motivation – Mindflight

Gazelles may fall but Grunts continue

There’s an old concept in the military. It’s a concept often held to by strong men and women doing dangerous jobs, but it’s just as valuable for people who live gentler lives. Artists both of brush and pen benefit when they live by this.

It’s the concept of “being a Grunt.”

A Grunt may fall many times but always gets up again. A Grunt doesn’t let anyone stop them from eventually reaching their goal, even if they are slow to get there. A Grunt isn’t the best in the world, not at first, but they continue until they are. A Grunt handles failure and knows it’s not the end.

By contrast, Gazelles are naturally gifted. They pick things up quickly and they seemingly sail by obstacles, leaping high over them. They apparently don’t have a care in the world. Then, something gets in their way. But since they don’t understand what to do when they fail, they give up. It’s over. Meanwhile, the Grunt keeps slogging on, slowly and steadily approaching their goal.

I was a Gazelle. I’m trying to learn to be a Grunt.

When a painting doesn’t turn out the way I wanted, I’m trying to learn to do another till I’ve achieved my goal. When a story or article fails, I work on it till it’s good. I’m learning that failure is not the end, it’s just a bump in the road, and the key is to continue. To keep going.

In losing weight, in gaining health, in art, in writing, in singing, in sports, at work, and everywhere, we want to be the Gazelle… that’s natural, but we should want to be the tireless, indomitable, persistent Grunt.

The greatest artists in the world have been Grunts…

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/continue/

To her last breath, she limits and binds

Art of Womanhood

My grandmother is nearly 95. She is getting more and more confused with her letters, which is to be expected. Yet, the parts of her letters which are not confused indicate all that she has left in her mind – and that is fear and limitation.

I try to let her know what’s going on in my life. My novels, my art, my quest for a fitter body. She’s proud of me, and yet every time she says that she also suggests i do less. I say I take a walk every day. She says maybe I should make it shorter. I say I’m doing art every day for Inktober. She says maybe I should do some art and leave it for the rest day if I can’t finish.

It’s maddening! This poor woman has spent her whole life lying to herself, praying for forgiveness, pinning her hopes on things she can’t control, giving up her self control and her power, all while trying to control others with passive aggressiveness.

I don’t want to be told to do less, to pace myself, that it’s okay if I don’t finish today. That’s what held me down and that’s what I’m setting myself free of. I don’t want to be held down anymore. I want to fly.

If by some miracle, despite all lack of medical care, I were to reach the ripe old age of 95 – and I were also to have a younger woman I called granddaughter – I would want to tell her “you go! Do your best! I’m proud of you! Fly high!”

Success – step by step

Healthy Living, Personal Growth, Tips for Writers

It’s good to have goals. Sometimes, no matter what we do, we fail at them and don’t think we can succeed. How does a person deal with that? We try and try and never get anywhere. This can happen with weight loss, creating a business, kicking a bad habit, writing a book. I’ve found that large goals are pretty hard to achieve unless you do it the right way. I call this Incremental Success. Here’s how.

Shift your Mindset

If you are going to succeed, it’s very important that you shift your mindset. You knew that, though, right? Easier said than done. The simplest way to do that is to take extra time out to focus on the successes you have made. Get better and better at doing that and soon it will be more natural to think of solutions before roadblocks, strategies instead of why you can’t do something.

Make Small Goals

Finally, keep your goals small. Keep your efforts incremental. That way you can notice and mentally celebrate whenever you achieve a step. Also notice those little non measurable aspects of success. In weight loss, for example, how it’s easier to get up off the floor after a few days of exercise, or maybe you are less winded after your walk.

Enjoy the Process

While you are not giving up and focusing on success, there’s a way to make it fun! Get interested in the process. The journey is as important as the destination. When you encounter a roadblock, you can almost make a game of thinking of ways around it. Get creative whenever possible. Accept that you will have failures and decide you will learn from them.

Don’t Give Up

Most successful people will agree that the main key to achieving goals is not giving up. That sounds incredibly obvious, but it’s also rather easy to do. Many of us give up by default. But persistence is the one thing that the greatest people in the world, past and present, share.

