Today is another prompt from #Trust30. Check it out and sign up.
If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.
The first thing that came to mind when I saw this one was consistency. I aim to be consistent in my efforts to create the exact life I want every day.That’s actually a lie because I thought of push and determination first. To do anything you really want to do you have to push yourself. You’re not going to be 100% happy sitting around being complacent and letting things come to you. If you’re lucky you might get something get once in a while. Most of the time you fall short of anywhere worthwhile. And it take determination to get to where you want to go. You won’t get anywhere if you give up after a few hours or even a week. You must keep swimming.Push and determination can tire you out. You may not have it all one day and too much another.Consistency on the other hand can be mastered. You don’t have to go 150% every single day but you must be consistent. You won’t get lucky if you are haphazard in your method. Each day builds on the previous and soon you’ll be much farther than you had anticipated. All by doing a little bit each day.One Strong Belief is the new prompt for today that really resonated with me. I’m reading through Ralph Emerson’s Self-Reliance right now and this quote leapt off the page and begged to be pondered.
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
And the prompt which questions your real action with regards to the quote:
The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?
What have I done to actively live it? A tough question. And one that puts people on the spot when they talk about all the amazing thing they want to accomplish in their lives. Have they actually started? Are they working consistently towards achieving those goals?If they’re like most people they’re still just daydreaming.I’m not saying I’m one in a million and I’ve got everything figured out but I feel like I’m on my way. I’m on my way to cultivating the exact life I want by creating a freedom or lifestyle business like so many blogs talk about.If you’re doing the same and you’ve mentioned the fact to your family and friends, you know the weird looks you get. You’re familiar with the chuckles you get when your conversation partner realizes what you’re actually trying to do and instantly dismisses it.”That doesn’t work.””You’ll never be able to pull that off.””That’s not normal.”There’s all kinds of responses I’ve heard when I say I’m building a website about the outdoors and I’m going to make a living off it eventually.I’m actually ok with the comment about it not being normal. It isn’t. Most people don’t start a business and try and travel around the world with it building it into something they love waking up in the morning to do. The other two comments, though, are ones that most people instantly think when they hear about the idea and I think they’re wrong. First, it does work because people are doing it. And second, who says I can’t do that. The gatekeepers in the modern world? All the people that are living their regular, comfortable, boring lives that will try and stop you every chance they get from shaking up the norm? Yes, it’s going to be tough, but there’s the beauty of it.Easy is overrated. Easy doesn’t keep you up at night, stoked for the next day. Easy doesn’t get you flying around the world, doing things you never thought possible. Easy doesn’t introduce you to incredible people the world over, working just as hard or harder than you.I believe I can make my life into exactly what I want it to be.That is my One Strong Belief.