I don’t feel the need to tell you all about the important of clear, SMART goal setting. The purpose, point, and benefit have all been stated about a billion times throughout different media, so if you’re unclear, I know plenty of people will clear it up for you.
I don’t even feel the need to discuss the map metaphor – the one in which you establish where you are, where you’re going, and how to get there.
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Fun fact: I deal with depression. It started when I was 13, became worse over time, and for the last few years, it’s been damn near omnipresent.
It culminated not too long ago with some relationship issues. Things became miserable and I turned inward to fix them.
It didn’t work. Here’s why:
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I’ve written a lot on this blog. I guess that’s a good thing, since it’s in line with what I set out to do. And recently, I decided I was going to devote more time and energy to maintaining this blog, including learning about what I like to talk about, writing about it, and promoting it so people will actually see it.
These are noble endeavors and I think (hope) I will be successful in accomplishing them, ultimately. Of course, it may take many more weeks, months, or years than I plan right now (it already has taken a lot longer than the original plan), but I am okay with that.
I want to talk about focus, which ties in with productivity, balance, and passion. I think focus is one of the major tenants of productivity and becoming superman, but it maintains its mystery and elusiveness. People don’t write about how to definitively find focus – at least not in the same ways and volumes that they write about how to get organized, plan your goals, and meditate. It could be written off as there being no one way to get focused that works for everybody. That’s a start. But there’s another issue at hand: they don’t know.
I don’t want you to have any false hopes: I don’t know either. But I have some speculations and thoughts about achieving focus which has led me to one conclusion:
Image by shaggy359 via Flickr
Unfortunately and ironically, fear of failure leads to inaction and inaction leads to failure. Stagnation makes people lose out on opportunities and makes companies lose out to innovative competitors. Don’t stay in the same place for too long, or you’ll be left in the past.
It sounds true, deep, and like a sound solution, but for some people, the anxiety is tougher to break than words about how miserable their fear is going to make them. That’s who this post is for.
Image by meccanohig via Flickr
It’s been a year (almost).
I haven’t updated this blog in a year. Actually, I haven’t really thought about it in a year. I started it in 2009 around this time as I was striving to fix my life and my experience on earth. I gave it up after a handful of posts… Trouble is, it was the blind leading the blind. I was attempting to tell others how to find balance and happiness in their lives, when I hadn’t actually found it myself. I thought I had and I was on the path to perfection. Now I realize there is no such thing.
After a while, I started stressing about not having branding like a logo. I stressed about not posting enough tips. I stressed about not updating Twitter frequently enough. It took a toll and I became sorely bitter about updating this blog with content.
After a year, I got notified that my domain was expiring in two weeks.
For two weeks I’ve debated restarting this project. Two weeks. Last night I was exposing my debates (this wasn’t the only one) to a very dear friend and he encouraged me to pick it back up – to get back on the horse – in a new incarnation. Tonight, 20 minutes before the expiration process would have begun, I renewed my domain for another year.
Here I am. Now. Writing to you all. I apologize for being a flake. I apologize for thinking I knew what I probably never will. I hope old readers will find this post and start following this blog again. I sincerely pledge my willingness and future efforts to be more humble in my expectations for myself and my ambitions (as well as my assessment of ability). I hope new readers will somehow neglect this post and simultaneously forgive my past failures.
I hope the horse will take me back.
Check back in over the next couple weeks. This place will be getting a face lift (though mostly through the back end). I will be posting again. Smarter, wiser, and a better writer. But not nearly done with my learning. I hope to see you all soon.
Thank you.
Anybody who lives with another person needs to be holding regular household meetings to express concerns – the importance grows exponentially as the level of relationship between roommates increases. Simple college roommates need to get together – both with literal room-mates and with those who merely share the floor of a building – to discuss policies on parties, kitchen use, cleaning, showers, and guests, as well as plenty of other things. Spouses need to get together to discuss all that and much more, including raising children, work hours, and, as I will focus on today, finances.
In today’s world, productivity is emphasized, often to a point of detriment to, well, productivity. People are urged to produce an unnatural amount of content, product, or other work, and are often expected to do this with smiles on their faces and songs in their hearts. Sadly, employers are not the only ones pressuring people to produce: often, it is a person’s own pressures on himself that lead to overload and, ultimately, failure. This article is dedicated to those people and how they can successfully transform not only into happier individuals, but also into more productive individuals.
Sometimes, in life, things just don’t go the way they are expected to go.
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A popular tip I’ve been reading lately during my job hunt (and therefore my resume reconstruction) is that resumes are a like a brochure of oneself and one’s skills – they’re meant to be a sales pitch and a marketing tool, rather than just a plain list of all your skills and qualifications. Consider resumes to be a way to express why they should buy you and you’ll be a million times more successful in your endeavors.
Not only should resumes be a marketing tool, but I believe now that the best way to be successful is to run oneself entirely like a business. Here’s how.
Image via Wikipedia
Now that we have a diagnosis of too many projects, it is time to discuss remedying the problem.
To begin with, we will need to come up with a list of all our projects, similar to the one that I made in the diagnosis post. To be fair, here it is again for reference:
One Year Tightrope is a blog about finding balance while owning a small business, working from home, or being a college student. You can be updated with new content by subscribing to Entries (RSS).
