I don’t believe we can be everything to everyone, so there has to be some compromise in what we expect from one another. Now, the safe choice is to take most messages you receive with a grain of salt and learn to ignore that which does not truly matter. Which makes me think that the Message is more important than the Delivery.

It’s a question of Action and Meaning. Do we place more emphasis on what we hear or what we see. If you boss tells you that you’re a valuable part of the company, but routinely treats you like you’re expendable, what should you believe? If your spouse tells you that you mean the world to them, and you can see that there are many other things that receive their care and attention, what should you believe?

If you tell someone that you don’t have time to come through on a deadline, but you find yourself whiling away 1, 2, 3 hours on the internet, or in front of the TV, every day… what should they believe?

Should we be held most accountable for the actions we produce or the words that proceed them?

I don’t have the answer to that question. What do you think?

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#1:  If You Only Plan One Thing…

Make sure you plan your life. You can be a panster and (as the nickname alludes) write by the seat of your pants. It’s acceptable and it’s valid. If that is how you work, then by all means work that way. Or you can be a planner and work out most of the major details before you sit down to write. Either way will get you from Once Upon A Time to The End, just like some mix of the two will.

However you choose to tackle the mountainous task of weaving a narrative, above all you need to plan your life to a degree. This means having a plan for when life threatens your admittedly crazy plan to do something tremendous. If you have had much experience with attempting to stretch beyond what you thought was possible into new territory you know that the monkey wrench is inevitable. It’s non-negotiable.

Death, taxes, and monkey wrenches in your plans. Three constants. What you do about the wrench is the important part. That takes forethought or a whole lot of luck. I like to count on forethought personally.

#2:  You Don’t Cook A Feast By Watching Cooking Shows

And you don’t write a book by reading about writing books… or listening to podcasts by your favorite authors… or watching interviews and videos that give you essential tips that all writers just have to have. It’s alright to get some consultations, it’s actually a really good thing. However, none of those things can replace the time spent with your butt in the chair and the pen (tablet, keyboard, whatever) in your hand. This lesson is one I struggle with because I am a consumer. I was raised in the 90s. Consuming is kind of what we learned to do and that trend has only gotten worse.

But you don’t cook a feast by watching someone else do it. You get in the kitchen, you make a mess, you taste the finished product, and then you try again. Often. Every day even, depending on how serious you take this sort of thing. I figure if you can get used to regularly writing 600 words in an hour, with about the same amount of effort that one puts into watching an hour of television (that’s 10 words a minute, so we’re talking reeeallly minimal effort right?) you can easily finish a novel in 30 days. 10 words per minute, for roughly 180 minutes out of every day. The trick is to just work on that one hour.

#3:  The Sum Is Greater Than The Whole

Mastering that hour is the key to mastering writing I think. If you can focus in for an hour each day and produce 600 words (just 10 words per minute right?), you can conceivably finish a book in about 3-6 months (50k-100k words) leaving you another 6 months or so to edit it. If you approach the task of writing a book as this undertaking that requires XX amount of hours for XX amount of days to produce XXXX high-quality, immediately publishable words… well you’re setting yourself up for a rough time.

But if you can focus in on the fact that repeatedly mastering just one hour out of your day will bring you to your goal, you can accomplish some pretty amazing things.

Looking Ahead

So how can I incorporate these things into future writing. Well, personally I would benefit from treating writing the same way that I treat physical exercise. I plan ahead for it. I take it in small, deliberate steps. I know how to adapt if everything outside of lifting turns upside down. I give myself between one and two hours on the day that workout. It’s exclusive time. No phone (usually). No emails. Nothing but me, my music, and whatever’s making me sweat that day. And I do it religiously three times per week (very few exceptions).

If I can do that, it shouldn’t be too hard to carve out an hour to work on a skill that I want as a permanent addition to my repertoire. If at any time that hour seems more daunting than lifting a couple hundred pounds, I’ll know that my mental game is really lagging behind the physical.

