For this post, I am going to pretend I don’t have any readers, and that I’m writing an appropriate message to myself. I will see if this changes my writing in some way.
A lot of what I write is about short-term vs. long-term decisions. Short-term decisions are labeled “bad”, and long-term decisions are labeled “good”. Short-term decisions all the instant gratification ones, and long-term decisions are the delayed gratification ones.
How is long-termness maintained?
Only show up where you want to succeed, and don’t show up where success isn’t relevant to you.
is the quote I created and posted on Twitter, and the positive reaction I got signaled that I should discuss it further. The quote comes from of this quote by Woody Allen:
Eighty percent of success is showing up.
Mine takes it a little further, saying that you succeed where you spend your time, and fail where you don’t. I will give some details here.
A Van Gogh Creation called Irises
Here in this article I will discuss a reason that is a cause for motivation. The underlying theme for this article is that you have to be constantly producing, because that does so much for others that you can’t underestimate it. I have lots of examples here so you can see why you have to keep outputting. One example is in the painting picture above, which is one by Van Gogh, which may have just been another along the way for him, but which is now another very valuable creation of his.
I write this for those who are down at this time, or who have periods of disappointment or downtime, which means this is likely for everyone, so it is not exactly specific, but that is okay sometimes, and this line is also getting really long, with a lot of sections in it. Regardless of that, the message here is that your presence presents opportunity. Downtime is not so relevant when you realize that you have a fighting shot of getting to wherever you want to get to.
This post is both parts 4 and 5 of the hiking series of articles I had started. This post will discuss the concepts I was going to go over in the last two parts of the series, and I will discuss them not in relation to hiking, but in more general terms. There is a lot of value in setting a plan and going with it, and sharing strengths with others will get you further than you could ever get on your own.
What you don’t know will be used against you. It will also limit you, even if others are not limiting you in any way. Spending your time gathering information or know-how is always worth more than skipping that step and hoping you will pick it up along the way, or that someone will keep you fully informed, or something along those lines. You want to be in a position where you are not stuck spending an hour trying to figure out something that would take 20 seconds if you knew how to do it.
Bicycle race image by Rrrodrigo
Competition is a concept that many of us think about regularly. It provides the challenges we see, as we think of new ways to up what we bring to the table as our competing force. I provided various personal development writers(Steven Aitchison, Oscar Del Ben, Mike King, Alex Shalman, Tim Brownson, Celestine Chua, Gail Brenner, and Glen Allsopp) with the following package of questions, and what follows are their respective answers, followed by my commentary in italics:
What does the concept of competition mean to you? Do you see others as your main source of competition, or do you see yourself as your main source of competition? Also, when you hear the word “competition”, do you think of it positively, negatively, or neutrally? Feel free to bring up any points that come to mind.
In this second video, I have multiple items I discuss, which includes the Pomodoro technique for handling activities and to-do items, as mentioned by Oscar Del Ben in this post on Freestyle Mind. It also reviews the book The Skinny on Success(affiliate link), which comes out in November by Jim Randel, presents the next book or two I may review, and I make some other points as well. I also mentioned the will-do list from Litemind’s last post, as a replacement for a to-do list, based on what you will do 100% in that day.
