Motivation

6 Tips to Do Crazy Things that Scare You

Steve Bloom 26 Comments

Do Something Crazy

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

When I was a little boy, I was afraid of just about everything. Too shy to make many friends, I kept my social circle small. I shunned change and risk-taking; the thought of doing something crazy like traveling to another country didn’t appeal to me.

As I grew up, I started noticing all the opportunities I’d been missing. My own fear made me miss out on fun adventures and many potential friends.

So one day I decided I had to face down the things that scared me. If a great opportunity came along, I had to take it – no matter how scary it seemed.

Funnily enough, the more I did the things that scared me, the more I realized just how safe these things actually were. Instead of running away from crazy, scary things, I started to run towards them.

The little boy who was once afraid of travel started to visit exotic far-off locations. I did things that once seemed way too crazy to attempt like swimming with sharks in Belize or hanging out with locals in Vietnam.

I stretched my social skills too. Long ago, the thought of approaching a cute girl and starting up a conversation seemed terrifying. So I faced that fear and started striking up conversations whenever I wanted.

It didn’t feel like life was passing me by anymore. In fact, doing things that scared me made me feel more alive than I’d ever felt. Nothing seemed beyond my reach.

Here’s what I’ve learned along the way.

1. Minimize thinking once you’ve decided to do it

Fear is an expectation of what might happen in the future if we take a certain course of action.  Because we don’t know what will happen on the scary path, the uncertainty can feed our fears and make us envision all the potential bad things that might happen.  It’s easy to get lost in these thoughts and psych yourself out before you even take the first step.

Train your brain to ignore these thoughts. When you’re mind starts racing, calm it down and get back to reality. Many of the fears you’ll focus on will be nothing but your imagination going wild.  It’s good to be aware of all the potential dangers, but you can’t dwell on them.

2. Scary things=growth

Remind yourself that the biggest moments of growth happen when you do something scary. It’s always scariest the moment you move away from your comfort zone and try something completely different.

Sticking to the safe and familiar will assure that you continue to see the same results in your life.  By moving away from the norm and facing down those fears, you’ll get places you’ve never been before.  To get somewhere you’ve never been, you have to do things you’ve never done.

3. Get pumped up to do it

Fear isn’t the only feeling you’ll get when you think about trying something crazy; it can also feel thrilling and exciting.  But too often, the fear overrides those feelings keeping you from actually doing it.

Pump yourself up.  Get so excited that fear is crowded out and diminished in size.  When you feel that exciting energy surging inside you, you’ll get the inspiration and motivation to get yourself going and you’ll think less about the fears you might have.

4. Start small, aim big

Let’s say that you want to skydive. It might be too scary an idea to immediately hop on a plane, go to 16,000 feet and parachute out. You might be jumping the gun a little.

That’s why skydiving places have a period of preparation and training involved before you even step into a plane.  They know it’s important to build up to that big moment.

It’s okay to start off with small, steady steps to reach one big scary goal. By taking it in small, more manageable chunks, you’ll find it’s easier to keep pushing yourself to the end.  All that matters is that you’re moving forward to something that you ultimately want to do.

5. Distance yourself from how crazy you think it is

One mental trick that works well for me is to distance myself from the crazy thing I want to do. That can help prevent you from getting too into the moment and psyching yourself out.

Approach it as if you’re another person.  See yourself as an observer of the situation almost as if you’re watching yourself.  The main idea is to just get outside of your head and dissociate yourself from what’s going on.  By disengaging with the situation, it won’t seem as scary.

6. Change your attitude about fear

It’s not always best to examine our feelings of fear on an emotional level.  Rather than tackling them that way, we should take a closer look at our attitude towards it.

Think back to the last time you did something really scary.  It didn’t seem so scary after the fact, did it?

That situation goes for all fear – it goes away once you’ve actually done it.  It just drifts away because the reality isn’t as scary as the fantasy happening inside your head.

Whatever you’re thinking about doing will be exactly the same.  You’ll feel scared before doing it, but feel better once it’s over.  If you don’t do it, that fear will always be with you.  Imagining that fear vanishing away after the fact can be a good source of motivation.  All you have to do is just start.  Do it now and let the fear fall away later.
photo credit: Matthew Kenwrick

This Incredible Story Will Make You Rethink Impossible

Steve Bloom 30 Comments

Rethink Impossible

Sometimes a story comes around that is so inspiring that it makes you question just what you’re actually capable of accomplishing in your own life. This is one of those stories…

In 1984, Augusto and Michaela Odone took their six year old son to a doctor because he was stumbling, becoming bad-tempered and not feeling well. After a few tests doctors diagnosed their son, Lorenzo, with a rare disease called adrenoleukodystrophy.