If you’ve done NaNo before, what’ve you learned from the experience?

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1. Insanity Is The Order Of The Day
2. Writers Everywhere Have My Respect

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Image courtesy possibilityadvocate

Todays words from the digital man cave are about Reason #30….

A lot of reasons have been posted here over time, and I think I’ll stop with 30. I suppose I could keep going, since there are a number of reasons to like the guy, his website and his mission, but the last thing I’ll mention is his style. He just writes. I can’t remember where on his website he describes his method, but he doesn’t necessarily follow the conventions of blogging. For the most part I’m still stuck on blogging as it is widely accepted. Shorter articles. Relating posts with links so that people spend more time on the website and have more exposure to the content/advertising, etc. All this is good and fine, if your goal is to have those ads be viewed as many times as possible, clicked a few times, a product pushed here or there. Monetizing your blog. That is certainly one way to go.

If you’re writing for the sake of writing, or writing to cover a topic, you do yourself an injustice by sticking to 350 words or less. Because how much are you really going to say in that time? And how much will you really connect with your audience? I’ve still got it in my head that people have short attention spans and you’ve gotta be quick, and interactive. I do actually believe this is true. That’s just the generation I grew up in.

But I also know that if you’re compelling, or honest, or speak with an original voice (not necessarily an original topic), people will listen. They will stick around long enough to see where you’re coming from and what you’re about.

If you haven’t already seen yet that Steve Pavlina is someone worth paying attention to on the web, you just haven’t been paying attention. Sure, his website probably can be classified as “self-help” but if you assume you know what he’s about without taking a moment to understand him at least a little bit, you’re going to miss out on something that could change the way you look at life, and your journey through it.

Related posts:

1. Reason #19 Why I Want To Meet Steve Pavlina
2. Reason #1 Why I Want to Meet Steve Pavlina
3. Reason #27 Why I Want to Meet Steve Pavlina

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It’s like reaching a place of zen in your work. If anything about rap can be called zen-like. Now obviously this guy is in the entertainment industry so work for him often looks like play to the rest of us, but there’s more going on here.

This guy is having fun. With something as simple and common place as breakfast. And, crazily enough, at the same time this is work. There is balance in that video. Work and play. Together. Work made fun. Strange concept for many in this day and age but it can be reality. I might even go so far as to say that it should be reality (some of the time) for everyone. Work can be fun, and it can be fulfilling, and it can be awesome.

You don’t have to be an entertainer to make sure life is entertaining. Life can bring you to remarkable places if you keep your eyes open. That’s something I’m re-learning all the time.

Till next time.

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I’m not psychic, and I can’t see the future but I’ve got a simple little test that might help you out.

Be Honest, Ask Yourself

Are you fighting for it? It’s a really simple question but one you have to ask honestly and answer honestly if you expect to get anywhere. Are you fighting for it? Does it really matter to you how it turns out, for better or worse?

If the answer is no, then there it is. We fight for the things we want. Most people work not for the love of the job, but for what the job provides them. If you’re not passionate enough about what you’re doing to stay until the job is done, maybe it’s not what you’re supposed to be doing.

If the answer is yes, ask yourself one more question. How hard are you fighting? This isn’t a trick question. And it’s one you can’t BS your way through. You have to take a look beyond your intentions to the product of your actions. Let me give you an example.

You’re in college, you’ve got some tough classes, and you say you want to do well in them. But you also love to watch Grey’s Anatomy every week. You make sure that can happen on a weekly basis no matter what, but you also complain that you don’t have enough time to meet with a tutor for that upper division Comparative Lit class. They just aren’t willing enough to accommodate your busy schedule you say to yourself and friends.

Now… how hard are you fighting for that Comp Lit grade? I mean really. How hard are you fighting? Can you say that you’re making it happen no matter what? Because that’s how hard you’re fighting for other things.

Success comes from action, not intention. Victory comes action, not intention. Progress comes from action, not intention.

So what do you intend to do, and what are you actually doing? The truth may surprise you.

