Month: November 2019

Slipping

When we commit to a new habit (whether that’s adding a good habit or replacing a bad one) we need to intentional figure out the motivation behind it.

Habits are rarely easy. What starts as enthusiasm can quickly fade to reluctance from the day-to-day responsibilities and whims.

Plus, our habits don’t exist in isolation. Not only do our habits intermingle with each other, but they also exist within the ebb and flow of our lives.

Motivation creates longevity. If we can see the long term game behind the day to day activities, we can learn to push through the harder days and feelings of reluctance to keep going.

The value of a habit is in the consistency of action over a long period of time. Painting only once and never again isn’t going to fulfill your dreams of hosting a gallery or selling art for a living. Painting every day will make you better over time.

If you love doing something, and you want to get better at it, then keep pursuing it.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #763

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Technicolor Life

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

Søren Kierkegaard

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

Mother Teresa

When I hear stories of near-death moments or sudden health scares, I try to stop and absorb the incredibly difficult lessons learned from their experiences. But it’s hard to not let the day-to-day busyness of life steamroll over what’s most important

Near-death, injury, loss, betrayal… bad outcomes can give us technicolor vision and drive (but can also make us bitter and resentful too if we are taking in the wrong lessons).

For me, that’s my chronic neck pain, which shows me what matters (health, rest, nutrition, proper exercise and mental and emotional wellbeing).

It’s also showed me not to let what doesn’t matter (the busyness of life) control my time and energy.

At any moment, this could be it. Knock on keyboard, but what if this was the last post I was capable of writing? What if that last goodbye was it? What if today was all we had?

Would you be satisfied with the life you’ve had up until this moment? Would you be happy with how you ended things?

I wouldn’t.

Will X decision matter in 12 months? Will Y still be important in 5 years from now?

That’s why it’s vital for us to live our truth and do the things we wish we would do or be better at. If we can learn to live in the moment, while also pursuing a better future, we’ll be in a good place.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #762

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Thanks Given

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero

One habit I’ve picked up recently is daily gratitude. The practice is simple: write down three things you’re grateful for. (Original idea, I know.)

It’s such a small thing, but it really does wonders on your mindset for the day. The biggest benefit is it forces you to pause and think about the good things going on in your life and appreciate them no matter how tiny they may look on paper.

It’s far to easy to dwell only on the negative and things that are “going wrong” in our lives and completely sprint past the good things happening in-between the bad. Even little things, normally unnoticed, like the way sky looks today, or a particular bird you heard chirping this morning, or the ritual of making coffee or tea in the morning.

Good things can come in all sizes (insert crude joke here). And bad things tend to look smaller

If you haven’t started your own daily gratitude practice, I can’t think of any better day than today (Thanksgiving in the states).

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #761

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Appreciate This

“Change is the essence of life; be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.”

Reinhold Niebuhr

Appreciation might be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done to date. It’s easy to appreciate the good experiences in life, but more challenging to appreciate the difficult ones. In fact, we usually only appreciate the difficult experience after much time and space away from them.

But what about in the moment of difficulty?

Is it possible to appreciate the challenge in the midst of it?

I believe so, but it requires us to look at our experiences from alternative angles and think slowly about what’s underneath the hardships we face.

Not that we have to enjoy it to appreciate it. I don’t love the pain, injuries, and suffering I’ve personally been through, but I’m (reluctantly) grateful for the lessons and opportunities it’s given me.

Without injuring my neck, I don’t know if I would be adamant and interested in health as I am.

Feeling broken down highlights what wholeness feels like. It gives you an appreciation for how fragile life is, while at the same time how resilient it is too.

Pain highlights healing.
Weakness highlights strengths.
Ignorance highlights wisdom.

Yin and yang.
Peanut butter and jelly.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #760

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Thinking thoughts about thinking

“If you run into an *sshole in the morning, you ran into an *sshole. If you run into *ssholes all day, you’re the *sshole.”

Raylan Givens, Justified

‘Bad things happen for a reason’ —

Says the hopeful person going through a rough time.

‘Good things happen to those who work for it’ —

Says the fortunate person who got a lucky break.

‘Says the fortunate person who got a lucky break’ —

Says the guy envious of the other person’s lucky break.

These people are like us, experiencing life and attaching ourselves to the picture, fortune and misfortune, negative and optimism. ‘It’s neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.’

Our mindset is ultimately the only thing we have true control over. (And there are some who unfortunately don’t even have that.)

It’s the first move. The second being our action and decision we make around our thoughts and what we let into our minds.

If I were Dr. Seuss, I’d say something like:

You are what you’re thinking thunk.

Sometimes, our current reality can get in the way of our minds, and our minds can limit our reality. Of course, our opinions matter. Our ideas matter. Our beliefs matter. Our values matter. But if you feel stuck, or less than who you want to be, then perhaps it’s time to rewrite your thoughts and ideas about things, so you can create a slightly better version of yourself and find joy when you experience the ups and downs in life.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #759

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Daily Habit Ideas

“Yet habit – strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?”

