Seeking Coastal Utopia

We all do it. I am really good at it. I make excuses like a champ. “this is a pile of books I said I would read but didn’t” photo by Annie Spratt on  Unsplash Too many times I find myself in a situation, trying to rationalize why I did not complete a particular task. I may even spend more time trying to formulate an excuse for not completing a task than it would be for me just to go ahead and do the activity. Or I said I was “done” but, maybe 67% is not done . Does this sound familiar? I highly doubt that I am the only person that does this. So how do we break out of that self-sabotaging behavior? It is time to own it. Own that activity. You made the mistake of saying “yes” or “I will do that” or any other positive affirmation when someone asks you to do something. We just do not know how to say NO and we have a list of 214 things that need to be completed by tomorrow. When you say “yes”, you immediately realized in the back of your cluttered mind that you w...

Have you ever been to the circus or have you ever seen videos of the clown car? A bunch of clowns cramped inside, clambering out one after another. Yet you never really know who is driving. They had no purpose other than piing in with most likely no specific directions, no specific purpose other than being slightly silly? In case you are slightly analytical and curious about how they fit so many clowns into cars, Car and Driver devised some physics to justify the science behind clown car stuffing . “plenty of room in this beauty” photo by The Creative Exchange on  Unsplash When you think of the image of the clown car where multiple clowns cycle in and out of the vehicle, running in various directions, switching sides, changing locations, you lose track of who is where and which ones are in the show. The misdirection, constant change and people moving all over the place can cause you to lose track of who is doing what. Unfortunately, some organizations are much like cl...

We live in a world of instant gratification. We seek the fast, cheap and easy. We consume information, live the vicarious fitness plan via the web, and buy the things that we want without getting out of our chair — in mere seconds. “yes, you really do need to work harder” by Jordan Whitfield on  Unsplash Hard work? We go to the vending machine over in the corner and buy it the premade something.  Prepackaged stuff. Ready to eat. Immediately consumed. Is this what we want? Of course we do! We are consumers. We are always trying to find a hack, we try to find a shortcut. We want our hard work to be easy. 6 Minute Abs! Get rich quick! Whiter teeth in just a few days! This is your hack to hard work . Hard work is only hard the first time you do it. Seriously. That’s it. Nothing else. It is not magical. It is not complex. It is just hard. We recognize that doing it the first time is hard, and after that, it is no longer hard. Wait, what? ...

Or are you wrestling with a chrome squirrel? Are you comfortable with producing work that has no end? Are you comfortable not finishing a job and letting it continue until the end of time? You need to have a bias for action! You need to accept the work as it stands, stop fussing with that thing you are doing, realize that it is good enough to ship.  Go! Ship it . take my work — photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on  Unsplash Constraints are our friends . Constraints help us find solutions when we were not looking. Forcing a time constraint, even if it is artificial, will urge us to produce work on time and allow us to deliver.  What are you waiting for? Ship it already! oooo, shiny…squirrel! Too often we let things distract us from what is most important. A shiny squirrel sitting over in the corner begging for your attention, chittering away. Screeching for your attention. It has called you with that siren song… I’m a problem over here you want to...

“brown dried leaves on sand” by sydney Rae on  Unsplash Keep showing up. Never stop. Keep pressing play. Take another step. Do one more rep. Work for one more minute. Do twenty more miles. Woody Allen once said 80% of life is just showing up. Showing up is that first step forward. It is that challenge that everyone struggles with. If you are consistent and have the discipline to keep showing up, success will follow. You are now one more step ahead of the mediocre masses. You are one more step further from ordinary. You are further ahead than over half of the people that surround you. Yet you need to recognize that just showing up once is not going to make you successful. Yes, it is a great achievement that you actually took that first leap and showed up the very first time, but it is the 2nd and the 3rd and the 10th and the 50th time that you show up, that you repeat that’s what makes you successful. Having the discipline and the urgency to keep showing up and doing t...