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Challenge status: COMPLETED

Pain and Progress

I thought I was going to drop the weight and hurt myself. My grip was beginning to loosen by the 7th or 8th rep and I was quickly approaching “eagle claw mode” (people who lift regularly, you know what I’m talking about). But I held through that sweet sweet pain so I could see some progress.

Pain and progress often go hand in hand. To achieve what you’ve never had you often have to do what you’ve never done. Growth means changing what’s comfortable and familiar into what’s new and uncharted. People always say it’s worth it, once they’ve reached their goal; rarely do they say it’s easy.

What I love about fitness goals are the quiet opportunities to overcome. If you talk to long distance runners and read interviews they’ve given and books they’ve written you’ll see something come up over and over again. The hardest part is never physical, it’s proving you’re stronger than the voice telling you to stop. Creating and surpassing fitness goals  is excellent practice at proving you can be stronger than I can’t.

And I learned some things in the process.

1) I absolutely can do all the things I’ve set out to do no matter how daunting they once seemed.
2) I need to improve my grip strength/endurance.

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Quality over quantity, always.

Focused Effort

Right now I’m able to pull 315 lbs on a deadlift, and 255 lbs for 5 repetitions, so I’m reasonably certain that I can pull 225 for 10 without much trouble. As for the overhead press, I am able to put up about 100-105 lb for 5 solid repetitions which is phenomenal in my book considering I’ve never lifted more than 100 lbs over my head and a short while ago I couldn’t lift more than 90 lbs up once. I can push-press 135lbs so I figure in another year I’ll be able to get my bodyweight up above my head, and maybe the year after that I’ll hit it for 10 repetitions.

I’m not terribly worried about those two lifts, because consistent effort tends to yield the wanted results. Focused effort is what I need right now.

When you’re in the gym you can spend a lot of time, doing a lot of work, that doesn’t really get you anywhere. A year ago I started out at the gym 6 days a week, 2 hours each session, trying to target every part of my body. It was necessary to get me in gear and create the consistent effort that would take me to my first goals. But despite my effort I wasn’t making much progress because I was unfocused. I didn’t understand how my body worked, and I didn’t understand much about the work I was doing. I worked everything, but I did it unevenly and it showed in my slow progress or lack of progress altogether.

When I started using tried and true programs, slightly modified to suit my needs, I started seeing the progress that I was looking for. But more than that I’ve realized that even a focused program is not enough. I’ve recently watched a pretty informative series of training videos that have made me realize that how I train is not nearly focused enough. I’ve been lacking a vital mental connection between the work I put in and the goal I’m aiming to reach.

That mental connection is what brings out the focused effort, and keeping this in mind is a lesson that can carry over into all aspects of life. If you’re in school or considering going back, you need to be mindful of what you’re trying to accomplish by doing so and how it fits into an overall plan. It probably shouldn’t just be the plan. If you’re working a job, really think about how that job fits into your life and what you want to accomplish with it.

Yes, I believe everyone should accomplish something in their lifetime. What that is and how you define accomplishment is up to you. We’ve all got one life to live and it comes with an unknown expiration date, so there’s no time like the present to do something great you know? If the only thing keeping you is “it pays the bills”, find a better reason or find a better job. At the core, it’s really that simple.

I should be able to reach my fitness goals much sooner and much easier if I can learn to train my mind and body to focus and communicate clearly and efficiently.

I wonder what else I can accomplish using that process?

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Working hard by my standards, hardly working by my great grandparents standards. Standards have changed with the standards of living, but the standard for living should be anything but. It’s all backwards but everyone keeps calling it “progress”.

Natural highs can’t be duplicated or substituted and I crave them like some crave cigarettes. After a good session of squats I fee like I could support the world on my shoulders just for fun. After a good run I want to climb a mountain. It often hurts to grow through your accomplishments, but it hurts so much more remain stagnant.

