Tag: Goals

Discouragement and Persistance

Posted on by jabittan
Continuing his writing about focusing on the long term over the short term, author Ryan Holiday presents a new idea of persistence and brings a perspective to the discouragement we all feel from time to time. Holiday writes, “It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. To know you want to quit but plant your feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable fortress you’ve decided to lay siege to in your own life—that’s persistence.” The power in this quote is Holiday’s acknowledgment of our feelings and reminder that it is ok to feel discouraged when we are struggling along our path. He helps us look at our emotions and take a step back to think about what they mean.

I really enjoy when author’s look at our emotional states and explain that we should not be critical of ourselves for feeling a certain way. It is normal to feel discouraged when facing obstacles, and in a very realistic manner, Holiday accepts our discouragement and provides us with inspiration to press forward. His advice is powerful because it is honest about the way we will feel when trying to reach out goals, and does not simply paint a rosy future of how nice our life will be once we surmount the obstacles in front of us. By pushing through the discomfort and inching along, we can reach our goals, but there are times where we will not feel great about our journey.

Holiday’s message is that our continued efforts, despite our desire to quit, is what true persistence is all about. Persistence is not just continued action, but it is not giving up when it does not feel as though we can be successful. When our emotions have been shot down and all we can do is crawl along toward our goal, according to Holiday, we have reached a point where persistence is all we have. By viewing persistence and discouragement in open terms, we can better understand that our goals won’t be easy and that overcoming our goals will not be as glamorous as a Hollywood movie montage would suggest, but that incremental action can nevertheless drive us to where we set our sights.

Persist and Resist

Posted on by jabittan
In his book, The Obstacle is the Way, author Ryan Holiday writes about the ways in which our mindset can shape the goals we set for ourselves and the daily actions we take to reach those goals. Holiday encourages us to set our mind on the long-term future and to avoid being pulled about by our short-term successes and failures. Following the advice of great Stoic thinkers of the past, he looks at our challenges and encourages us to apply our skills in accomplishing what we need, and to continually work on our patience so that we do not burn out in the short run. He quotes Epictetus in the following passage,

 

“Remember and remind yourself of a phrase favored by Epictetus: “Persist and resist.” Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder.”

 

By continually pressing agains the negative and preparing ourselves so that we can always overcome our challenges, we can reach the success, milestones, and goals we desire. Part of the key, as discussed by Richard Wiseman in his book 59 Seconds is not to just visualize the success we will achieve, but to be honest about our future journey and visualize the challenges we will face. We should not let a wall of negativity overwhelm us in our thinking, but we should also not be blind to the challenges we will face and wander in a mist of naivety. By planning for our challenges and visualize how we will overcome obstacles we will be far more likely to act according to our goals and mission.

 

If we can work on visualizing how we will succeed, then it can become easier to persist and resist. Understanding the challenges that will be faced will help drive us forward and keep us moving when we hit difficult times. Learning to keep our minds free from distractions will help us be more successful along our path, and help us focus on what is important over the long run rather.

Seeking Obstacles

Posted on by jabittan
In The Obstacle is the Way, author Ryan Holiday encourages us to run toward  the obstacles that appear in our lives instead of constantly trying to avoid obstacles and challenges. He highlights the opportunity for growth that obstacles provide, and shows us how they build new opportunities. He writes, “Obstacles are not only to be expected but embraced…because these obstacles are actually opportunities to test ourselves, to try new things, and, ultimately, to triumph.” This short quote sums up much of Holiday’s thinking surrounding the challenges in our lives and how he views the struggles we will encounter.
What I find great about this quote is Holidays acceptance of struggles and challenges as a necessary part of life. I find that I try so hard to build a life for myself where I will not face challenges and struggles, but it is a useless effort. What Holiday says is that we should expect our lives to be full of obstacles and we should not imagine a perfect future life free from adversity. I think I am stuck in a trap that has been built for people of my generation, the millennial generation, where it is easy to imagine a simple life with all of our desires available accessible, and with all our obstacles mitigated by forces beyond our control. The simple truth is that we will all experience some degree of suffering, and it is through our struggles that we will grow and become better people.
Holiday also shows the importance of building awareness and self-reflection into our life journeys. If we are not aware, then we will not see the opportunities that present themselves in the obstacles that we face. Any bit of adversity that we experience can have a positive side to it, if we understand our reactions and look for ways to use our adversity as a new fortification for the foundations upon which we rest our lives.  Without a dose of awareness, we risk crumbling in front of our challenges, unaware that it is this very challenge that could help propel us further.

