There is a common void that everybody feels in their lives and people have often accepted that to be the way of life. We often ask ourselves, if this is all there is to it. Some long strides in one direction and suddenly you are too far into one direction left questioning yourself whether those steps were even in the right direction in the first place. Getting your eyes on the next big thing seems to be the cure for all.
I remember 4 years ago when I used to work in software, all I remember today is good happy days. Our mind does that and it does us a lot of good. Not that I was best at my job or that life was very comfortable. It would surely seem that way today because our mind beautifully focuses on all the good things that happened. If I drill it down my best guess would be that I had a lot of short-term goals and my mind was completely focused on them. Because they were all short-term there wasn't much planning to be done and they were small enough to be actionable and achievable.
During my early days, I learned a lot of Guitar (not that I'm really good at it!). I would come back from the office and every night after dinner just play for a couple of hours. The short-term goal then was to be able to sing while playing (as simple as that!). Once these actions take over our thinking they induce further refinements and upgrades of our goals. Soon enough I was able to sing, even with my kind of voice, a couple of songs that suited it. Now I believe without doubt that anybody can sing. They just have to find the type of songs that suit their voice and it works. Now my goal had transformed too. My goal now was to record songs. Nothing fancy, just the acoustic cover of some of the songs I liked. This little upgrade to my goal pushed me to the next level. Recording is a great teacher. All that talk about self-reflection and improving comes alive and at work for you. The little unwanted pause or that one wrong note, all can be caught once it's on tape. And knowing that will make you extra careful to be right.
Now my guitar learning went on till my next hobby or project took over and of course that was taken over by something else. But this is the way the 'void' won't bother us. We don't have to wait for some magical thing to appear one day and fill it up. We have to do it ourselves. It keeps coming back more frequently for people like us and it helps to reflect on ourselves, identify the next thing you feel most passionate about and go for it.
Following goes into my rule book:
- Always look out for the next short term goal/hobby to fill up that void and Act on it
- Use Reflection (Recording) as a tool to improve yourself
I remember 4 years ago when I used to work in software, all I remember today is good happy days. Our mind does that and it does us a lot of good. Not that I was best at my job or that life was very comfortable. It would surely seem that way today because our mind beautifully focuses on all the good things that happened. If I drill it down my best guess would be that I had a lot of short-term goals and my mind was completely focused on them. Because they were all short-term there wasn't much planning to be done and they were small enough to be actionable and achievable.
During my early days, I learned a lot of Guitar (not that I'm really good at it!). I would come back from the office and every night after dinner just play for a couple of hours. The short-term goal then was to be able to sing while playing (as simple as that!). Once these actions take over our thinking they induce further refinements and upgrades of our goals. Soon enough I was able to sing, even with my kind of voice, a couple of songs that suited it. Now I believe without doubt that anybody can sing. They just have to find the type of songs that suit their voice and it works. Now my goal had transformed too. My goal now was to record songs. Nothing fancy, just the acoustic cover of some of the songs I liked. This little upgrade to my goal pushed me to the next level. Recording is a great teacher. All that talk about self-reflection and improving comes alive and at work for you. The little unwanted pause or that one wrong note, all can be caught once it's on tape. And knowing that will make you extra careful to be right.
Now my guitar learning went on till my next hobby or project took over and of course that was taken over by something else. But this is the way the 'void' won't bother us. We don't have to wait for some magical thing to appear one day and fill it up. We have to do it ourselves. It keeps coming back more frequently for people like us and it helps to reflect on ourselves, identify the next thing you feel most passionate about and go for it.
Following goes into my rule book:
- Always look out for the next short term goal/hobby to fill up that void and Act on it
- Use Reflection (Recording) as a tool to improve yourself
0 comments:
Post a Comment