Answering the simply complex question of “what do you want” is up there with “what is the meaning of life” and “has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?” You could spend a lifetime answering it and only come up with a list of half truths and inconsistencies. Better to answer the question of “can I die tomorrow and be satisfied with my life”. There will be far fewer answers to that question and a lot more action.

There’s no magic definition of what is acceptable for wealth, retirement, and comfort. But we should all be planning to find those things on our own time.

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I’ll give you a hint on how bad it is for me.

I started writing this blog post on November 3rd.

Of 2010.

It has finally been posted… one year and one day later. Prior to this week, only about 50 or so words were written so really, it’s almost like I’d never started at all. Except that I did and I’ve been staring at the nagging draft for a year. I think Steve gets this better than most.

Apparently Steve’s already made a habit of a concept I’m just starting to really grasp and implement. It’s the art of differentiating a temporary postponement of an  activity from true procrastination. It seems that if he doesn’t finish or nearly finish his creative work before stopping, he ends up scrapping it. Most people (me) hang on to those unfinished works thinking that the weight on our minds of knowing that it’s out there just waiting to be completed will spur us into action. Sometimes it does. Frequently it doesn’t and another thing gets added to the pile.  The never ending To-Do List. We’ve all got one somewhere.

I love lists so you know I have a few of them. I’ve got one in my wallet, one on the wall, one in the notebook at my feet, one in the notebook in the bag at my feet, and somewhere between one and three on my desk. Oh, and the one on my computer. Yep.

Steve does away with this backlog of creativity and excess Lists by only leaving room for fresh, completed work. So every time he looks at his work, he sees accomplishment not half finished ideas. He chooses to be constantly surrounded by success, which is something a lot of people talk about wanting to achieve when they aren’t really sure how they can go about doing it.

This is a good way to start. Go through the things that are creating overhead baggage in your brain and separate out the items that you don’t want to admit to yourself aren’t going to go anywhere. And then let them go so you can complete what can be completed. I deleted three other blog posts that were much farther along, before opening this one. I had to admit that they weren’t going anywhere and I would have just been starting over from scratch anyway.

Now I have one more success in my life and a little less clutter in my creative workspace.

This is just what I gathered from a post that actually had a different focus, so what can you take away from it? Is it maybe time for you to let a few things go?

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I shouldn’t have left you…

Without a fresh blog to read through!

Last time I posted I talked about some of the changes that were being made behind the scenes, and it might have sounded like a farewell post. The absence of posting between now and then certainly didn’t help that perception… and I’m sorry about that. I’ve been taking care of things away from my blog while trying to answer one very important series of questions: what am I offering my visitors, what do they actually want, are either of those things correlated with an income stream? The questions aren’t new, the answers have just eluded me.

At some point you have to stop asking these questions because the data you’ve reviewed will speak for itself. People respond, with either some form of approval/disapproval, or their dollars.

Not Everything Changes

In the midst of all the questioning and busywork one thing has remained; I’m not redisnging this place for a while. I’ve let that compulsion go for the moment and I’m pretty okay with that. Another thing that is for sure, despite any interruptions in service, is that I will be continuing to bring content to this blog in some form or another. Probably more video posts, and some shorter (time relevant) posts. There’s even been talk of a landing page, which is something I’ve never really done before. They offer guidance when properly done, and they create a wall people don’t want to click through when poorly done. There may not even be a true need for a landing page in the future.

This blog needs to transition away from being the main focus at this domain so I can remake it into it’s old self – a project site. Because I have projects. I’ve always had projects. Before I had a blog, there were projects. There will always be projects. I am a project kind of guy. I like feeding my inner builder. The blog will either be incorporated into a personal/portfolio site (domain) later on or as an offshoot of the project site.

Projects that will appear here are the G3 app as well as some forays into Python, Java, and Perl. And of course there is the more hands-on venture I affectionately call “the traveling bar”. Ultimately I want domain name, content, and focus to match up on all fronts as I head out of 2011 and into a prosperou 2012.

What are your thoughts? Should things be handled differently? What are some things you want to see happen here?

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