Herman Melville

It’s simple to say, but the best daily habit you could do is the one thing in your life you would love to improve in. If you could master any skill or character trait instantly, what would it be? Starting a daily habit is one method of achieving it.

Here are some ideas to get you started.

Continue reading “Daily Habit Ideas” →

Attention Attention

Everyone wants to be heard. Whether in person or online, we all want our voice to matter, our ideas to be known. But how?

Speaking louder doesn’t do it. Speaking more doesn’t do it either. When you try to raise your voice (join new social platforms to post your content, comment on everything, speak first, talk over etc), so does everyone else. It’s like a school cafeteria — the volume of the room increases.

In order to be heard, we must do the opposite: listen well.

Listening is your window into engaging conversation and true connections. It’s a sign that you care about what they are saying. By caring about the thoughts and ideas of others, others begin to care about what you have to say too.

You can’t fake listening — it shows in your eyes.

“Listening is active. At its most basic level, it’s about focus, paying attention.”

Simon Sinek

Most people are terrible listeners. They look away or at their phones when you are talking to them. But I’m not here to judge, just highlight. If you can learn to become an excellent listener, then you give the feeling of being heard to those around you.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #757

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Total Effort

“Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.”

Arnold Palmer

I’m not one for half-*ssing things, but being lazy isn’t the only way to do it.

When you’re interested in a lot of things, you naturally end up spreading your time out into a lot of different area. In some ways this is beneficial. Every area you pursue doesn’t live in a bubble. Each pursuit mixes and passes energy with each other. But if you’re not careful, it’s easy to spread yourself too thin and inevitably do poorly in a bunch of things. (Not to mention leave nothing but a trail of unfinished projects in your wake.)

Whatever you pursue direct yourself towards it completely. Find a handful of things you want to excel at and focus all your efforts towards mastering them.

Remember, most don’t even become masters of one thing, let alone two or three things.

That’s why it’s vital for us to direct our time and energy towards what and who is important to us, rather than trying to do it all.

Few is better than many. One is better than none. If you’ve got a lot of responsibilities and only have time for one pursuit, go after it with all you’ve got.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #756

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Playing by the Rules

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

Pablo Picasso

“Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.”

Paracelsus

Do you have to play by the rules in order to play by your own rules?

Depends.

Sometimes rules are there for a reason. If you are a Surgeon, washing your hands before surgery to prevent infection is a good rule to have. So is washing your hands if your a chef / cook too.

Not using your phone during a movie premiere is a great rule. No, dear sir, I do not want to watch you scroll on your twitter feed at full eye-melting brightness while I’m trying to watch a new movie. Good day sir. (I said good day.)

Some rules keep us from harms way and become guardrails from stupid decisions. They usually suck when they get in the way of something we want, but they are usually (not always, but usually) there from a reason. Credit, for example. Bad credit will prevent you from buying a new car, which blows when you want a new car, but might be good if you honestly can’t afford a car payment, but are trying to fool yourself into believing you can.

There’s also rules of thumb that hid nuggets of a meaningful life if we take the time to parse out the action steps hidden beneath their overused, fluffy cookie shell.

‘Treat others as you would want to be treated.’

‘Well done is better than well said.’

‘Don’t bite off more than you can chew.’

Pretty much any Benjamin Franklin quote.

Rules keep us safe, but they can also sometimes hold us back. Sometimes it’s good to play the rules to learn what rules are worth keeping and what rules are worth bending and breaking when needed. Some rules are just too dumb not to break. These are the ‘do first, apologize later’ kind-of-rules.

The best rules are the ones that we create for ourselves. The ones that increase our happiness, fulfillment, creativity, meaning, belonging and wellbeing in life. These are mostly found through trial and error (lots and lots of errors), but we can also pick up life rules from people we respect and admire.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #755

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Daily Habits: Missing a Day

“Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.”

Julie Andrews

Daily streaks are a powerful way to keep a habit going daily. When you have 7 days in a row on a habit, you’ll likely do it the 8th day. When you have 50 days in a row, you’re no doubt going to check off day #51. And when you’ve got 300 days under your habit belt, there’s no chance you’re going to skip day 301. But…. life?

But what do you do if you miss a day?

Simple: Start again the next day.

Streaks give motivation to not want to miss a day, but doing a daily habit isn’t about doing something daily. That’s right – a daily habits value isn’t because it’s daily. Just because you have to start your streak count over doesn’t mean all the hard work you put into cultivating your habit disappears.

The value is the accumulation of days and the consistency of time and effort put into something you love and want to get better at.

The goal is to master the skill, not to check off boxes. Mastery is the strategy. Daily action is the tactic. It’s not the only way to reach mastery, but it’s an excellent way to do it while continuing to go about your life where you are.

When you miss a day, start again immediately. Start before disappoint creeps in. Start before the day to day distractions of life derails you from your daily habit.

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #754

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