Tag: help

The steam is rising

Posted on by philipdodson

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There are times when you go to do something, you’ve cleared a space in the schedule, you’ve summed up the energy to start something, and then……the technology gets in the way of progress.

This a common challenge for the creative type, who is wanting to share their craft with the world. You add the content on your website, in the WordPress back end or on Rainmaker or whatever platform, then you hit preview and the picture you have added to the media gallery has suddenly become rotated 90 degrees, even though it looked perfect on your phone, or the image has suddenly scaled to HUGE, even when you had set the size to meduim 300×300. Or a whole myriad of issues.

Your create an event page, you’re really proud of your work, the content is awesome, the ticketing just right and then you hit that preview button, something goes wrong.

You want to create a table and all the code looks correct, you may have copied it from an existing page that is up and perfect, you change a bit of text, and BAM the columns won’t line up, they drop to the row below or whatever other annoying calamity.

The more you sit there and the more you fiddle around, the more the pressure rises until there is almost quiet literally steam pouring out of your ears.

There are 3 points here:

1. It is always best to simply walk away from it, do not keep trying to fix something that you are not yet skilled to fix. It is a futile exercise, that will often lead to you wasting valuable time, time that you could be creating more fab content, the thing that you are actually good at. So as soon as it doesn’t get fixed after trying a couple of simply changes, then stop.

2. Allowing an often easily resolved challenge to annoy you and potential hijack your day, again is just not worth it. Stepping away, having a walk from your desk, getting a tea or even just starting on a completely different piece of work will diffuse your annoyance, allowing you to still be productive.

Then, if you do return to the challenge, often being refreshed, will allow you to fix what you seemed not able to previously do, as you are calm.

3. Most importantly, either resolve to learn how to fix these annoying challenges, once and for all, as many times it’s a repeat of the same thing, that stumped you the last time you tried that particular thing.

Or, if you are not inclined to learn, collaborate with others, outsource or get help to do this thing. Thus freeing up your time to do what you are truly good at and also saving yourself from blowing a gasket.

I’ve taken my break writing this blog, now I am calm and off to fiddle with my new website.

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.

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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.