Passionate Living

Have you ever felt like you’ve run out of fuel? You feel like you’ve done so much that you couldn’t possibly do more? Like it’s finally time for you to take a break and relax?

compass by ^@^ina

In 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey points out that the 7th Habit – Sharpening the Saw – is as important as the previous 6 Habits. Sharpening the Saw is more closely related to keeping balance and doing the activities that don’t bring you results directly, as opposed to the other activities of the 6 Habits that aim to help you achieve your goals with accuracy and efficiency. Nevertheless, without Sharpening the Saw, executing the 6 Habits would be very difficult indeed.

Stephen brought up this concern lightheartedly during one of his seminars where he asked the audience, “Have you ever been so busy driving that you ran out of gas?” – and surprisingly a lot of the audience raised their hands. The aspect of Sharpening the Saw, called here Re-evaluation, is not as sexy or glossy as other catchier more beautiful management techniques that promise you better results in faster time. However, keeping balance is very important to maintain momentum in the long run.

If you’ve been on a prolific spree for six months; you’ve set your goals and you’ve sped on fifth gear on a highway, maybe it’s time to slow down to a lower gear and check the engine for repairs and maintenance. True, the road may still be long and there is still plenty to do, but taking the time to rest is also an important part of the journey. Let’s look at several ways we can re-evaluate our goals to help us regain our energy and excitement for the next leg of the race:

1. Keep your journal

A journal can help you document or record the progress that you’ve made. Not everyone is diligent enough to keep a periodical journal, and that’s mainly because you might think it has to be a daily or weekly journal. In fact, it can be as simple as you need it to be, such as Gretchen Rubin’s one sentence journal. By keeping a journal, when it comes time to stop and assess your progress, you will have a better clearer picture on the paths that you have taken and where you want to go after this.

2. Summarize your progress

If you haven’t been keeping a journal, then you can re-organize for the future by summarizing the progress that you’ve made thus far. Whether that be financially, in family relationships, or your education, write down all the progress you’ve made, no matter how small it seems. Studies show that when we learn of the progress we made, even if it be trivial, we gain a boost of energy knowing we’ve got something done.

3. Restructure your goals

From the information contained in your journal, and from the progress summary you’ve made, you can then find out and sketch out which goals are the top priority for the next phase. What was the top goals six months ago, does not necessarily have to be the top goals for the next six months: things can change, and priorities can change also. Restructure your goals to know which ones are most important, so you can allocate the most energy for these goals.

The next step after the three above is: execution. The beauty of execution is that it will NOT go according to plan, no matter how meticulous your plan is. All smart planners understand this inherent property of planning, so they are not surprised when the execution falls slightly short of the original design.

It’s alright, because all of this is part of growth. If you don’t plan for a target in the beginning, you won’t reach anything anyway! So the worst part is that you don’t make anything happen, whether you plan or not plan, whether you take the time to re-evaluate or not re-evaluate.

To achieve the goals we want to achieve – and to create the change we need to create – re-evaluation is an important part of keeping ourselves healthy and sane. Understanding our limits and working around them is intelligence at its finest. Therefore, let’s take this time to stop and re-evaluate our progress achieved so far and our progress to achieve in the coming months.

What about you? What are your goals for the next six months? Do you feel it’s time for you to stop and take time to evaluate? Let us know your opinion in the comments.

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[1] Photograph by ^@^ina

SUCCESS is an achievement every person desires in his life. To be handsome and rich, intelligent and articulate, healthy and happy; these are the preoccupations that become the foundation on which we choose our professions, our friends, our activities, and even the people we love. To achieve any degree of success in the above aspects, hard work and commitment is needed, since we are working towards an artificial state of being [1].

Midnight in a supermarket by Cyril Caton

ADVERTISEMENT is mostly about pushing the emotions of people by using the powerful lure of the above achievements. The products that are marketed in every part of our community and physical surroundings, all offer a better, faster, cheaper way to become the things we desire. It’s the business of the businesses, to attach values – whether they be true or only an over-exaggerated claim – to their products in order to persuade people to purchase them.

QUALITY is a result of focus, dedication, faith, and integrity; to reach the best results we need to invest a great number of resources. Quality is the artificial state, since it takes full intention and deliberate actions to reach this condition. Quality does not come cheap or widely available to the masses; it is highly specific and niche, and is inherently integral to principles and values.

The constitution of beauty

Two weeks ago as I was waiting for my friend to pick me up, I walked into a supermarket and bought some of the children snacks whose company often come to the studio where I work and request for music to be made for them. The clients of the studio are mostly children snacks companies, such as biscuits and wafers; and the added value they advertise is mostly great taste and good nutrition. As a person, I feel it’s necessary to understand what the product is, since it is part of my business.

I discovered my digestive system wasn’t too fond of children snacks that day; the moment I ate them my stomach solicited an unusual reaction. This made me think whether the snacks contain any harmful ingredients for my sensitive stomach, and therefore may also harm the sensitive stomachs of children who are exposed to the advertisements of these products. As a company, are they aware of the possibility that their products – priced low in order to achieve mass market; consequently not with high quality – may inflict some harm on the very target market they pursue?

One of the products advertise vitamin B as one of their selling points. Uneducated people would think this is good nutrition and therefore a good snack. They also hope they can achieve quality, if possible at the lowest price.

