Category / Motivation

Wipe to Refresh

My phone had some problems so I had to reset it to factory settings.

I could have installed all the apps and files I normally use from a backup but I didn’t. I’ve started with a blank slate. If I want to do something with the phone I have to install the app I need.

Over time we develop particular behaviours around our phones. Habits built around what we have installed on them. Starting with a blank slate disrupts that behaviour. It creates a small obstacle that you have to deliberately choose to overcome. When we fall into habits we don’t question them. We just follow the pattern that we’ve built up. A small obstacle is enough to make you question what you’re doing.

With your regular phone set up, you might mindlessly open an app or apps and end up wasting time on them. Starting with a blank slate, if you mindlessly open the phone the app isn’t there so you can’t open it. You have to make a deliberate decision to download the app in order to use it. If you decide I really need the app you download it, otherwise you’ve stopped yourself from mindlessly wasting time.

Following this new behaviour for a few days should leave you with the apps you need but none of the apps that are simply time-wasters.

Starting over from scratch, deliberately deleting, is sometimes the best way to change. Your phone isn’t the only thing you can reset. You can wipe the slate clean in any routine to rebuild it better.

by Colin Brosnan

Take the Shot

You’re ready. Take the shot.

Stop hesitating. Stop waiting. You’re ready. Take the shot.

You keep making excuses. Giving yourself reasons to not to. Reasons to delay. You’re ready. Take the shot.

You think it’s your best shot, your only shot, so you don’t want to waste it. You’re afraid that if you miss you have nothing left. You’re afraid. That’s okay. You’re ready. Take the shot.

It doesn’t matter if you miss, you can take another shot. The sooner you shoot the more shots you can take. The longer you hesitate the less likely you are to ever take the shot. You’re ready. Take the shot.

Take the damn shot.

by Colin Brosnan

Not to the Exclusion of All Else

Our lives do not take us down a single path. They take us down many paths at the same time.

The path of work is but one of them. As with all the other paths of our lives, the path of work itself can be a single path or one of many. That report you must write. That speech you must prepare for. Those emails you must reply to. You must keep moving on all paths at the same time.

If you focus too much on one path you fall behind on the others. Focusing on one path for too long causes you difficulty on the others. If all you did was prepare for that speech, that report would never get written, those emails would never get answered. If we focus too much on work then the other paths in our lives don’t get enough attention. They become darker and harder to travel. Work is but one path.

Focus is good but not to the exclusion of all else.

by Colin Brosnan

Commit to the Cycle

Our world is made up of cycles.

We breathe in oxygen, we breathe out carbon dioxide. We pump blood from our hearts to the far reaches of our bodies, and back again. The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening. The Earth spins on its axis. The Earth travels around the sun.

All these cycles repeat.

Then there are other cycles. Cycles of improvement.

Want to improve your health? Exercising once won’t do. You have to repeat the cycle. Exercise every day.

Want to become a better writer? Write every day.

To improve your French, to improve your cooking, to improve your public speaking skills, to improve anything…

Find the cycle. Repeat it. Commit to it.

by Colin Brosnan

Routine

What’s your routine? Is it good or bad?

Routine hugs us in a comforting embrace. Warm and safe. When it’s a bad routine it only seems safe. It’s not. A bad routine keeps you from achieving, from doing, from being. It allows you to sit watching TV for four hours every night. It allows you to spend time with your phone rather than with those around you. Skip exercise. Skip creating. Skip making.

If you’re anything like me, your routine could be better. A lot better.

Break the routine. Build a new one, but better.

by Colin Brosnan

Ideas Are Easy

Ideas are easy. They are. No, really they are.

It seems like a boast but it’s not. Ideas ARE easy. Pick up a pen and paper and write down ten articles you could write. Or ten ways you could improve the world.

Ideas are easy but they have no value. None.

I have a list of ideas for projects. I’ve been adding to the list for years. There’s a lot of good stuff on the list. Not one of those ideas has any value.

What good is any idea on that list to anyone unless it is made real? It is only when an idea is executed that it has value.

The ten articles you could write have no value unless you write them. And even then, how well you executed the act of writing those articles will increase or decrease their value. The more well executed the higher the value. Better executed is more difficult to achieve.

There is a matter of scale between the execution of writing ten articles and improving the world in ten ways. The scale of difficulty in execution increases too.

Ideas are easy. It’s execution that’s hard.

by Colin Brosnan

The Forest

You wake up in a clearing in the middle of a forest. You’ve never been there before and have no idea how you got there. The forest appears vast and impenetrable on all sides. How do you get out? As far as you can tell the land is flat in every direction. No direction looks more promising than any other.

Picking a direction at random you set off into the trees. A short while later you stop. Is this the direction you should be going? Will this direction get you out? You look ahead into the trees hoping to see something that will tell you you’re going the right way. Seeing nothing you head back to the clearing.

The next day you go again. Picking a different direction at random. Again you stop, see nothing ahead that tells you that you’re on the right path. Again you turn around.

You do the same the following day. And the day after. And the day after.

If you keep trying new directions but don’t stick with one you’ll never get out of the forest. Commit to a direction and eventually you’ll emerge on the other side of the forest.

We can learn how to do anything. Writing, web design, film making, photography, basketball, football, guitar, drums, science. Anything. We try things and discard them. Sometimes because we don’t like them once we’ve tried them. Sometimes because we get lazy or it gets too hard. Sometimes picking a different direction is the right thing to do. But eventually you have to choose, pick something, tackle the difficult bits and work through them. Otherwise you’re stuck in the clearing.

Escape the clearing.

by Colin Brosnan