What it Takes to Overcome Obstacles

Posted on by jabittan
There are three parts to overcoming our obstacles that Ryan Holiday lays out in his book The Obstacle is the Way. In a single short quote he gives us a quick roadmap for developing ourselves and facing our challenges.

 

“Overcoming obstacles is a discipline of three critical steps.
     It begins with how we look at our specific problems, our attitude or approach; then the energy and creativity with which we actively break them down and turn them into opportunities; finally, the cultivation and maintenance of an inner will that allows us to handle defeat and difficulty.
     It’s three interdependent, interconnected, and fluidly contingent disciplines: Perception, Action, and the Will.”

 

His approach breaks down the barriers that we face and looks at each part of an obstacle to help us see how we can take small steps to face what limits us. It also builds a framework for looking at our problems that can become a committed part of who we are, and a habit that we adopt for thinking about the world.  The process is not intended to be a tool that we pull out when needed for a specific job, but rather a mental scaffolding built around our decision making and thought processes.

 

I think it is very fitting that Holiday calls this process a discipline. It requires self-awareness and self-control to stand back and methodically pick through our obstacles to find creative solutions to bridge the gap between where we are and the success we desire.  Even once we have imagined a creative solution we must put forth great effort for that solution to manifest in the real world. Holiday is honest in the quote about about the challenges of applying this discipline. Each of his three steps require taking action that runs counter to the easy path away from our obstacles. Facing and using our obstacles to build new opportunity requires not just determination and strong will-power on our end, but the ability to overcome the negative voices in our head which tell us to turn away from our challenges in search of an easier rout. It requires that we change the way we think about that which limits us, and demands that we find new solutions to the problems we face.

 

Our new perceptions and novel solutions don’t just help us overcome any single obstacle, but they literally change who we are. The growth we find on our path results from our new ways of looking at the world, and from the practice of building greater will-power to reach our goals. The solutions we develop become a playbook for facing obstacles, and serve as proof of our accomplishments.

Creativity and Goals

Posted on by jabittan
In his book The Obstacle is the Way, author Ryan Holiday writes about the struggles we face in reaching our goals, and what is required of us when we face obstacles along the path to success. “All great victories, be they in politics, business, art, or seduction, involved resolving vexing problems with a potent cocktail of creativity, focus, and daring. When you have a goal, obstacles are actually teaching you how to get where you want to go — Carving you a path. ‘The things which hurt,’ Benjamin Franklin wrote, ‘instruct.’” Holiday wrote this message to show that facing our obstacles requires that we act deliberately and build creative processes into our lives. If we lack focus, do not develop interesting ways to view the world, and are afraid to push the boundaries of what we believe is possible, then we will never live up to fulfill the vision of success and creativity that Holiday describes.

 

In the first part of his book Holiday explains the ways in which we must change our perspective and our lifestyle if we want to be able to adapt to the obstacles and challenges we face. Simply living the same as everyone and looking for the easiest path will not help us reach a place were we feel truly successful and fulfilled. We may see others achieve tremendous results, and we may see others build new opportunities for themselves, but if we do not begin to look for creative ways to face our obstacles, we will not see opportunities to apply smart risks and novel solutions to new challenges.

 

Focusing on our challenges and building practices in our lives that help us think more creatively and become more considerate will allow us to absorb more from the world around us. We can become more thoughtful individuals, viewing the world and thinking about more perspectives than just our own, and we will see new paths forward. Learning from others and watching those around us overcome obstacles will help us see more possibilities in our own lives. Without building these skills through daily habits we won’t develop the creativity needed to adjust as we move through life, and we miss the opportunity to turn our challenges into forces which propel us.

An Irrational Fear

Posted on by jabittan
Colin Wright explores our mind and what happens when we work to be fully conscious of our world in his book Considerations. He explores topics related to self-awareness, motivation, and focus in his writing, and his book becomes something like a field guide for fortifying our mind and thoughts for the challenges of life. In his book, he addresses our fear of the future and our fear of spending time working hard for uncertain results. He writes, “the fear of accidentally working too hard to get someplace we don’t want to be can be paralyzing, but it’s an irrational fear.” When we take steps to grow and improve, doors will open for us, and our hard work will land us in places we could never have expected.