There was no treatment for the disease. Doctors said little Lorenzo would continue losing his balance, go blind and deaf until eventually dying of aspiration. He wasn’t expected to live longer than two years after diagnosis.

Augusto and Michaela consulted several doctors and specialists about the disease, but everyone said the same thing: there’s no known cure or treatment; it’s hopeless.

But Augusto was a fighter and refused to accept such a terrible situation without expending every ounce of energy he had to overcome it.

If no cure existed, he would just discover one on his own.

Unfortunately, he faced some huge obstacles.

  • Augusto only had a high school level understanding in science and medicine.
  • He had to learn everything about the disease from scratch. That includes things like how degradative enzymes cross membranes and how long-chain fatty acids accumulate.
  • After learning about it, he had to discover a cure.
  • And do it all in less than two years so he can give it to Lorenzo.

When they told doctors and researchers about the plan, they heard the same thing:

“It’s impossible. It can’t be done.”

Turning Impossible into Reality

By day, Augusto worked as an economist at the World Bank. At night, he scoured research papers and medical journals from the National Institute of Health. He worked dauntlessly and put all his effort into figuring the disease out.

He finally got an insight from an unlikely source: the oils he used to make spaghetti carbonara. He reasoned that the oils might soak up the deadly acids before it hurt Lorenzo’s nervous system.

Medical researchers thought he was crazy. After all, it’s absolutely unheard of for complete amateurs in medicine to develop a cure to a complex neurological disease that professionals had been studying for decades.

But when they tested the oil on Lorenzo, it made a huge impact on his condition. While it didn’t cure him completely, it did halt the progress enough for Lorenzo to live an additional twenty years when he died from an accident – not the disease.

It took until 2005 for doctors to publish a study to finally prove the treatment actually works – which is now known as Lorenzo’s Oil (which is also the name of a movie about their accomplishment.). In that time, Augusto and Michaela had given it to hundreds of other people and saved lives all over the world.

The Big Lessons In This Story

It all sounds so impossible, doesn’t it?

Someone with only a high school understanding of science studying enough about a rare disease to find a treatment for it? And in less than two years?

We know it’s not impossible though. It happened.

I have to admit that if I had heard about Augusto and Michaela’s plan to find a cure to a disease with little to no knowledge about medicine, I would have assumed it was impossible too. It’s just so far outside of the norm that it’s too easy to dismiss it away.

But it should all give us pause to think about what we consider “impossible” in our own lives.

It seems so easy to define what’s possible and what isn’t. We tend to use our perceptions of things we’ve seen before to help guide us in what can actually be done.

But defining what’s impossible is not as clear as we’d like to think. Perceptions are largely based upon experience. That leaves a big gap of knowledge about experiences that haven’t been tested yet.

The Odones went into that unknown area of experience where no one had gone before. Because it had never been done before, people were ready to dismiss it away as “impossible”. But it’s important to test our perceptions and assumptions – many times they’re wrong.

If Augusto and Michaela had simply accepted their situation, Lorenzo would have died much earlier in his life. The only reason they found this cure was due to Augusto’s determination and willingness to fight.

Make no mistake about it. What Augusto and Michaela did was a long-shot – a huge long-shot. But that’s the strange and beautiful thing about life, sometimes the long-shots pay off.
photo credit: Hartwig HKD

The Lies Your Mind Tells You that Hold You Back

Steve Bloom 15 Comments

Lies Your Mind Tells You
It’s amazing how often our minds lie to us.

We’ll think of excuses to not do something instead of admitting it’s procrastination.

We’ll try to justify bad choices rather than call them mistakes.

Then there are negative thoughts and beliefs telling us what we can’t do.

Why do we let this happen?

Lies are usually told to avoid trouble or as a way to get something from another person. There’s really no reason to lie to ourselves. You’d think that we’d always want to tell ourselves the truth.

And there’s a big problem when it comes to lying to ourselves: it can hinder our growth and ability to improve our lives.

For example, when I graduated from college, I got a job in a big corporate office. After a few months of working, I realized I didn’t enjoy it as much as I expected.

But I kept telling myself that I would eventually get used to it. In my mind, the job was a good fit and I just needed to give it more time. If something was wrong, it was my attitude, not the job itself.

