Tag: personal development

Can Hobbies Teach Life Lessons?

As some of you may know, in addition to all the other stuff I write, I’m something of a novelist. I haven’t put a book out in a while, but I’ve published four full-length novels so far, so it’s something I’ve done.

Anyway, I’m working on another and during my planning, I hit on the idea of the teacher of great warriors insisting his students learn various crafts (occupations of the day, hobbies today, by and large). Mostly, it was because the characters need to earn money, but I needed to come up with another reason.

When I stumbled upon it, though, I realized it doesn’t just apply to fictional characters. It applies to all of us.

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Overcoming Momentum

Newton’s Third Law tells us that an object at motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Likewise, an object at rest tends to remain at rest unless also acted upon by an outside force.

He might as well have been talking about people.

Newton’s Third Law tells us that an object at motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Likewise, an object at rest tends to remain at rest unless also acted upon by an outside force.

Newton was talking about literal objects, but he might as well have been talking about people.

In our lives, we seem to have a certain amount of momentum in our habits, and it’s overcoming that momentum that we all need to do in order to get our crap together.

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How To ‘Change Your Stars’

One of my family favorite movies is A Knight’s Tale starring Heath Ledger. It’s completely…something. I mean, modern pop culture references in a medieval movie shouldn’t work, but it does

However, the overall theme of the movie is about whether or not a man can “change his stars.” After all, you have a commoner who wants to become a knight, something forbidden.

What does that have to do with anything?

Well, yesterday, I did something I kind of despise. I told people to change their lives if they don’t like it, but I really didn’t offer up a whole lot of actionable advice.

I offered up a platitude and put the onus on you, but all I offered was some vague comments about grabbing opportunities.

While I’m not a fan of trying to tell you how to live your life, I also have to understand that not everyone has a clue as to how to even begin to “change their stars.”

Today, I’m going to try and fix that.

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Stop Complaining About Your Life, Change It

Like way too many people, I spend far more time on social media than is good for me. I pop over for a quick look and I end up being sucked into a vortex.

One thing I see a lot of, though, are people who are bitching about their life. They’re complaining about how they have a crappy job or a horrible life. They post about their failings, their lack of income, their…any number of things, and guess what?

Nothing changes.

But what do you expect when all you really do is complain?

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When Fear Becomes The Master

I was talking with some friends earlier today about someone I know, a woman who has a lot of talent and capability, but is governed by a great deal of fear.

Because of that fear, she has continually held herself back from things she wanted to do.

That’s not to say she doesn’t have successes. She does. Yet they’ve usually come about because she was thrust into circumstances rather than her jumping in willingly.

Every time that’s happened, she has risen to the occasion and proven she can do far more than she believed she could do. Afterward, she would reflect on that fact and acknowledge she was wrong…

…only to allow fear to be her master once again.

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Embrace The Pain

We’ve all heard the phrase, “No pain, no gain.”

It’s currently out of vogue in part because some believe it urges people to train beyond what their body can take, to train injured, things like that, but I still kind of like it. Maybe it’s an artifact of my age, but I do.

Let’s be honest, training is painful in a lot of ways.

The thing is, I find it the lessons I’ve learned through training, through that pain, have applications to the rest of my life. It’s all about how to remove those weaknesses. The pain can almost be purifying, in a way.

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The Overly Positive And The Whiff Of Male Bovine Excrement

There are a lot of people who create content in the niches I do. Granted, I overlap a couple of niches, and I know that but I see a ton of folks who create content on similar topics, and I’m going to be honest here. A lot of them freaking annoy the hell out of me.

I’ve purposefully set myself up to not do that they’re doing that annoys me because I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this assessment.

What is so annoying about them? Probably because they’re so syrupy-positive that it doesn’t feel real anymore. It’s like they’re telling you what they want you to hear, rather than anything approaching reality.

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