However, this made me think the validity of generic products to help us reach what we want to become. Besides children snacks, there are countless other products that promise easy access to becoming the best of society: skin-whitening products to make us become beautiful, body shaping milk that will give us the lean waist or six pack we’ve always dreamed of, and low budget cellphones prepacked with Web 2.0 media apps that promise we will never have a moment of boredom.

The truth is, generic products rarely become the products we believe in to help us achieve success in life. I am sure the models in the advertisements spend a large sum to purchase specialist products – ones that are not mass marketed, since they are expensive – to help them achieve the quality they need to. The celebrities who endorse skin-whitening lotions, use better skin-care products, register with an expert skincare physician, limit their movement outside in the sun to protect their skin, sign up onto high-end fitness facilities and dedicate time periodically to work out, and various other premium beauty products that combine to make up the constitution of their beauty.

The same goes with the models who model for six-pack inducing protein shakes. They have six packs because they work out – very hard – and they also choose a highly nutritious menu; where the protein necessary to build muscles does not come at a cheap price. The supplements they use, are imported and sold at 20 times the price of the product they endorse.

Believe the necessity of specialist products

Would you say that you have a generic life? No, of course not – you have a highly specific life with a highly targeted purpose that needs specific (or unique [2]) treatment. You need to work out the formula for yourself, and search for which products that are effective for you and which are not – and sometimes you find the cheap products work, other times you need to invest in the expensive ones.

Believing in success means believing in the necessity of specialist products. Quality is not accessible through the proxies of low priced, mass market items. Beauty is always on the high pedestal of persistent pursuit; we need to work hard and spend large if we want to achieve it.

Therefore, it’s OK if you need to spend a large amount of money to achieve the success you want; that’s how successful people do it. You don’t need to feel like you don’t have the right to spend out that much, and reserve your money for something that may never happen, and therefore of lower functional value. Because the success we achieve allow us greater strength to create the change we envision.

Isn’t that what beauty is all about?

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[1] Artificial not in the sense of superficial, but something that is man-made and needs to be done intentionally, since it doesn’t occur naturally
[2] Though my belief says there is nothing unique; everything original has been done before, and everything we consider original today is not exempt from the principles and frameworks in which it is based upon
[3] Photograph by Cyril Caton

Working a semi-day job as a studio engineer, there are some points I learn about the natural rhythm of creativity. I’m also learning about this rhythm from my personal project to write 26 songs during this one year [1]. The lesson I’m learning these past few weeks is about how we can’t push creativity.

The creative process is one of the most liberating and intrinsically rewarding processes a person can experience. It’s a privilege – but not an exclusivity – that not everybody chooses. And having a profession that is creativity based, is the best way to combine your passion with earning a living.

One of the aspects about the creative process that often flies under the radar of people who aren’t creative – and even people who are – is the fact that creativity is as much about hard work as is … hard work. It has very little to do with genius lighting-strikes of inspiration as we toil in our studios, laboratories, or notepads, and much to do with seeking out the sources, absorbing as much as we can, and learning to rest when we feel we’ve pushed enough. The creative process – though some artists would disagree – is more about the subtle growth and sometimes administrative work that needs to be done in order to hit the target.

5% of our effort creates 95% of results

I once watched a TED video of Taryn Simon, a renowned journalist-photographer, who said that 95% of her time is spent NOT on the actual photography itself, but in finding the phone numbers of the right people to call, calling them, doing interviews, taking care of administrative papers (since she visits dangerous politically unstable areas or visiting nuclear-powered sites), and other things. Only 5% of her time is used for the actual point and shoot. That makes me think about how I approach my own creative process.

I’ve read before that creative people tend to find the solutions they are seeking when they aren’t actively seeking it out. After the intensive studio session, the creative mind needs to rest; and while it’s resting, the subconscious part of the brain continues the work while the active part takes some time off. It’s important to keep recharging the creative juice, because it’s very possible to run out of it in the middle of the road – that’s why one of the most famous studios in the world has a dedicated terrace garden cafe where musicians can “recharge their creative batteries” [2].

However, working as a studio engineer sometimes I feel like the clients don’t understand about the natural rhythm of the creative process – and they demand quality results in budget time. Given, as clients they do have the right to request this, but it makes me think about the mental health of the creative team. As a result, true quality is often compromised in favor of the preferred quality the client approves of.

Giving creativity some R&R

If you’re a creative person, you’d understand that being creative is a fickle process. Some days you’re hot, some days you’re not. Putting in the hard work doesn’t make you more of a natural genius than the other person, but it does increase your chances of finding inspiration without having to resort to life-altering experiences or medication.

Understanding that creativity also has an administrative side to it can help us in responding to the moments when we don’t feel hot. We can increase our output when we don’t always wait for genius inspiration to strike. Or as Andrew Dubber says it (especially in this internet age of ephemeral products): “Ready. FIRE. Aim”.

Combining these two understandings with the third understanding that creativity also needs to rest, can help us to produce more consistent results as we fluctuate towards creating our master piece. If you feel like you’re being burned out or just plain drained, then maybe it’s time to give creativity some rest and relaxation. After you do, you can be sure that you’ll come back fresh and recharged to tackle the next project you have in your mind!

Are you a creative person? What’s preventing you from being creative? Do you sometimes feel like your pushing it too much?

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[1] Here is a link to my songwriting project, if you’re interested
[2] Abbey Road studio website