Things That Matter Most

Things That Matter Most

No Excuses

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If I’ve learned anything over my career thus far, it’s that we come up with the stupidest excuses to not do something.

To be clear, we often devise dumb excuses to do things, too. But no excuse for why we’ve done something can top the hogwash we use to explain why we didn’t do something else.

Ultimately, our excuses boil down to three categories.

Permission

Often we allege we needed someone else’s permission to do something and, because we didn’t have it, that task was impossible. The reality is quite different. Often, when permission is required, it’s only ever granted to those who explicitly request it.

If you never step up and offer to do something, no one will assume you’re willing to do it.

I assumed for the longest time that starting a business would be too difficult an accomplishment for someone under 30 to do. My advisors told me I was too young. They told me I wouldn’t be successful. While appealing for help filling out my first state filing forms, advisors actively discouraged me from applying for a business license.

I didn’t need their permission.

The state granted my business registration and I’ve been a business owner now for over 6 years. 1 All it took was moving forward without the naive assumption that I needed someone else’s blessing to pursue my dream.

Time

When I was still dating, someone once told me “if you’re single, you’re never ‘too busy’ to do something.” They were pointing out that I was the master of my own time and any sense of busy in my schedule was my own creation.

They were completely right.

Even if you’re not single, you’re still very much the master of your own schedule. Outside of work, you are in complete control of what occupies your time. Sleeping in, watching football, playing Halo – these are all activities you elect to do instead of something else. Saying you’re too busy to start a business, blog, learn to cook, exercise, write a letter … it’s a lie.

Knowledge

You often don’t know what you don’t know until you push the edges of your knowledge. When you do discover a hole in what you know, filling it in with useful information is a matter of will.

You can buy a book to learn a programming language. You can find an instructor to learn a foreign language. You can take a martial arts class. You can learn to shoot and hunt. You can learn to drive.

You can learn.

There is no limit to what you’re capable of. You don’t need my or anyone else’s permission to live your dreams or change the world. Even if you are busy with work or family or have other demands on your time, setting aside just fifteen minutes each day can change your life. Even if you don’t know how to do something, you can find a guide or mentor to help teach you.

So what’s really holding you back from chasing your dreams?

Notes:

  1. The business is small and in no way accounts for the bulk of my income, but it’s something that’s wholly mine. ↩

Someday is the Enemy of Progress

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One of the most constant and frequent killers of forward progress is the word “someday.”

Someday, I’ll run a marathon.

Someday, I’ll start a business.

Someday, I’ll write and publish a book.

These are admirable goals, but they aren’t actionable ones. Using “someday” as a measurement gives you the ability to sit back and never really make progress on that objective.

If the marathon is always scheduled for “someday,” you can wait to start training until tomorrow. If your business license will be in the mail “someday,” you can still play Halo after work instead of working on sales proposals.  If that glorious book deal will come “someday,” you can put off NaNoWriMo or whatever other writing challenge you hope will kickstart your career another year.

“Someday” is a cop-out.

Cowardice

More often than not, “someday” is the shield we raise to protect ourselves from our own fear. Our fear of failure, our fear of change, sometimes our fear of success and what that means when compared to past achievements and failures.

Personally, I’ve always fallen on the “fear of failure” side.

I bragged in elementary school how I liked to run because it was fun. I ran in the schoolyard before class. I ran after school with friends. I ran on weekends rather than watch TV. I loved it! I also bragged how, one day, I would run a marathon.

Everyone laughed at me.

I really did enjoy running, but I was never an endurance runner; just finishing the mile for fitness tests in middle school was a burden (and I never did so fast enough to get an A in gym). In high school, I wasn’t the most fit runner on the track team, either. 1 Constant statements that, “someday I’ll run a marathon” were met with eye rolls and mocking.

One day, after college, a friend tired of hearing my empty promises of “someday” challenged me: “Why not today?”

Hurt by their challenge, I deflected as best as I could. But the truth was, I was scared. Scared to try – what if I failed and proved all of the you’re-not-a-runner naysayers right? Scared to change – setting aside the time required to train for a marathon would seriously derail my freelancing attempts and wreak havoc on my schedule. Scared to succeed – a marathon had always been the entirety of my bucket list; what would I work on next?

I wrestled with questions for a few weeks. Then I went out and bought a pair of running shoes. Thanks to a free training calendar I found on an old Nike website, I started forcing myself to train. First goal – run to the end of the street without stopping. Then run a 5K. Then a 10K. Then a half marathon.

I signed up for my first competitive marathon later that year – and completed it.

Just shy of the mid-point of my first full marathon. It was a lot of work, but I smiled all the way to the finish!

Just shy of the mid-point of my first full marathon. It was a lot of work, but I smiled all the way to the finish!

Since then, I’ve completed a total of 3 full marathons, several half marathons, and countless smaller competitive races. I’m not the first person across the finish line, but the important thing is that I finish.

Not someday, but on a specific day of my choosing.

Cowardice is the driver to applying “someday” as the measurement of our goals, our success, and our hopes. If you can only hope in “someday,” though, your hope is a fantasy.

Stop giving in to fear and set a way to measure the progress towards your objective. If you fail, good! At least you actually tried to reach it.

Notes:

  1. Though I did actually beat other runners in the 100-meter sprint! ↩

Setting a Goal

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The mistake I make the most often is getting too far ahead of an idea.

I think I’ve discovered something great, so I share my ideas with the world and begin to build an idea around them. Then I make the fatal mistake and, in the heat of the initial excitement, announce a plan to the world.

I still haven’t written a book. I still haven’t published a Windows 8 app. The one public goal I’ve managed to stick with thus far is that of daily blogging. It’s been difficult, and has taught me a lot about both setting and keeping an objective.

Measurable

Firstly, a goal has to be realistically measurable. “I will write a book” might seem measurable, but has little quantifiable outcome. What kind of book? How long? Where and in what format will it be published?

Some could argue that this site – a daily blog with over 300k words on various topics counts as a book. In addition to my writings on software and faith, it even includes the entirety of a NaNoWriMo novel (50k words of creative prose on a single topic).

But my blog today isn’t what I set out to create initially. When I announced I would write a book, I had a specific goal in mind – a study on marketing. My public goal was more ambiguous – a hedge against changing my mind on the topic – and thus, an impossible goal to hold me to.

A better objective would be in the form of “I will write, edit, and publish 3D Marketing, a study on storytelling as marketing, by December 31 of this year.”

It’s clear, concise, and something others can hold me to. 1

Discipline

Keeping an objective is difficult. Blogging daily isn’t something that comes easy – particularly with a busy schedule that includes traveling for work, attending conferences, and the occasional low-tech camping trip. I have to plan articles in advance and carve out time in my schedule for production.

At times my forgetfulness means this time is after midnight because I elected to see a movie with friends or sleep on a plane rather than write. But I always set the time aside; even when it hurts.

Failing to set time aside for an objective means you don’t take it seriously. If you don’t take your goal seriously, why would anyone else hold you to it? You are the first line of accountability. Stay true to yourself and your goals, and your friends, family, and colleagues will support and encourage you as you work towards them.

Notes:

  1. Note, I’m not announcing this book right now. I have other objectives at the moment. ↩