The last week has been a lesson to me on the price to be paid when we retreat to the safety of our minds. Any form of success can easily make us forget the reason we took part. I spent the last fortnight not doing what I love, writing, teaching and learning, allowing myself to be controlled by expectations. Having had a few good weeks on myDL I’m struggling to write. Even though the success has been very moderate I’m suddenly finding myself quitting in the middle of posts and shooting down more ideas than ever paying the price for pursuing perfection. It’s not enough to find your passion! you need to find a way to keep it yours too!
Re-connect with your passion
Connect to the original reason you found your passion often. Go back to the reason you started. Whether your passion makes you $1 a year or $100 a day you when you started you started because you connected deeply with it. Connect with that feeling often. Remember all the reasons why you’d gladly do what you’re doing for free. Remember that some time good enough is good enough, the price of perfection is high when you let it stop you producing.
Study how the professionals progressed
Research heroes of your field and look how they progressed. Even the most gifted of gifted athletes and writers knocked their head once or twice. They didn’t start out perfect but they always had passion. No one is born able to do it all. Read about how they did it. Study their mindset. Model their strategies. Use their tactics. Have a good old laugh at the mistakes that they made. When you’re done, have a quick chuckle at your own expense 10 years from now someone will be laughing at how you knocked your head and you won’t care when you’ve made it. Passion will fuel you when you know that you won’t be perfect, but that you’re doing the right things. The price of perfection is less time spent learning.
Change your mindset about failure
Change your mind about failure. You’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to make plenty. Live with it. This is not permission for you to fail! This is permission to make mistakes. Put together a system and incorporate an element of quality checking before you complete. Systems are often passion killers, use your system to channel your energy to the parts of this blogging lark you’re most passionate about. When I write I now complete my outline, knock out my first draft. I then revise the piece while also checking for glaring spelling and punctuation mistakes then I revise again at least 12 hours later. When I just started out I found I still missed a glut of errors. I should have been checking more until my error margin was acceptable. At the moment I still miss the odd mistake but if I do I fix it and move on I still trust my system. You should do the same set up a system and stick to it as long your success rate is within acceptable limits. The price of perfection is going to be a heart attack if you don’t have trusted system to handle the areas of your blogging which you struggle most with.
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What is Refocus:
Refocus is a great productivity tool which I think will prove quite useful as a goal tracking tool, keeping my motivation levels up during the course of my busy professional and social life. The Refocus goal tracking tool is aimed at tracking the actions that you’ve taken during the week across your personal, social and professional goals. This is an excellent paper based goal tracking tool that can easily be organized into your daily life.
As with all goal tracking tools the biggest barrier is finding a way to integrate the tool with your busy work and social life. As life becomes more and more demanding it is critical that your tools fit your life. Goals need to be internalized and integrated easily.
Warning:
This is a paper based goal tracking tool. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but for me Goals, goal tracking and prioritising for my life and work have never left the realm of the paper and pen. There is something truly rewarding in the hard slog of writing and re-writing, scribbling notes in the margin and doodling while the creative juices flow as you pen your goals and goal tracking strategy. When it comes to Goal setting and goal tracking I like to have the flexibility to engage my whole mind and nothing does that for me better than some low-tech pen and paper based tools.
Download the WhiteHateBlackbox Refocus tool
- Life Hacker also recommends the Day Grid Balancer goal tracking tool and organizer for your paper based goal tracking.
If you’re not as technophobic as I am when it comes to your Goal capture, Goal tracking and review then perhaps try some of these online Goal tracking Tools:
- Joes Goals an online goal tracking tool with a very simple interface allowing quick updates on the go
- 43 Things is a social bookmarking type site where you can track and share your goals with anyone interested
- LifeTango is similar to 43 things a is social bookmarking and goal tracking site allowing you to be part of a community of likeminded goalers
- Getgoaling is a really slick goal tracking tool that lets you put together a detailed goal tracking schedule which you can update as you progress.
- StiKk is a goal tracking tool that lets you set up contracts where you can outline objectives timelines rewards etc.
- For niche goals try FitDay a tool for helping you with your fitness goals
- Wesabe is a goal tracking tool for your financial goals
Evernote is primarily a note taking tool but could very easily be adapted to keep track of your goals and someday/maybe type lists. Evernote Review, How I use Evernote
Also see: How to use Evernote and GTD for setting and achieving goals and objectives
The WhiteHatBlackbox site seems to be down for the foreseeable future so in the interim visit -> DiyPlanner Refocus tool for more information on the tool.
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