To continue with the weight loss example, here is how you might follow the incremental plan under this circumstance. It’s easy to see how this could translate to any long term goal.
First, shift your mindset and decide that you can lose weight. Focus on times in the past where you have shown self control. Prove to yourself in this way that it’s possible.

Next, instead of deciding “I am going to lose ten pounds” which seems like a reasonable goal, decide “I am going to cut 100 calories a day.” Or “I am going to take a fifteen minute walk every morning.”

Then, as you do this, notice all the small ways your new habit is benefiting you. Maybe you breathe a little easier. Maybe you feel a little better. Continue with new goals and keep them small.

Don’t give up. If you have a bad day, or even a lapse of a week, get back to it. Just stop giving up. Keep on doing it.

That is how you can achieve incremental success.

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”

Sir Winston Churchill

“It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.”

Sir Winston Churchill

Courage: Teaching myself to be brave

Art of Womanhood, Personal Growth

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.

The soul that knows it not
Knows no release from little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear the sound of wings.

Nor can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul’s dominion.
Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the resistless day, And count it fair.

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart wrote these words in her twenties, while she was still in college. She had yet to do all the amazing things she did later. This poem is a great reminder of not only what it takes to be courageous, but also why we should be brave, and what our lives are like without courage.

“Daring the soul’s dominion” means, to me, that brave act of choosing how we wish to feel and doing what we wish to do, guided by our minds, rather than surrendering to the tyranny of our emotions. It also means that we must be brave enough to make a choice and face the results, come what may.

With the final line, I think that it also can take courage to face troubles and worries and fears, and yet think that the day will be a good one. Being positive is, after all, a good choice.

I wrote this couplet when I was in flight school, in the same vein:

Each day is a good day because it’s a day not a night,

each flight is a good flight.

Six Months to Live

Personal Growth

We all waste time. Some of us more, some of us less, I certainly know I do, but what do we do about it? One of the classic questions is “what would you do if you had a week to live?”

This is too short term a question to use as a real too, though. We want to pick a time frame that creates urgency but doesn’t give us so little time that the answer is irresponsibility and empty pursuits.

I propose six months. If I ask myself, “What would I do if I had six months to live?” then I feel urgency but at the same time I wouldn’t do anything rash like quitting my job. I would, however, want to work harder on my various projects, improve my art, have closer relationships with my loved ones, and try to spend the end of my life in a peaceful sort of way. I wouldn’t be interested in wasting time. I’d still take time to relax and have fun, but my intensity would go up.

I’d take the walks I’d meant to take, write the letters I’d meant to write, make sure I got that last novel done. I’d write more, paint more, waste less time online. I’d try to come to some sort of peace. I’d try to have at least one adventure. Also, I’d leave some provision for surviving, after all, because nothing is guaranteed until it happens. But I wouldn’t waste my time.

If you had six months to live, what would you do?

Battling Inertia

Personal Growth

Do you ever know you have to do something, but there is so much to do that you get overwhelmed and don’t end up doing anything? This can happen with anything from weight loss to car repair to house cleaning to improving your art or other skills to saving for retirement. But it can be conquered.

The secret is to break everything up into manageable tasks. This has three main advantages. It makes the job seem easier and also helps if time and funds are limited. It also builds your confidence as you do each task. Also, if you give up in the middle of the process, you can at least get some things done!

Here are some examples of how I’ve broken up tough jobs.

My apartment is a mess. Instead of trying to do it all in a week, and getting exhausted, I’ve taken it in stages. I try to clean something each weekend, and tidy up after myself as I go along. So it’s one closet one weekend, another closet the next, shelving unit next, sink next, bathroom sink next, and so on. I get a cleaner apartment but I have time left over for other stuff.

Same with the car. New wipers one trip out, oil change another, vacuuming the interior and airing up the tires anther day, and so on.

It can even work for savings plans. Set a small sum to save every paycheck, pay off small debts, work at it little by little. Small efforts, kept to consistently, do a lot more than big efforts attempted rarely.

And finally, it can work for improving your skills. Just take it one bit at a time. For example, art. You might say “I will draw one picture every day even if it’s just a sketch, and on the weekend I’ll do a project that focuses on my wobbly lines so I have a chance to practice smoother ones.” It’s so much less daunting than the monolithic “I will improve my art.”

So you’re more likely to do it and break out of that inertia!