This month How to be an Original turned one year old. A year ago on my birthday I decided to start this blog and hardly a week later I published the first post. Little did I know what I had gotten myself into…

Conception

After a year of trying to earn a buck by playing poker online, I decided to try something else. Playing poker was usually break-even or slightly better, but I lost the fun and it consumed massive amounts of time. It was time for something more constructive, something that delivered more value both to me and to others.

I have always had the feeling that I should start my own business, but apart from a small ‘business’ I had when I was a student I had never really taken steps to make it a reality. On that birthday I decided it was time to actually do something about it.

Next question: How to start your own business in spare time? I needed the income from my day job, so quitting wasn’t an option. I wanted to start a (freelancing) business in training and coaching, but I lacked both the training and experience in doing so (the passion is there though!). And I knew that I needed to put in a LOT of work in developing my ideas.

At the time I had just discovered Guy Kawasaki’s blog only weeks before, and the idea of starting a blog popped in my head. It was perfect for developing my ideas by writing them out, discussing them with readers and for some personal branding as well.
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Image by minkymonkeymoo

This is not your regular ho-hum weekly review. It couldn’t be, because we’re well over three weeks into this month and I have yet to publish a new post. So much for weekly…

Why have I been silent for so long? To be short, for three reasons:

• Ski Trip in Switzerland
• Self awarded extended break from blogging
• Family outbreak of Norovirus

The Norovirus wasn’t a lot of fun… Patient zero was my son, followed after two days by my wife and another six hours later I fell victim too. Along the way we infected some other people as well, so we quarantined ourselves for the recovery period. Being sick with all of us at the same time was challenging, some things you don’t want to take turns in I can tell ya!

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.” - Lao Tzu

Taking the extended break

Anyway, I liked being away from the blog when I was in Switzerland to such a  degree that while driving back to Holland I decided upon extending it for another week. Not that I’m contemplating to stop or anything, I just liked the mental distance from writing. Sometimes the best way to go forward is to stand still first. So that’s what I decided to do, stand still and just let the blog be the blog for a while. It was liberating and very refreshing.

I’m thinking about how to express what that period did to me, but I’m finding it hard to find the right words. It did not designate it as time to think about the blog, or as time in which I did not have to write, or in which I tweaked design or coding or something like that. It was purposeless, and that’s what was great about it. The blog just existed, it just was there, without my attention. Maybe it’s about letting go, maybe that’s the next step. I don’t know, but I think it might be. That week was about letting go, I did not have to blog, have to write, have to achieve goals, have to be accountable. I just was, and the blog just was.

The Norovirus was a blessing in disguise, because it forced me to extend that period even longer. And it deepened the experience as well. That virus hit me hard, to the point where I just felt like I couldn’t do anything. Not even read or watch television, just sleep or be awake (and care for my wife and son every now and then). My mind did something wonderful though, I started to process. Not think, just process. Without effort from my side, no conscious effort anyway, things fell into place, patterns emerged and creativity started to flow. My mind was doing spring cleaning it seemed (and my body was too). And the virus kind of forced me to undergo this.

Because doing wasn’t getting in the way of thinking, and thinking wasn’t getting in the way of feeling, there was room for just feeling. Don’t know if feeling is the right word, but because I wasn’t doing or thinking, a space opened up in me to see and connect to my path, my legend. There was room to realign. Not consciously realigning, it was an unconscious process. I realize this sounds vague, but that’s the best way I can describe it. It was refreshing.

Emerging patterns

One of the patterns that emerged was that I focused too much on the ‘getting’ part. So much that I lost connection with what I originally wanted. My goal of getting to 2500 subscribers is a great example. I was focusing so much on getting the subscribers, that I lost connection to what’s really important. Making a connection, being valuable, provide meaning, learning and sharing genuinely, growth! Those were are my motivations for this blog. On a tangent there are other motivations, like earning a buck, personal branding and so on, but they are secondary.

The thing with those motivations is that they are not directly quantifiable, and as such hard to measure. So you look for tangential metrics to measure progress, or give you a hint of your progress at the least. I found it’s important to keep connected to the original motivations, because if you fail to do that, the metrics and the goals are going to lead their own lives and take over.

