Tag: entrepreneurship

Say No to Distractions

Photo by Ashley Richards

Having set a goal, it’s time to clear the road ahead and focus on progress. How do you set a goal? It’s not an exact science. It takes introspection and a desire to face your dreams and failures to find a way to move towards success. If you’re stuck in a state of wanting but incapable to persevere, this piece on Adjusting Your Goals Makes Them Attainable might help.

Distractions play a great part in weather or not we will make progress. When we think of distractions, the internet may be the first thing that pops into your mind. And that’s certainly a key player, but we don’t often consider:

  • the news
  • unnecessary phone calls
  • shopping and wasting time on making decisions that have little impact in the long run
  • chit-chat, gossip and criticism towards others

A distraction is anything that will take you off the road that leads to your goal. More than willpower, we need better planning to succeed. Plan to avoid situations where distractions might occur and set the expectations low from those close to you when it comes to social activities. It doesn’t all have to be about sacrificing a good time for a productive time. Limiting distractions will not only help your progress, but turn a good time into a memorable time.

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Taking Responsibility for Our Life

Photo by Nicholas Ng 

Taking responsibility and ‘taking the blame’ are two different things. Responsibility requires action, a response to circumstances that facilitates growth. Blame is passive. As much as certain people think that they benefit from it by maintaining their public image, blame doesn’t serve anyone. Blame hinders the self-esteem, while responsibility builds integrity and a feeling of self-worth.

How does this apply to how we approach life? Responsibility plays a great role in our perception over the world and we need to discipline our mind to be able to use its power. It really means that victimisation is not an option and that dreadful feeling of failure gets spun into success by avoiding blame and focusing on the solution.

This is a superpower that can turn our life from a passive experience into a dynamic search of solutions. The great thing about it is that taking responsibility is a choice that you and I can make to help ourselves stay focused and in control of our life.

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The Reality of Sharing Ideas with the Inner Circle

Photo by Etienne Boulanger

If you’re passed that stage in your life when grownups look at you with empathy and tell you You can do whatever you set your mind to, you might feel like you need reassurance for every idea, big or small. But as we grow up and the reality of social norms and the expectations of fitting into the 9-5 pattern kick in, people who are emotionally invested might not be best fit to run by ideas.

You might be thinking – hang on a second, my mom, grandpa or loyal puppy have my best interest at heart. And although that might be the case, new avenues are always scary. Not just for ourselves, but for the people we care about (you can read more about limiting mindsets in the piece on How Much Can You Handle?). Being supportive of new ideas takes an openness that someone else’s judgement might also work. It also takes accepting that even if no one in the family or in the whole world dared to aim so high, that doesn’t mean that it cannot be done.

In the idea phase of a project, when our self-confidence is so fragile, why give an opportunity to nay sayers to deray us? What do we have to lose, ultimately? If it is time you are worried about, it will be time invested in learning. Money? Don’t invest what you can’t afford losing. Failure? You fail if you don’t learn anything from the experience and as a wise mind once said, if you don’t try, you fail by default.

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How Much Can We Handle?

Photo by Miguel Salgado

Self-doubt doesn’t show out of nowhere. Whenever we are given conditions or advice which imply that we are not good enough, strong enough or smart enough to handle situations is when the door is opened for doubt to settle:

  • ‘you can only go there if this person goes’
  • ‘liaise with a senior member of the team to work on this’
  • ‘are you sure you can manage so many projects?’

By being guarded by some sort of authority – parents, grownups, employers, professors – we give into a smaller version of ourselves. We were built for growth. I would even go as far as to say that we were built for glory. We don’t have to go to battle to have glory, what we need is constant growth that will empower us to create a greater impact in our lives, our communities and our society.

Many of us have settled into limiting mindsets before even realizing what we are doing to ourselves. But all this can be undone. Know that we can handle more than we were made to believe and that no one can take away our greatness. It’s up to us to acknowledge the damage that was done and resurrect our sense of self-confidence, self-love and our commitment to grow.


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Daily Practices to Save Your Groundhog Day

Photo by Samuel Toh

Do you get a sense that you are waking up and living every day as if it’s the same? Wash your face, prepare breakfast or a protein shake, do mindless activities that might include work, watching tv, scrolling through news feeds, get groggy in the morning and grumpy in the evening etc. Well, a day is only as good as you make it.

Making Yourself Happy

Waking up with a smile on your face is not an old wives (or husbands) tale. It takes as little as practicing gratitude before going to sleep – the last thought in the evening will be your first thought in the morning. Add a 10-15 minutes meditation practice and you’ll be able to make smarter decisions by removing some of the stress buildup.

Meditation – where do I begin?

You don’t have to go fancy with learning how to meditate. If you’re new to the practice, an app as simple as Oak can get you a long way. Ultimately is about the intention of doing better choices and building yourself up for success. A happy is a life built through discipline, trials and errors and an ongoing competition with ourselves. You can get the life you want without waiting on that lottery win. Build yourself up.

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What Does Bringing Value Really Mean?

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon

You might have heard from different sources about the concept of bringing value. I know when I first heard about it I thought – that’s just a fancy way for rich people to justify making money. But is there actual value in bringing value through our actions?

Value starts with caring. You might care about your parents who can’t find online classes suitable for their group category, your toddler whose needs are not being met by your local nursery, the planet, people in poverty, women and access to sanitary products, ideas of masculinity that inhibit men’s behaviors and the list goes on and on. Needless to say, we as a global community didn’t get many things right. And that’s great, pain means there’s a need for change and an opportunity for us to make it happen.

Witnessing a lack can get your solution oriented mind working and your creativity beaming. When we create for profit or non-profit projects that before any monetary value they create social value, that’s where our legacy begins. Know that value is always linked with action. Waiting for things to happen doesn’t produce results.

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