Tag: 750 words

A 1,000 miles

Posted on by philipdodson

Ok, so those who know me will know that occasionally I do things without much thought. My mate Bernie always laughs about my 30-day challenge, I did 8 challenges all at once, instead of just 1, every day for 30 days. Yes, unsustainable.

Anyway, I chap called Simon Jordan, who I only know through Facebook, I am not even sure how we got connected, a friend of a friend. Anyway, he’s a super active bloke, I like his posts a lot, last year he climbed to Everest Base Camp, started an amazing campaign called ‘5 Things Clear’ about clearing up rubbish from beaches and is a super positive and inspirational person.

This week he posted a challenge on Facebook to join him in running (or walking, phew!!!) a 1,000 miles in 2018. Well, that doesn’t seem much I thought and I like walking so I said ‘I’m in’ and joined the club on Strava and set off yesterday for my first walk to the nearby lake through the woods and fields, up and down hills, very muddy, Cookie our dog loved it as always, got home 3.1 miles done. Great.

Set off today for the same walk, upped it a bit by taking a slightly longer route back, 3.7 miles. Great.

That means I have 993.2 miles to go in 359 days!! SHIT – that is 2.8 miles a day, every single day for the next 359 days.

I am going to need to up the game a lot more, as there will be days when I will not be able to do it. Or is that the old mentality of ‘not enough time’ bullshit, Philip?

Well, yes it is and as I know from my daily blogging (2 years and 4 months now) and my daily writing journal (928 days completed out of the last 929 and current 757-day streak) that there is always time for the things that you really want to do.

So, I have decided to add to the 1,000 miles challenge in 2018 by doing a 1,000 pieces of writing and that will include my personal blog (365) and my daily writing journal (365) and that leaves another 270 blogs to write on things like coworking, productivity, deep work and other articles related to my Deep Work Project. I won’t publish my 750 Words writing journal, I’ll spare you the ramblings of my mind, but the other 635 posts I will on here as always and on the Deep Work Project site.

Finally, as I do a piece of daily art/photography already as one of my daily rituals, I am going to create/take a 1,000 photos/pieces of art in 2018 and then publish them too. I will post these on my Instagram.

So that’s 1,000 miles walking, 1,000 pieces of writing and create 1,000 pieces of art/photos by the end of 2018.

Shit, it’s going to be a busy year!

What you look for is what you get

Posted on by philipdodson

So yesterday I posted on Facebook about what you look for is what you get? That got me thinking about that whole thing. Often, none of us realise the signals or messages we are sending out.

looking for

I mean in life, not just business. I hear so many people saying ‘I need these type of clients’. Yet you then listen to their ‘pitch’ and who they are targeting and then you think, that doesn’t match what you are looking for.

Also, people write and talk about certain values and yet in reality their actions don’t match what they say or write. It is a tough one this. None of us are walking on water and perfection is something you should never strive for in my opinion.

I love imperfection and it will only cause no amount of beating yourself up for failing, when you strive to be perfect.

So, I am not sure that, there are many people who live every moment of their life, living completely true to their values. However, the closer what you do, matches what you say you are going to do, then the happier you will be.

So going back to opportunities, we miss so much of what we are looking for in life because we send the wrong message/signals and that can often attract the wrong people/opportunities. This can leave us wondering why.

The reason I think is, if we behave in a way that matches our values and are clear in putting out the message, then that tells others what we want and what we stand for. Then all of sudden, we attract the right people and then those people help us see and unlock the right opportunities.

Often in life, we assume that others can almost read our mind. We say things internally to ourselves about what we want, types of customers, type of partner etc, but then we do not verbalise that message clearly to others.

So we think that we are, but in fact when you stop to look at what we do say or how we act, then you realise, I have many times, that the message is either wrong or we are putting in the wrong way.

It is often useful to write these things down, starting with working out what our values are and what we stand for, then verbalising that in a clear message that others will understand.

Interestingly, once you start doing this, it is amazing how you start to attract the people that you have always wanted to and you seem to find the wrong people, who perhaps you previously attracted and didnt know why, de-select themselves.

Then it is important to put your values into practice in all elements of your life. When I say life I mean exactly that, all to often people, mistakenly in my opinion, live a work life and a home life. They are the same thing. We talk about this work mask and home mask.

I have learnt that happiness and therefore success, only comes if you are yourself and if you are, as often as you can be, are true to your values. Then you surround yourself with the right people and then it is amazing the opportunities that come your way.

You are sending out the right signals, the right messages and that then, like a magnet, pulls towards you all the right opportunities.

Then over time what starts to occur is the compound effect, that gradually week by week, month by month, these consistent small steps create momentum.

However, it all starts with that change in the message, change in the signals. Get yourself happy and put out positive vibes, matched by action and then you start to open the right doors. Then that leads to the next and so on.

The same in reverse, unclear and perhaps negative signals/messages might not open any doors, however, can often open the wrong ones and take you down a different route in life. I know that, cause I have been down the wrong paths many times and not realising it was all due to the wrong outward message.

Rarely do we wake up and say ‘let’s screw things up today’ so often we get frustrated as to why we are not getting what we want. That goes back to my original point, what you look for is what you get. So start looking for the things that you really want and back them up with the words and actions that match that. If they are aligned to your values, then they will make you happy and successful.