 

Wright uses this quote in a section exploring our growth and our ever evolving future. It is not always clear what opportunities will be presented to us and how we will have a chance to grow or benefit from those opportunities. We often have a desire to place ourselves on a path where our hard work can be clearly recognized and rewarded, but this almost never happens. Being flexible and allowing our lives to pivot gives us a greater ability to navigate the shifting path in front us, and gives us an opportunity to apply our hard work to receive benefits in the future, even if we don’t know what they will be.

 

I have struggled to remember Wright’s philosophy, but it has become even more important for me now. I am returning to college and face a potentially very  foggy path. If I act out of fear and make decisions to move forward based on my fear, then I will never fully apply myself, and I will never prepare myself for the uncertain path ahead of me.  By recognizing the uncertainty and at the same time fully engaging myself in my efforts, then I can be sure that my hard work will create new avenues for me. Combining that hard work with flexibility and a willingness to shift direction will ensure that I arrive in a place where I am satisfied with what I do, even if it was not where I originally aimed.

Proud of Pride

Posted on by jabittan
“For the pride which is proud of its want of pride is the most intolerable of all.” Marcus Aurelius wrote near the end of his common place book published as Meditations. He wrote this after encouraging a simple lifestyle, free from desires for material possessions or fame, and instead ruled by reason and virtue.  What Aurelius throughout his book encourages us to do is live a life where we are not striving to reach the goals of others or to seek success for the purpose of impressing others. He encourages us to abandon that pride, think deeply about others, and to live a humble life, recognizing that our time on Earth is finite. For Aurelius the most important thing we can develop is our relationships, and things like pride get in the way of becoming a truly connected and compassionate person in the lives of those around us.

 

Before the quote above Aurelius writes, “Think of the eager pursuit of anything conjoined with pride; and how worthless everything is after which men violently strain.” By encouraging us to avoid pride and to seek relationships, he is encouraging us to live well with those around us and to recognize the needs of our society. Striving to be great is not a negative thing on its own, but when it is combined with a desire to obtain great wealth and material possessions, or to impress to others, the goal of greatness becomes a trap that we cannot escape.

 

Aurelius would not have argued that we should never feel pride, but that we should redirect that pride away from selfish desires. By focusing on others and helping others we can develop a sense of pride that results from becoming a more connected and well rounded human being, and we can enjoy the self-confidence that flows with that pride. Ultimately however, we must make sure that we are not feeding that pride for our own self-interests and we must ensure that our pride is generated from actions that are benevolent toward all.

What We Think of Ourselves

Posted on by jabittan
Marcus Aurelius constantly sought to become more self-aware by reflecting on himself, his actions, and his thoughts.  He recorded his reflections and the lessons he learned from constantly being present and observing himself and others in his book Meditations, and we can use his wisdom to help improve our lives, nearly 2,000 years later.  One of the starting points for Aurelius is how we think about ourselves, and how we think about the thoughts of others. Throughout the book Aurelius reminds us to become humble through self-reflection, and to become empathetic with others who are doing their very best to live their life in a manner that is suitable for them. He encourages us to build our own strong mental fortification while not basing our understanding of the world on the views and beliefs of others. It is in this spirit that he writes, “I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”

 

Human beings are social creatures and our tribal evolution has stuck with us, pushing us to find groups to associate with for belonging and meaning. This has allowed us to come together in societies and to achieve more than we ever could on our own, but Aurelius writes about a dangerous side of our social dependence. When we fail to become self-reflective and when we do not live our lives according to our beliefs and rational understanding of ourselves we risk becoming an amalgam of what we perceive others to think of us.  Our lives become vehicles to impress others, and the most important decisions we make are intended to satisfy other people instead of ourselves. Living in this manner places our lives in control of others, and leaves us as hollow shells of individuals.

 

Aurelius would encourage us to think about ourselves in a more profound way to understand what our needs and desires are, and to understand where our motivation for achieving our goals comes from. If we are focused on what other people want us to become, he would argue that we are not living up to our true potential. If we are confident in ourselves and value the faculties of our minds, then we must take time to become self-aware to find a true alignment in our lives. We do not need to discount the opinions of others to a point where they are meaningless to us, but we need to be able to recognize whether our motivation lies in the words of another or whether our motivation is born from our own rational thought and understanding of self.

