#Trust30 - Day 8 - A look back

[To find out why I am writing all these #Trust30 posts, click here]

The prompt:

What would you say to the person you were five years ago? What will you say to the person you’ll be in five years? - Corbett Barr

Before I start answering, could I talk to the person from 10 or 15 years ago too?

I try to not look back on things too much, because looking back like that can fill your mind with too many ifs, as in “if only I had….” You can see all of the mistakes you made and what you could have done differently. Five years ago, I was living in Boston, trying to figure out my new job requirements at Starbucks. It was the first time I had worked in customer service, and it opened my eyes about service jobs. Fortunately, I had a great group of people to work with and it was a great experience (everyone should have to work in food service at some point in their lives. It would give us all a lesson on how to treat others. For the most part, the customers were great, but there were those who—to be nice—weren’t. They had forgotten that baristas (or waiters, waitresses, bartenders, etc.) are there to serve them, not be their servants. It is a huge difference).

There are definitely a few things I would say to that me. I would tell that other self that when life throws you a curve, don’t panic. Don’t get in any rush to change what you are doing. You can figure it out. Go after your dreams with everything you have and ask others for help when you need it, because people are willing to help you, if they know you want it. If you don’t ask, they won’t know.

And to the person I am in five years:

I persevered, and succeeded.

[Question: Do you think it is valuable to look back at your life in this way? Does it help you figure out where you are going today?]

#Trust30-Day 6

Today’s prompt, from Jonathan Mead:

If you had one week left to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now? In what areas of your life are you preparing to live? Take them off your To Do list and add them to a To Stop list. Resolve to only do what makes you come alive.

Bonus: How can your goals improve the present and not keep you in a perpetual “always something better” spiral?

Another “time is short” prompt…Hopefully, we’ll get a little more variety this week. These type of questions do give you an opportunity to reflect, but I’m ready for a change in topic.

To answer the first question—no. Of course I would do something different. Wouldn’t everyone, really?

If I knew I was dying in seven days, I would spend the whole week writing every lesson I have learned about life down along with every bit of advice I could think of to give to my kids. They could take it or leave it, but at least someday they would be able to see what their dad might think about some situation that came up. Other than that I would just spend the last week saying goodbye to friends and family.

The second question is unclear. I’m skipping it. If I figure out what it means, perhaps I’ll revisit it later.

For the bonus question:

Goals, if they align with what you like to do, will help you direct your energies each day. If you work daily towards reaching those goals, just putting in the work will improve the present. It is the process of work that is important. You can feel better just by knowing that you dedicated yourself to your craft for that day.

[For an overview of what #Trust30 is, click here]

#Trust30 Challenge Day 2

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The prompt for today’s #Trust30 Writing Challenge expects a short creative output. It was written by Liz Danzico:

“If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tracks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.”

Here’s my sentence:

“It’s raining today, but dammit, that sun is going to come out one of these days—right?”

The sentence is both literal and metaphorical. It not only speaks to the actual weather today and the promise of an 80° day in the forecast three days from now, but it also reflects a determinedly optimistic, but uncertain, attitude about the future.

I’m not sure I see a lot of value in this exercise, but it did make me think a little about my attitude. Maybe that was the point. Do you have any thoughts? Please share them (you can also share your sentence for today in the comments below).  

Welcome to the #Trust30 Challenge

This evening I accepted the Trust Yourself Writing Challenge that was sent out by Seth Godin’s Domino Project. It is a pledge to write or create something (and share it with people) every day for 30 days, based on a prompt sent out by a famous (or semi-famous) author. The challenge is in honor of the 208^th birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his book Self Reliance. Each day for the next month, I plan to create something and post it on this blog. Some days it will be short and others it will be long, but I will post something every day by midnight relating to the challenge. In addition, I will continue to write about coffee and art and other topics.

Today’s prompt was this: “You just discovered you have 15 minutes to live. Set a timer for 15 minutes and write the story that needs to be written.”

As soon as I clicked the I accept button for the challenge, I immediately had some doubts about my ability to complete the challenge. Why would I want to do something like this? Would I really be able to do it? What was I thinking? Then I told myself to shut up and get to work. There’s no time for doubt, only creating.

I recently read Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, an excellent book that I wish I would have read fifteen years earlier. Had I learned and applied the principles in the book, I am sure that I would have been able to be more successful in reaching my goals in life. The most memorable section for me was the part where Pressfield talks about becoming a professional. One of the things that Pressfield says about professionals is that they do not overidentify with their jobs, meaning that although what they do may be important to them, at the end of the day what they do is not who they are.

When you identify too much with what you do (the amateur mentality), you become so invested in it that the fear of failing paralyzes you. Professionals look at what they do with a cool rationality and as a result, can focus on improving their craft, not worrying about how many failures they have along the way..

I can see how the amateur’s attitude affected me when I used to play basketball. Basketball was so important to me that each missed shot during practice was a sign of a personal failure. Putting this type of pressure on myself to be perfect was counterproductive and led to a lot of self-doubt and negative thoughts. Had I taken more of a professional’s mentality, I would have looked at each practice session as an opportunity to improve my skills, instead of a judgment about how I was.

Trying to be perfect and then getting upset when you are not is not going to make you successful. Working like hell to learn your craft, while continually learning from your mistakes is. This is a lesson I learned way later than I should have, so as I look forward to this 30-day challenge, the goal is not to be perfect, but instead to create something that I feel is worth creating and to improve my writing every day. There may be some hits and misses along the way, but come what may, I’m going to put it out there, because writing is something that I do, it is not who I am.

This is the story that needed to be written today (though I admit it did take a little longer than 15 minutes to write).