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Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s fine. It’s not their journey to make sense of. It’s yours.

Zero Dean

Author | Photographer | CG Artist | Filmmaker

Taking action

Productive boredom

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Bored?

Think about a problem in the world and imagine ways to solve it.

That should keep you busy.

Don’t feel qualified?

Remember, conventional thinking doesn’t change the world, crazy ideas do.

Don’t waste your time telling the world that you’re bored. The world doesn’t care.

But if you tell the world the of the problems you’re trying to solve, you may just pique the interest of others who not only care enough about the problems to accept the invitation to help you, they might have crazy enough ideas to do it.

Related:

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Superficial ego-boosting memes

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Internet trolls are one of the reasons I don’t agree with superficial ego-boosting memes like:

“You’re perfect.”, “You’re awesome.”, “You’re beautiful just the way you are.”

Because the fact is, we’re all a work-in-progress and everyone has room for improvement.

Especially people who spend their time trying to make life difficult for others.

Memes like this may get a lot of likes on social media, but I don’t believe that blanket statements like “You’re beautiful” shared with complete strangers are sincere sentiments.

They’re simply superficial ego-boosters. They don’t help (and if they do “help”, they don’t help long).

It’s better and much more effective to tell people how you feel about them directly than it is to just spew compliments to the masses in hope for likes in return.

As for being beautiful, perfect, and awesome…

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Setbacks and self-doubt

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If you create goals with confidence, but sometimes suffer from self-doubt, realize that it’s a sign that you’re on the right track, not the wrong one.

Because if your aspirations don’t push you beyond your comfort zone, you’re not aiming high enough.

The most worthwhile goals in your life will be mountains, not molehills. They will not only force you to face challenges you expect, they’ll force you overcome obstacles you couldn’t anticipate when you started.

It’s not the challenges we expect on a journey that force us to face self-doubt as much as it’s those we never see coming. Learn to expect the unexpected and don’t be deterred by it.

Whenever self-doubt strikes on your journey, remind yourself why you started and focus not on how far you are from your goal, but instead on how far you’ve come.

Focus on your progress and your victories, no matter how small. Focus on the knowledge you’ve gained on your journey and all the new insights you can convert into wisdom.

Accept setbacks and self-doubt as part of your journey and refuse to let them deter you from the greatness you know is within you.

Remember that you didn’t pick your goals because you knew they would be easy, you picked them knowing they were hard but worthwhile.

Related:

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“Less is more.”

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“Less is more.”

Sometimes that’s true. And sometimes the answer isn’t less, it’s more.

Always remember that clever sayings may contain wisdom, but they are not rules that were never meant to be broken.

Sometimes the answers in life are counterintuitive. Ancient wisdom or conventional thinking don’t apply to every conceivable situation.

Sometimes less is less.

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If not now, when?

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If you don’t take steps to overcome your shyness, procrastination, bad habits, or any other thing that may lead to issues in your life, when are you going to?

If you don’t get on the path to living a healthier lifestyle soon, when will you?

If you don’t make concrete plans to do the awesome things you’ve always wanted to do, when will they get done?

If you don’t develop the discipline necessary to follow through with your New Year’s resolutions year after year, will you ever?

The fact is, people often put things off until it’s too late. We fall victim to the belief that there will always be time.

But time passes. It never stops.

Days, weeks, months, even years go by without people taking action on the things they intended to do.

One only gets to experience what it’s like to be and do things at a certain age when one is that age.

You’ll only be young once. You’ll only be in your twenties, thirties, forties… once. And in every decade that passes, you are no longer the same. Lifestyles, responsibilities, priorities change.

Of all the things we get in life, we can never get more time.

If you want to accomplish anything in life, you can’t just think about it. And you can’t just keeping pushing it off until the time is right or everything is perfect.

You have to commit to taking action on whatever it is you truly wish to do.

Commit to writing down what you truly want to do in life. Commit to taking the steps necessary to figure out how to do it. Break down every aspect of what you wish to accomplish into achievable goals. And then commit to meeting them.

Make it happen.