Unfortunately, I was just deceiving myself. One day I faced the truth that I hated working in the corporate world and had to find another line of work.

This repeated lie hindered my progress. It was the only thing keeping me in a job I hated. If I had just accepted the truth earlier, I could have done something about it sooner.

Truth is the First Step to Positive Change

Lies don’t do us any good. If something isn’t working, we should be honest. When we do something wrong, we should own the mistake.

It reminds me of a time when I was in middle school. Sitting next to a friend at lunch, he told me that when I get nervous or anxious, I bite my nails – something I didn’t even realize I was doing. Apparently the habit was getting out of control.

I was naturally embarrassed and didn’t want to hear it, but then he made a really great point:

He said it’s way better to hear the horrible truth from a friend rather than be unaware of a problem that needs to be corrected.

He was right. It was better to hear the embarrassing truth rather than have the problem continue.

Because he was willing to tell me the truth, I could do something about it; his honesty improved my life.

We all need to be our own best friend. We all need to be someone who is willing to tell the truth to ourselves even if it’s unpleasant or embarrassing.

Otherwise you may hinder personal growth and leave big problems unchecked.

Radical Self-Honesty

Let’s say you’re making excuses to not do something. Instead of being honest that you’re procrastinating, you’ll say you’re too tired or that the timing isn’t right.

Those excuses are lies masking the real problem: procrastination. They make a real problem more likely to continue.

Mentally you’re justifying your bad behavior which makes you more likely to do it in the future. After all, you don’t feel so bad about procrastinating when you have a reason to do it.

It’s easier to tell yourself that you like a job or relationship you hate rather than admit you don’t. That means facing an uncomfortable truth you’d rather not deal with.

But you have to deal with these things if you want your life to improve.

Lately I’ve started to watch my thoughts to see when I’m being honest with myself and when I’m not. My goal is complete self-honesty.

I won’t tell myself excuses or justify misbehavior. If I’m procrastinating, I will be honest about it. If I make a big mistake, I won’t try to cover it up. I’ll get rid of any self-limiting thoughts.

The goal is to be my own best friend who is willing to say things I might not want to hear. This will help me uncover problems so I can make improvements.

Be Your Own Best Friend

You need to take control over your thoughts and be honest.  If you don’t, you’ll ensure that whatever you’re covering up continues to make your life a lot less satisfying.

After all, if no one comes around to tell you about a bad habit – whether it’s biting your nails or procrastinating – you may never know it’s there.
photo credit: gato-gato-gato

64 Amazing Quotes that Will Inspire You to Take that Risk

Steve Bloom 23 Comments

Take that Risk

There’s more than one way to take a risk. To some people it means dropping everything to travel around the world. To others it means tackling a big project in the workplace.

But If you looked up the word “risk” in the dictionary, it would say something like this: To expose oneself to the chance of injury or loss; put oneself in danger; hazard; venture.

That’s hardly inspiring. It doesn’t encompass all the different ways you can put yourself out there. There are so many extraordinary paths we can take in life and each one involves risk in one form or another.

That’s why I find quotes on risk-taking so valuable. Life is so wide open and you never know where the journey will take you next. These quotes can open your mind to all the hidden possibilities around you.

So I want to share some of my favorite quotes about risk-taking. I hope you find them as helpful and inspirational as I do.

“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” – Sheryl Sandberg

“I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” –  Marissa Mayer

“Pearls don’t lie on the seashore. If you want one, you must dive for it.” – Chinese proverb

“If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.” – Neil Gaiman

“If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti

“Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.” – Oprah Winfrey

“Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” – Denis Waitley

“Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” – Jimmy Carter

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” – Bill Cosby

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs

“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn

“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” – Aristotle

“If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.” – Dhirubhai Ambani

“Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not.” – Deepak Chopra

“Leap and the net will appear.” – Zen Saying

“Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small.” – Tim Ferriss

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

“The reward is in the risk.” – Rachel Cohn

“When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.” – Ellen DeGeneres

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” – Lao Tzu

“Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk – and to act.” – Andre Malraux

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” – J.K. Rowling

“Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” – Jack Canfield

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.” – Mark Twain

“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair

“Screw it, Let’s do it!” – Richard Branson

“I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. It’s because of them I’m doing it myself.” – Albert Einstein

“Only those who play win. Only those who risk win. History favors risk-takers. Forgets the timid. Everything else is commentary.” – Iveta Cherneva

“No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life in a great cause.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” – e. e. cummings

“You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together.” – Earl Nightingale

“It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what’s left?” – Jim Carrey

