Capability

Weekly Challenge: The Parts of Victory

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I want you to think about one of your finest achievements this week.

Go on, pick one.  Don't worry about being arrogant or whatever, I'm sure it's something worthy of your analysis.

Now, turn it over in your mind and ask yourself this – what were the major parts of it?  Write down the major parts of that great achievement.  For instance if you're quite proud of your first novel think of the formatting, the editing, the writing, and the inspiration.

Now see each of those parts?  Break them down.  Write down those parts.

Keep going until you can't break things down anymore – or you get tired of it (I give you until you get to 14-20 different parts).

All our great achievements are made of smaller ones.  It's important to remember that, especially because, as we get used to them, we forget it.

It's also easy to forget how we built ourselves up, accumulated our strength, and made our dreams possible.

So take a moment to find the small parts of your life that became something awesome.  Next time you want to do something incredible, you mind find the perspective useful for building yourself up.

– Steven Savage

The Many Sides of ‘Professional’

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I often hear over and over again "I'm not a professional" when it comes to their careers.  Usually it's in the form of "I can't do that, I'm not a professional" when I hear it, and usually from a person forgetting that all professionals have to start somewhere.

I also hear people talk about being professional.  It's usually how one acts professional, or dresses professional.  Reams of books are written on how to repress your urges, dress like everyone else, and thus somehow "be professional."

I see "professional" everywhere.  So what is all this "professional" about?

I think when it comes to "professional" people are often talking about different things.

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Weekly Challenge: Your Hidden Army

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We all have people we can call on – friends, family, co-workers, fans, and more.  It's easy to forget it – especially when we're having a bad day – but there's a good chance you have people that you can call on when it's needed.

The problem is that we forget this – ad we don't know when to reach out and bring people together.  This week's exercise is about both of these factors.

Here are the two parts of the challenge:

  1. List all of the people – and organizations/fandoms/communities – you can call on when needed.  This may not be due to a crisis – this could be to achieve something – and of course different groups and people may have different abilities that can help.
  2. Ask how you'd bring these people together when needed.  Are you a leader already, a moral center, a manager of ideas, etc.  How do you bring people together.

Now knowing these things:

  1. Does anything surprise you?
  2. Do you see any gaps in your life you need to fix.

You probably have an entire army to call on in life.  You just may not realize it – or realize how you can do so.

– Steven Savage