Related:

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Motivation & achievement

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It has been said that discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most. But knowing what you truly want and why you want it can be as important as the discipline necessary to attain it.

Without a genuine internal desire to accomplish a very specific “something”, it can not only be difficult to do what is necessary meet a goal, it can be difficult to simply find the motivation to get started.

While motivation from external sources such as inspirational quotes, self-help books, or motivational speakers may temporarily set fire to our desire to achieve, these fires are often quick to burn out.

Zig Ziglar said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.”

This is a clever saying, but it’s more of a crutch for motivation than an elegant long-lasting solution.

As I’ve said before…

“You can read a million motivational sayings to pump yourself up — or echo them to others until you’re blue in the face — but that won’t change anything unless you take action and consistently change your behavior.”

This isn’t to say there is anything wrong with using external motivation as a tool. It works. But the size of the self-help industry is an indication that external motivation doesn’t last.

When one’s motivation is dependent on external sources, the moment those sources are absent is the moment one’s motivation begins to fade. This is because motivation is a state of mind.

And if a particular state of one’s mind is dependent on the availability of things it doesn’t always have control over, it can be difficult to attain the state of mind associated with those things when they’re unavailable.

This is why it’s important to learn how to develop the mental discipline necessary to be one’s own source of motivation.

“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.” — Stephen R. Covey

When one is able to motivate themselves, they light a kind of fire that can burn indefinitely. And for these kinds of fires to be set alight, one must know what they want and why they want it — even if what one wants is to simply to seek pleasure from something or the satisfaction of accomplishment.

It has been said that 90 percent of success is showing up. I disagree.

I’d say, the largest contributor to success is knowing exactly what you want. The next largest is having the proper motivation to achieve it. And the remaining amount, roughly 20 percent, is doing what is necessary to get results.

(This also complements The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule) which states that, in most endeavors, roughly 20% of the work produces 80% of the results.)

Along the way to achieving whatever it is you desire, make sure your mindset is conducive to creating positive thought processes that reinforce your efforts.

Because until one changes the way they think, they will continue to follow familiar patterns in life. An example of this is when people start new endeavors with enthusiasm (or make New Year’s resolutions), but then fail to find the motivation necessary to follow through after obstacles arise.

The fire you light within yourself must not only burn hot enough to stay alight during turbulent times, it mustn’t be dependent on things you have no control over.

“Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.” — Les Brown

Create and maintain your own motivation by having a clear understanding of what you want and why you want it and then reinforce your positive thought process to achieve it until it becomes not just a habit, but a way of life.

“Everything you want should be yours: the type of work you want; the relationships you need; the social, mental, and aesthetic stimulation that will make you happy and fulfilled; the money you require for the lifestyle that is appropriate to you; and any requirement that you may (or may not) have for achievement or service to others. If you don’t aim for it all, you’ll never get it all. To aim for it requires that you know what you want.” — Richard Koch

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Life happens.

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Life happens.

Sometimes it’s good.
Sometimes it’s bad.

And sometimes it dumps a pile of shit in your path.

What matters is not whether it’s fair (it often isn’t).
What matters is how one chooses to deal with it.

We can spend time complaining.
We can spend time pointing the finger.
We can spend time blaming others for the situations we find ourselves in.
And we can learn to identify as a victim of the unfairness of life.

Or we can take personal responsibility for our lives and use our ability to seek out more favorable options (including how to cope) and move on.

Every single person on the planet is forced to deal with hardship and misfortune at one time or another.

Sometimes it’s because we make bad decisions.
Sometimes it’s because we tolerate things far longer than we should.
Sometimes it’s because we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And sometimes we are simply thrust into things we don’t want to be a part of.

But that’s life.
It happens to everyone at one time or another.

You don’t improve your life by complaining about the one you have.
You don’t improve your life by refusing to take personal responsibility for it.

You improve your life by taking steps to change it for the better.

It can be a lot of work — and it may require some sacrifices — but taking personal responsibility for one’s life and taking steps to change it is far more effective than staying where one is, doing nothing, and complaining about the view.

