Consistently Persistent

Do you have plans to write a book? Make a film? Start a company? Do you work on them every single day?

You do not achieve goals by taking breaks here and there, chipping away when you feel like it. You achieve goals by consistently persisting forward and never taking a day off. Thirty minutes per day yields better results than three hours once per week. If you take a break, you will lose momentum. Lose momentum, and your passion project may fade to the back of your mind. You will lose.

If your mission is tied to your very core, then maybe you can survive output droughts. To intertwine your mission to your core in the first place, you need to consistently believe in it. There are feature films I have wanted to produce since I was eleven years old. I have no polished screenplays or financing to show for them, no plans to produce anytime soon. I touch these projects once every few months at best. But I wake up at night after dreaming about them every so often. They will not leave me alone. To make the films, however, I need to commit. I will need to start making daily progress to finish them. They will never get made otherwise.

If you don’t ask . . .

. . . The answer is “no.”

If you are too afraid to ask, you do not deserve a “yes.”

Don’t Stop!

Spurts of energy and productivity are rare – whatever you do, do not waste them. Don’t stop until you drop. This may be antithetical to my advice on health and rest, but sleep is far more accessible than inspiration. You can always sleep; you cannot always break the personal sound barrier.

Don’t Censor Yourself

Let the words flow. If you have something you’d like to say, say it. Do not be afraid what other people will think. Permit yourself to say something wrong. Stay open to criticism and feedback – it’s the only way to refine your voice and position against millions of other voices.

When I started this blog, posts took around an hour per day. I was afraid what people might think, so I spent a lot of time on them. A year later, I care less about the craft of my posts and more about the ideas I want to communicate. Now, with a few exceptions, posts take me no more than 20 minutes per day. As soon as I surrendered my preoccupation with perfect writing, the thoughts flowed more freely, and it demanded far less of my time.

Censoring yourself not only compromises your character, it can compromise your time. Do not fail yourself or your ideas with perfectionism. Spit it out, fool.

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I’m Not Finished Yet

Happy New Year, everyone! I started blogging daily on February 26th. 274 days ago, I committed to blogging every day for the remainder of 2011. I didn’t miss a single post. This year, writing reconnected me with so many great people, introduced me to new ones, opened doors, landed me interviews, helped secured a job, and changed my life.

I’m not going to stop. I hope you can join me on the journey ahead. If you want to keep up, you can subscribe via email (on the right column), follow me on twitter, or tune in as often as you can. I encourage you to participate, challenge me in every way possible, and share with anyone you feel might connect to the material.

Thank you so much for your readership thus far. I look forward to 2012 and our collective adventures ahead!

From Within

Love and respect yourself first before the world can love and respect you. No ego; your passion for self is not an admirable discussion topic. Rather, you must find happiness and pride in your life and share it. Without them, you will lack the confidence to make an impression on this world. Without strength inside, you can do little good outside.

Peripheral Vision and Opportunity

Keep your eyes open all the time. You never know what opportunities lie at the edge of your vision. Keep your mind free to all possibilities. Focus may be productive, but it has a very negative side effect: myopia. The real pros do not ruthlessly blockade distractions from their lives; they listen to all options, see everything, and train themselves to sort through variables faster than everyone else. If you want to rule the world, learn to dissect the world efficiently. Pay attention to everything and consider it all before filtering away. The email at the bottom of the list, the girl in the corner of the room, or that side panel advertisement may actually be the most important twists in your life. But you’ll never know unless your mind’s eye stays open.

Marry the Man or Marry the Mission

I’ve seen a lot of relationships collapse because partners failed to compete with the work or passion of their significant others. Especially in Hollywood, where living the dream and working 18 hours per day takes priority over all else. There are two different kinds of people – those who live for life and those who live for their dreams. The former tends to put people first; the latter tends to put the mission first, whatever that mission may be. There’s no right or wrong, better or worse. But when you are trying to engage in an intimate relationship with another person, it is very important to identify the type of person you are with. The disconnect comes when one party invests first in the relationship and the other invests first in the mission. You can fight the disconnect all you want to. But when a person’s love is unwavering or his or her mission is unwavering, you may never win. If the mission comes first, you need to fall in genuine love with the mission. Or move on.

If It Doesn’t Work…

…Try again differently. Don’t give up. Don’t dismiss it as a failure and leave it behind in the dust. Not yet. Don’t let all that hard work go to waste. Learn from your mistakes, figure out why it didn’t work the first time, and put lessons learned into practice. Try again, but differently this time. If you lose a second time, sit back and analyze the situation again. Debrief. You cannot wave it off in ignorance and shame. You must study your defeat. Only when you can draft an educated and supported thesis on your shortcomings should you be allowed to dismiss your attempts as failures and move on.

Save the Best For Last

Deliberately procrastinating the bad may hamper your ability to completely enjoy the good by the thought of the less favorable ahead. You risk spoiling the good for no reason (or at least enjoying it less than you could otherwise). Get the chores out of the way first (homework or Brussels sprouts), and save something to look forward to. Convince yourself that you are earning the dessert at the end of the meal. You’ll appreciate the victory even more.