoyable, not fun, but what sets an artist apart from others who climb is that they find a way to love the process, to enjoy the struggle.

We build value in ourselves when we climb the ladder, when we accomplish goals, when we are moving. When we stop moving up the ladder to say “look at me now,” we tell the wrong story. Humans are inclined to see narratives where there are none because it can afford meaning to our lives, Cody Delistraty at The Atlantic writes. Storytelling when standing still is an oxymoron. It doesn’t resonate well, it doesn’t inspire, it doesn’t tell the message you really want to be telling.

People view you differently when seeing where you’re at now, compared to where you’re going. Sure, saying where you’ve been and what you’ve accomplished and how you got to where you’re at now can be remarkable, but only if people know there is more to come from you; that where you decided to stop and shout down is not the highest you will climb.

Movement tells a story, and people die standing still.

If tasks start seeming easy, if you tackle all your problems subconsciously, if there’s no longer need to focus, no struggle with a problem, it means you’ve stopped climbing, that you’re standing still.

 

Stay Positive & Is That Really The Story You Want To Tell?

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After Years Of Arguing It

After Years Of Arguing It

Garth Beyer

Writer Garth Beyer

I’ll finally admit it… Identifying your passion, discovering what it is you really love to do, finding your purpose is a damn difficult thing to do.

For some it seems to come so natural. That, too, I once believed. I don’t anymore. Being more forward with you, I thought I knew I always wanted to be a writer, an entrepreneur and a PR guy (even though I didn’t know the term PR at the time). “It’s  just who I am!” I would tell people.

Investigating my past, though, I can’t recall the moment when I knew. There was no epiphany, no wide-realization, no godly pronouncement of my passion.

After scrutinizing my past, I realized that it was through a series of forcing, tricking, and driving myself to love the things I did that lead me to declare I was a writer, I was an entrepreneur, I was what I now know is called a public relations strategist.

I didn’t always love writing, but I was always finding ways to love it. (Still am.) It started with poetry because I knew I couldn’t fail. It moved on to bullshitting school papers because I could mock the system when I received the same grade as someone who spent weeks on the same paper, and I, only hours. Writing became more fun when I could write love letters and make women blush. And starting this blog? Best decision of my life for reasons it would take a book to detail.

I didn’t always want to be an entrepreneur either, but I always found ways to love it. (Still do.) I started my own vending machine business with my dad because I loved eating the leftover candy. I helped run a card shop because I loved collecting pokemon cards at the time and got to watch old batman movies when no one was in the shop. Instead of a lemonade stand, I had a beanie babies stand because it connected me with more kids my age.

I didn’t always want to go into Public Relations, but it was a knack of mine finding ways to love it. (Still is.) Meeting new people and going to events alone was rough, but I made business cards for myself. They made me feel I deserved to be there even though I didn’t have an established PR business. I went to dozens of Toastmaster (public speaking org) meetings, not because I was fearless, but because I could learn from others’ failures so I didn’t make the same when I finally forced myself to the podium.

Passion isn’t really something you seek out on purpose, it’s more of something you come across. You don’t need an “aha” moment to realize what it is you’ve been put on this world to do. You get there by finding reasons to love what you’re already doing.

 

Stay Positive & You’ll Do What You Love, When You Love What You Do