“Fake it till you make it” can convince others (and yourself) that you’ve got the skills.

But it only works if you back it up with real skills.

It’s like using credit. It let you buy something in advance, but you better back it up when the bill comes due, otherwise, you’ll pay interest.

Sometimes we need to fake ourselves out to leap into the unknown. Once we leap though, we better put in the hard work necessary to make it happen.

Otherwise, we’re just faking it, which doesn’t last for long.

We don’t need to be great already to learn to be great.

Consistent effort goes a long way towards greatness.

I don’t care what your genes say, or how much talent you have or don’t have. Mastering a skill requires effort and persistence. If you practice those and are willing to put in the time, greatness is inevitable.

Daily habits and continuously challenging ourselves leads to mastery.

In sight, in mind.

The easier it is to access a good habit, the more likely we will do it. At least that’s what I’ve discovered in my own life. I am 100% more likely to workout if I’ve got my weights, bands and shoes out in the open and ready to go. The same goes for practicing guitar. When my guitar is on a stand, I’m much more likely to reach out and grab it and take a “quick” guitar break, versus if was stuck in a guitar case somewhere under something. And if there’s no ice cream in the house, well, I can’t eat any, right? (Or at least I’m less likely too).

It’s not that we are lazy, rather most of us are lacking in time and motivation to start. No wonder you have trouble sticking to a good habit when you have to go through a ten step process before you can start! (I’m breaking a sweat just thinking about it).

Surround yourself with good habits over bad. Make it as simple as possible to work on your goals.

One of the joys of being a designer is taking an idea and making it a reality. Turning a simple sketch or (random) product name into an actual tangible thing. Or at least taking it a step closer.

The thing I have to be careful about is not getting too attached to whatever random ideas pop into my head each day.

Ideas are currency. But only with focus and effort. With the time and resources I have, I can only say yes to so many ideas. There’s a mental energy cost as well as a financial one.

Saying yes to too many ideas short-shrifts all the other ones.

So if I design a cool brand or product, but don’t have the time to give to make it real, who’s really getting value from that?

Guarding our time is essential for finding success in our projects.

Not to say that we should be walking on eggshells when it comes to our ideas. If you have a strong idea, test it out! Validate its worth. Build a paper prototype. Share it and see what people think.

If you can get one idea to pop, then you can leverage that success to fuel other ideas.

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STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1893

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Whenever I’m feeling nervous about something, I know it’s a good sign that I need to be doing it. Fear is an excellent weather bell for what we should be doing. Not necessarily physical fears (like wrestling with a bear), but rather social fears or internal fears—things that make you nervous.

Singing, for example. It’s something I’ve been learning for the past couple of years. It feels natural to sing and play guitar by myself, or with friends. But I know I’m still in the beginning stages, so I always feel a little discomfort in the pit of my stomach and my heart starts fluttering when I sing for others. The idea of performing makes my heart flutter, which is a good sign I should be doing it.

If something is easy, it means we aren’t challenging ourselves enough.

The difficulty isn’t what we want. Rather, challenge is what takes us to that next level.

Hard, not for hard sake. Hard because we want to feel uncomfortable. Well, we don’t want to be uncomfortable, but that’s where improvement and growth build from.

Discomfort is how we grow. When we step out of our cozy slippers and step into a new and unfamiliar place, we push ourselves to grow.

There are many ways we can challenge ourselves. We can challenge ourselves by doing more. By doing less. By doing something different. By doing something that scares us. By doing something unfamiliar. By mimicking others.

But not talking. Or worrying. Or worrying about worrying.

We must push ourselves to fail. Again, not intentionally, but because dancing on the edge between failure and success is where the magic is.

Failure is just another word for latent success. It all depends on what we do with that failure—give up or keep at it.

Join the Renaissance:

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1892

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Stress needs a release valve.

Bottling up stress, day after day, with no outlet, wreaks havoc on our minds and physical well-being.

Exercise (any type of movement really) is a great way to relieve stress. It might seem obvious, but obvious answers are usually the most straightforward and effective methods of action.

Mediation or moving meditations like Yoga is another go-to for me. Especially when anxiety is tagging along with stress.

I’ve heard vlogging (i.e. talking to a camera) is therapeutic, even if you don’t end up sharing it. But this isn’t something I have explored (yet).

Doing something fun (and completely unrelated to what’s stressing you out) is also a great release. Sometimes all we need is simply a break.

If you feel called to do something, then removing the barriers stopping you should be one of your biggest priorities.

If money is the problem, mastering money is part of the solution. Read every insightful book on money you can get your hands on. Apply what you learn. Live below your means, while also increasing your means.

You might find that money was a problem but was masking the real barrier (such as fear). That’s good. Now you know. Now you can master this one as well. Keep going down the list until there are zero barriers/excuses left.

You don’t need to already be great to learn to be great.

Even a little effort done consistently goes a long way toward adding up to something great.

I don’t care what your genes say, or how much talent you have or don’t have. Mastering a skill requires effort and persistence.

If you practice those and are willing to put in the time, greatness is inevitable.

Vincent van Gogh has said it best, “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

Daily habits and challenges make the master.

Plus we actually need to put our work out there helps. It’s hard to sell something if you don’t sell it. Or get better at writing if you don’t write. Or become an illustrator if you don’t draw. Or entrepreneur if you don’t connect and build.

“If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.”

Glenn Clark

There’s so much mental weight we tend to carry with us from creative endeavor to the next. Every idea unfinished can easy weigh on us, especially when we don’t let them go.

I’m dealing with this now. There are so many ideas and interesting projects I want to work on. But there’s only so much time to give my attention. And if I think about them too much, what I’m currently working on can suffer.

In order to successfully finish a project, we need to give our full attention to it.

Does that mean we have to choose one thing to work on? Not unless we want to. But in the moment, our focus must be singleminded.

Our interests many by multifaceted, but our attention isn’t.

Trying to multitask takes energy away from the thing in front of you.

As a designer and developer, one of the easiest traps you can fall into is always learning new programming languages or tools, but never using them to build things.

There are over 700+ programming languages out there. What happens is you learn one, hear something exciting about a new language, and you start learning that one instead of using the first. And so we hop from one language to the next, without actually doing the thing they were each made for— to create stuff.

But it’s not just programming, anything we learn can get stuck in “learning mode”.

Learning is one important part of the equation — using what you learn is the other part. Both are required. And the order doesn’t necessarily matter. You can act first and learn from those actions, or you can learn and act on what you know.

Is a skill important if you never use it?

Perhaps. Anyone who knows how to defend themselves in a fight is grateful for their training and skills, and even more grateful if they never have to use them in a real toss-up.

But, in most cases, skills are only important if we use them. Otherwise, why did we spend so much time and energy learning them in the first place? To use them someday? Maybe. But someday is rusty.

Knowing how to do something isn’t enough. We must also do something.

Same same with knowing you need to do something. Knowing isn’t enough. We also need to do.

Join the Renaissance:

STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #1887

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