“It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen.” – Herodotus

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.” – Alan Alda

“Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” – Walter Anderson

“Many a man is praised for his reserve and so-called shyness when he is simply too proud to risk making a fool of himself.” – J. B. Priestley

“Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are.” – Miguel Angel Ruiz

“When you play it too safe, you’re taking the biggest risk of your life. Time is the only wealth we’re given.” – Barbara Sher

“Everyone has a ‘risk muscle.’ You keep it in shape by trying new things. If you don’t, it atrophies. Make a point of using it at least once a day.” – Roger von Oech

“You have to be able to risk your identity for a bigger future than the present you are living.” – Fernando Flores

“It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.” – Philip Adams

“It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.” – Seneca

“If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.” – Ezra Pound

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Pablo Picasso

“Don’t be afraid to take a big step. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps. – David Lloyd George

“The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety. – Goethe

“A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one would find fault with what he has done. – Cardinal Newman

“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself. – Soren Kierkegaard

“When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. – Cynthia Heimel

“I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. – G.K. Chesterton

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I… I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. – Robert Frost

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. – Vincent van Gogh

“The most important thing to remember is this: to be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become. – W. E. B. Du Bois

“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible—and achieve it, generation after generation. – Pearl S. Buck

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. – T. S. Eliot

“If you never budge, don’t expect a push. – Malcolm S. Forbes

“Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible. – Cadet Maxim

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. – Samuel Beckett

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

“Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile…initially scared me to death.” – Betty Bender

“The function of man is to live, not to exist.” – Jack London
photo credit: A Syn

Why I Spent a Small Fortune on a Risk with a 50% Chance of Success

Steve Bloom 26 Comments

Risk with 50% Chance of Success

In one afternoon, my wife and I spent an exorbitant amount of money on a risk with only a 50% chance of success.

The sum total – which my wife and I want to keep private – represented a large portion of our entire combined savings. It’s a huge risk, but, under the circumstances, one we’re both willing to take.

Before I get into what we spent our money on, I want to give a little back-story.

Three weeks ago, my wife and I celebrated three years of marriage.  It’s been a long, crazy adventure.  We’ve traveled, had some good times and even moved to the other side of the country together.

For the past two years, we’ve wanted to take the next step together and start a family.  It’s been a lot more difficult than we expected.  For some reason, nothing is happening.

We’ve both been examined thoroughly and no one can find anything wrong with either of us.  Frankly, our problem has stumped doctors.

About a year ago, we started getting fertility help from specialists.  We tried a series of relatively low-cost treatments, but after several tries, we got nowhere.

Now we’ve had to drop the big bomb on the problem.  In order to get what we want, we have to use In-vitro fertilization (IVF) which is a long, specialized medical procedure.  I won’t go into the specifics here, but – suffice to say – it’s a major treatment.

It’s also our last resort.  Neither of us want to adopt at this time, so this is it for us. If it doesn’t work, we’ll likely be childless for the rest of our lives.

And that’s what we spent our money on recently – a last chance.

On the plus side, we used a new credit card with a signup bonus of 100,000 American Airlines miles so the next few flights we take will be free.  It’s good to do some travel hacking, but I just wish it was under different circumstances.

Why We’re Doing It

This decision wasn’t easy.  With all the money that goes into the procedure, you’d hope that the chances were a little better.  Statistics say that our likelihood for success is 40-50%; I’m just being optimistic and saying it’s 50%.

That’s basically the flip of a coin.

Heads it works and we get what we want.  Tails we lose everything.

But my philosophy of life tells me to take that risk.  It’s our last chance to get something we both really want –  we have to keep going despite the odds.

Sometimes life isn’t fair.  The world will stack the deck against you, but that doesn’t mean you have to just roll over and take it.  You have to keep going and fight with everything you’ve got to get what you want out of life.

If my wife and I gave up – if we had just accepted our circumstances and fallen short of everything we could have done, we would never have forgiven ourselves.

If we didn’t take this chance, we would always look back on this moment and wonder, what if…

There is a chance the coin will show tails and we’ll lose everything.  We’re preparing ourselves for that possibility.  At the same time, we’re preparing ourselves for success.  It’s up to the coin now.

It’s funny.  Sometimes I’ll hear people tell me about risks they want to take.  They’ll say the chances are too slim or worry about what they might lose if it doesn’t work out.

It’s perfectly reasonable to turn down a risk if it’s not worth it.  If my wife and I really didn’t want this as badly as we do, we would simply accept the situation as fate and live the rest of our lives in peace.