Giving and Success

Posted on by jabittan
Bob Berg wrote the book The Go Giver as a story that opens up the importance of relationships and having a positive focus while trying to reach our goals and find the level of success that we desire.  Berg focuses his story on business and sales, but what he writes can be applied to many areas of our life, including areas outside of business.  One of the cornerstones to Berg’s book is a focus on giving and providing value for others that helps one build, in an almost oblique path, toward the success  they want to see.  In one section a character in Berg’s book states, “You can’t go in two directions at once.  Trying to be successful with making  money as your goal is like trying to travel a superhighway at seventy miles an hour with your eyes glued to the rearview mirror.”  Through this quote, Berg is addressing the idea that our goals are not always best served by simply diving in one direction after one idea.

 

For Berg, being a complete human being and thinking of others is of greater importance than anything else, especially when it comes to business. He argues throughout the book that those who reach the greatest level of financial success don’t just wake up and think how can I become super wealthy? Instead, they wake up thinking about how they can solve problems for others and provide greater value for others. By focusing outside of themselves they find solutions to help people, and they do so with the idea of assisting others and doing things that benefit them first, knowing that they will be able to find rewards afterwards.  Often times we seem to think it is impure to want to assist others for our own personal gain. I think, and I suspect that Berg would agree, it is ok if we have a motive related to ourselves in helping others. If we decide to spend the time clearing trash from a street because we don’t want to see it and we know that others will appreciate it, we are still doing a good thing for the community even if we were primarily motivated by our own gain in the end. Where Berg would say this mindset needs to end is when we are setting something up that benefits us far more than it benefits others.  Taking actions and presenting them as though they help all when truly they only marginally benefit anyone other than yourself misses the point, especially if you create an atmosphere around yourself in which your act as though your behaviors truly assist everyone.

 

Ultimately, the idea Berg shares in The Go Giver is the idea that we can drive toward huge successes and still be good people if we focus more on providing value to those around us as opposed to looking at the world for the value it can provide to us. When we focus first and foremost on others and helping them, we find ways in which we can grow, and we build relationships that will return something positive to us.  Through these relationships, and through an idea of giving, we find a path toward success that is well rounded and more enjoyable.

Sacrifices: Money & Well-being

Posted on by jabittan
Peter Singer provides us with an alternative way of looking at money and the sacrifices we make in his book The Most Good We Can Do. He suggests that we change the way we look at money and begin to better understand our relationships with money.  Ultimately, what is suggested is that we begin to devalue money and it’s importance in our lives relative to other finite resources that we may give up in exchange for the opportunity or the ability to make more money. Singer writes,

 

“Money, however, is not an intrinsic good. Rather than saying that something is a sacrifice if it will cause you to have less money, it would be more reasonable to say that something is a sacrifice if it causes you to have a lower level of well-being, or in a word, be less happy.”

 

What he first establishes in his quote is the idea that money is not a given and set construct of the human experience. It is a social measurement used to organize people into an economic system, and it is a byproduct of many social factors including, hard work, luck, creativity, and progress.  Singer explains money as something separate from our own happiness and our true experience. This has the effect of moving money to a secondary tier in our lives rather than a primary goal.  By seeking out a lifestyle that provides us with more well-being, flexibility, and happiness, as Singer’s quote suggests, we can adopt a lifestyle where our money is a secondary goal that follows in line with our efforts.

 

His quote does not seem to suggest that money is not important or that we should adopt vagabond lifestyles that don’t require us to work or earn money, but it simply makes money less of an important factor.  If we focus on what will help us be more happy we can move in a direction that may not be as lucrative in the long run, but may provide us with greater flexibility and comfort, which will have a positive impact on our well-being and that of our families.  He is almost suggesting a direct approach to well-being with an oblique approach to wealth building, which is more or less the opposite of the way most of us think. We often set out on a direct path to earn more and make more, which we believe will make us happier. Happiness is sought after in an oblique manner because our primary goals are greater wealth and greater consumerism with the hopes of building happiness. Singer would argue that we should seek well-being and understand sacrifices in terms of values outside of money to reach a lifestyle that is comfortable and productive. In this view, once we reach that level, the money will suffice and our lives will be more enjoyable and based around things that add more value to our lives than stress.