The fact is, our lives are a direct reflection of our priorities.

Want to be healthier? Focus on your health.
Want to be smarter? Focus on your education.
Want to be a better person? Focus on self-improvement.
Want to be more resilient? Challenge yourself.
Want to get over your fears? Face them.

If we don’t like where we are in life, we can change that. But complaining about it won’t do it. And blaming others won’t do it either.

Want a better life? Work for it.

Change your priorities and you change your life.

No one else is going to do it for you.

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

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“Think positive.” No. Think intelligently.

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“Think positive.”

No.

Think intelligently

  • Know what you want.
  • Believe it’s possible.
  • Create a strategy to achieve your desire.
  • Take action to make it happen.
  • Acknowledge obstacles & focus on solutions to overcome them.
  • Make mistakes & learn from them.
  • Refine your strategy as necessary.
  • And push forward.

Relying on chance and wishful thinking is not an effective way to dictate what happens to you — or because of you — in life.

Just because “think positive” is a nice thing to say doesn’t mean it’s going to do you any good. Without a strategy, “Think positive” is a meaningless catchphrase.

Think *intelligently* and take action.

It is through being kind, being compassionate, leading by example, and inspiring others with your actions that you will make a far bigger difference in your own life — and the lives of those around you — than you will if you just “think positive”.

Memes don’t change your life. *You* do when you know what you want and you act with intention.

“A person who has resolved to ‘think positive’ must constantly scan his or her mind for negative thoughts – there’s no other way that the mind could ever gauge its success at the operation – yet that scanning will draw attention to the presence of negative thoughts.” — Oliver Burkeman from The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

Related:

Lessons Learned from The Path Less Traveled by Zero Dean

“One of the most counterproductive pieces of advice spewed from keynotes, gurus, and motivational speakers of every stripe is this: Think positively. Why? It’s not a one-size-fits-all guide to leadership (or life) and adds considerably to your stress load. Because you not only have to tackle the obstacles you’re already facing; you have to also wrestle any negative thoughts you have about them to the ground.” — Jan Bruce (Forbes contributor)

Supplemental:

Positive thinking vs positive doing

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Note: My “confessions of the day” are part of an ongoing theme on my entertainment blog, but this one seems more appropriate over here.

Confession of the day:

I used to be more of a “positive thinking person”.

I fell victim to the repeated message of “The Secret” as much as anyone.

“Just believe in yourself! Know what you want is possible. The universe will bend to your will and deliver it. You just have to believe it to see it. Law of Attraction, baby!”

And while the main message is primarily a good one, it isn’t complete. It leads people to think that if all they do is surround themselves with vision boards or want something badly enough, they’ll get it.

A million or more starving children in the world would indicate otherwise. Wishing for food or wealth or good health doesn’t deliver it.

“I’m sorry kid, but you don’t get to eat today because you didn’t want food badly enough.”

Now I’m more of a “positive doing person”.

If you truly want something, you have to take action and work for it. Making a vision board isn’t the kind of work I’m talking about.

Wishful thinking doesn’t make things happen nearly as well as working for those things does.

Yes, stay positive. Believe in yourself. Know what you want. Believe you can get it.

But above all, take action and work for it.

—

“But The Secret and vision boards and vividly imagining what you want works. You just don’t believe it enough. That’s why it doesn’t work for you.”

Playing the lottery also “works” for some people sometimes, too.

And taking your life savings and betting it all on black at the Roulette table has even better odds than that.

People sometimes get what they want and then assume the wrong reasons why they got it.

You can rely on chance and wishful thinking if you want. And it may appear to work for you.

But correlation does not imply causation.

In the end, it’s still the people who work for what they want that are more likely to get it than those who sit back and fantasize about it their entire lives.

Yes, make vision boards. Vividly imagine what you want. Surround yourself with positivity.

But also have a strategy, take action, and work for what you desire.

Don’t just dream about it.

Please see this comic. It perfectly illustrates what I’m saying:

“Shonda Rhimes, A Screenwriter’s Advice” by Zen Pencils.

See also:

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