But when you want something so badly, can there be any other choice? Can you really live the rest of your life knowing that you didn’t take every single shot that you could have?  The alternative is to live the rest of your life with that nagging feeling of what might have been – that’s not how I want to live.

If it doesn’t work out the way we want, we’ll both be very sad.  However, we’ll hold our heads up high knowing that we gave it our all.  We laid everything down on the line for what we wanted.

There are moments from my past when I didn’t give 100% to a goal I highly desired.  When I look back now, I can only wonder what might have happened if I had done things differently.  As I move forward in life, I realize just how important it is to give your most important goals everything you’ve got.

I want to end this post with an abbreviated excerpt from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If—”

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss…

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son.
photo credit: Pauli Antero

What to Do When You Feel Like Giving Up

Steve Bloom 18 Comments

Giving Up

“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” – Elbert Hubbard

I’ve accomplished many big goals over the past few years.

Live overseas?  Did it.

Graduate with a master’s degree?  I crossed that off recently too.

When I set my mind to a goal, I put in a lot of time and effort to finish it.  Even if goals take a lot of hard work, I know that with patience and perseverance, I can achieve them.

But still, I would be lying if I said I never consider giving up.

That goes for everything I’ve done.  There hasn’t been any big goal that I’ve set out to accomplish that I never felt like walking away from.

Whenever I set out on a big goal, I know that I’ll eventually get that gnawing voice in my head saying things like:

“You’re not good enough to do this.”

“It won’t work out the way you planned.”

These negative thoughts eat at the back of my mind like parasites.  Whether from fear or self-doubt, they pop up to derail my plans.

But I don’t let them.

I know that these thoughts are a normal part of the process.  They’re just another obstacle you have to overcome to get where you want to go.  And if you know how to handle them properly, they’ll never hold you back.

Whenever I feel like giving up, I first ask myself one simple question:

Is this goal something I still want or has something changed?

Perhaps you feel like giving up simply because you no longer want what you’re working towards.

Maybe you feel like giving up because your priorities have changed.  It’s possible to set out on a goal, but change over time.  Perhaps you’re at a stage in life where you no longer find this goal important to accomplish.

If that’s the case, your feelings are there because you no longer value the end goal.  In which case, you shouldn’t feel bad about quitting.  There’s no point in chasing something you don’t truly want.

If You Still Want the Goal

If you still want to keep going, but you’re feeling like giving up, it means that you need to reconnect with what you’re pursuing.

When you’re working hard to reach something, your motivation and inspiration for doing it can get lost among the daily effort.  We start to focus too much on what we need to do and less on why we need to do it.

Here are four ways to get back on track:

1. Revisit your motivation

Remind yourself why you wanted to pursue it.  What was the reason you started out?

Think back to what inspired you.  Was it a book, a person or a story?

Take some time to reconnect with that inspiration.

Reconnect with everything that made you excited about it.  Most of the time, what’s missing is that spark – the electric excitement of what’s possible.

There’s a purpose behind your actions and you just need to re-discover what it was.  If you can remind yourself what made you begin in the first place, you can give yourself a boost to keep going now.

2. Focus less on the end and more on how far you’ve come

Sometimes we focus so much on the end goal, that we forget to realize just how far we’ve actually gone.  If all you see is how far you still need to go, you’ll only discourage yourself and become frustrated.

Instead, take a moment to see where you’ve been.  How much have you done to get to the point you’re at?

Think of all the hard work you’ve done.  Think of all the progress you’ve made and how much you’ve actually done.  You’ve done a lot more than you’re giving yourself credit.

When you take a moment to shift your focus from the end to the beginning, you’ll really start to feel good about what you’ve accomplished rather than bad about what you still have ahead of you.

3. Talk to someone

Feeling like giving up can be an emotional experience.  When you get that feeling, your mind is filled with emotions like fear, doubt, worry and frustration.  It can be a difficult time.

Sometimes you just need an outlet.  Just having someone to share your thoughts with can get some of those thoughts out of your head.

Feelings can carry a weight to them.  When you bottle them up in your head they just weigh you down.  Talking them through with another person can help you release that weight off your mind.

Plus, it’s good to have someone who can put things into perspective.  They’ll remind you why you want this goal and everything you’ve already done to achieve it.

Having someone to cheer you up at the right moment can help you get out of your slump and back on track.

4. Fall in love with your challenges

Big goals take time and effort.  You can’t expect things to fall into place right away.

I’ve learned that big accomplishments rarely work as a straight line from a to b.  It’s a zigzagged course taking you all over the alphabet from a to z.

You’ll face unexpected challenges.  You’ll face difficulties you never anticipated.  It’s never as straightforward as we like and that can be frustrating.

But rather than letting it bring you down, see the positives of the situation rather than the negatives.  The problem can be that you’re seeing your challenges in a negative light.

Don’t see them as negative things you’re forced to overcome.  See them as puzzles to solve.

Think back to a time when you were challenged.  It can be a time at work or school when you were faced with a problem and you overcame it.  Remind yourself how good it felt when you finally solved it.

Your challenges can be solved too.  When you remind yourself of that good feeling you had when you finally solved it, you can give you the motivation to recapture it.
photo credit: Jason Parks

How to Get Passionate About Boring Tasks

Steve Bloom 24 Comments

Become Passionate

If you want to learn a foreign language, you need to spend hours memorizing vocabulary and grammar.

To get into great shape, you need to perform repetitive exercises on a regular basis.

I’ve written about the importance of doing boring things before, but that lesson was highlighted to me a few weeks ago at the symphony.

As I was reading about the lead violinist, I found something interesting. Apparently, she still starts every morning playing the same scales she did as a beginner.

An extremely talented and advanced violinist starts out every day doing the same basic scales she did as a youngster. She says that they’re essential to maintaining her ability.

The big lesson in all of this is that boring tasks pay off. It’s just doing them that’s hard – after all, they’re boring.

Learning a foreign language is exciting. You get to speak to others in a brand new way; it’s impressive. But hardly anyone gets excited about learning the vocabulary.

Writing a novel is a big goal for many people. That excitement dies down when confronted with the day-to-day writing tasks that go into it.

But what if you could become passionate about boring tasks? If you can get excited to do them, you could unlock a lot of potential and accomplish more. But how do you do it?

The Power of Ritual

The first step to becoming passionate about a boring task is to create a ritual around it. Embedding them into a set sequence of activities will make it easier to integrate the task into your life.

According to Twyla Tharp in her book, The Creative Habit, she uses a morning ritual to help her exercise daily. Each morning activity leads seamlessly into the other until finally she ends up in a taxi cab going to the gym to work out.

She credits her daily workouts to this ritual. Otherwise she would never find the motivation to go. In fact, she quite dislikes working out, but the ritual activities flow so well that it sweeps her along to her goal.

Stephen King also has a ritual to his writing. Each morning, when he wakes up, he brews a cup of tea and takes a vitamin. Promptly starting between 8AM and 8:30AM, King sits in the same chair behind the same desk with all his papers arranged exactly the way he wants.

Once again, he credits his prolific writing with this ritual. As he has said, when he sits down at that desk, his mind knows it’s time to write.

I’ve had similar results. I used to write at various times and places with decent output. However, when I created a workspace and set a time-frame dedicated specifically to writing, my word count steadily increased.

Daily rituals are consistently found among a lot of highly accomplished people. If you want to read more about them go to this list of 25 famous thinkers and their inspiring daily rituals.

Find the Intrinsic Value of the Task

Turning the boring task into a ritual is only the first step. Rituals will make you consistent, but if you want to become passionate about the boring task, you need to do more.

There has to be something about the task that gets you excited. You have to find something that keeps you going and wanting to do more.

Passion will come when you find intrinsic value in the boring task you’re doing.

For example, when I was studying French, I memorized a lot of vocabulary words using flash cards. It’s hard to become passionate about rote memorization of vocabulary words, but it happened to me. In the end, it was one of my greatest joys.

Each day I would go through an old set of words and try to recall the translation. Each time I successfully recalled a word felt great. The more I recalled, the more I felt like I was building something.

Later, when I tested my translation skills with a French movie or TV show, I would pay close attention to any vocabulary words I had memorized. If I heard one and understood it, I felt the hard hard work was paying off.

That’s really the secret to being passionate about boring tasks. You have to feel like it’s building up to something or paying off in the end. You have to find purpose in them.

As I studied French, I could tell I was understanding more and more. Memorization wasn’t for nothing; I was building up the French language more than I could have hoped and that was exciting.

It’s the same for writing a book. I do a little here and there every day. It’s exciting to see the words coming together as the book forms.

People only dread boring tasks when they don’t see any reason or purpose to them. If you can see your daily tasks building up to something, it’s a lot easier to get passionate about them.
photo credit: Emily’s Mind