This insight came to me last week. I have to focus on my original motivations that revolve around giving and growing, and be open to the getting part without focusing on it. I need to let go of the getting.

Trust

When the virus hit me last week, I was forced to let go too. I had to hand over my recovery process to my body and trust that it would do okay and that it would tell me when I needed to do things. My body was in control, and I had to trust it. That’s letting go, and it only feels good when there’s trust.

Letting go and keeping peace of mind at the same time, requires trust.

• I trust that when I let go of focusing on getting well, I will recover anyway.
• I trust that when I let go of focusing on the getting part, I will get it anyway.
• I trust that when I let go of being in control, I won’t be out of control.
• I trust that when I let go, it won’t be gone.

I feel I just made a big step.

A couple of months ago, I shared the process of writing my personal mission statement on the blog. I started by defining my personal core values, translated that into my personal mission statement and followed through by making guidelines and goals.

At the time I used a Dutch website that guides that process and gives examples of the values and mission statements of other people. Although it’s important to really connect to your own values and define your own mission statement, examples are a great way to get inspired. They also can open your eyes to areas of your life that you may have unwillingly left out.

My blogging friend Stephen of Productivity in Context came up with the idea of building a list of personal mission statements, and asked several fellow bloggers to participate. So this post is an attempt to build a list of examples of mission statements of the readers of How to be an Original. But I’m also very interested to know how you use them, or why you’re not making one.

Have it or hate it? … personal core values, mission statements?

Do you have … (or hate)

• Personal core values?
• A personal mission statement?
• A guiding principle?

How do you use them …

• All the time in everyday life?
• Only when the going gets really tough?
• Only on new years eve?

I’ll kick off with mine in the comments…

Image by DISC0STU

In every difficult situation is potential value. Believe this, then begin looking for it. Norman Vincent Peale

Sometimes it seems like life is preventing you from achieving your goals. You define your goals right, you make them aligned with you values, you plan the time to work on them and then … something unexpected happens.

This can be anything. Life can be very creative in throwing obstacles on your path. I’ve come to believe that these obstacles are actually a gift of life to you, because they are trying to tell you something. All we need to do is listen, before we go on.

In his famous book The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho touches on this topic as well. One of my favorite quotes from this book is:

Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth. And when you want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

And as true and inspiring as this is, Coelho also says that before you can reach your dream, you will be tested by the very same universe. And besides that test right before reaching his dream, there were many obstacles on the way of the shepherd Santiago as well.

How can we learn from obstacles?

First you need to look at obstacles as tests. They are not there to prevent you from reaching your dream or from achieving your goals. They are there to teach you something about yourself. It is important that you adopt this belief!

I think there are four main challenges in the obstacles we encounter.

Challenge 1: The dream test

Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish. Jean de la Fontaine

One of the first tests you’ll encounter is about the question whether you are really following your own dream. It happens that we sometimes are fooled by ourselves. We define something as a dream, but in reality it’s not entirely our dream. And when we’re not following our own dreams, whose dreams are we pursuing instead? Right! Someone else’s dreams … either in whole or in part, bot someone else’s dreams nevertheless.

If this happens though, life will throw obstacles at you in a staggering pace. Because life wants you to pursue your own dreams, and will make sure that it does what it can to get you back on track. And it does so by making the realization of the false dream very hard.

How to identify: Ask yourself this question: “How would I really feel if I never accomplished this in my entire life?”. Would it leave you hurting and is this too hard to accept? (hint: You have found the dream, or are very close to it) Or would you accept it, and just formulate something else? (hint: Life’s teaching you a lesson)

The action to take: Reconnect to your personal core values, your personal mission statement or your personal mantra. Visualize your future and redefine your dream. This challenge helped you to uncover another piece of it, now fill in the blanks.

Image by jarrodlombardo

Challenge 2: The priority test

I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. Maya Angelou

If you manage to get past challenge one, you get to the next round: Priority testing. Life has a way to show you how to see your dream and goals in perspective, by showing you what else you need to factor in. If you put your dream as an ultimate top priority, it will throw obstacles at you, related to health (mental or physical), love, family, friends and so on. These are important as well, and can be higher up the priority list.

These topics are often overlooked, partly because they’re ’soft’ and hard to translate into goals, or maybe because they are taken for granted a little bit too easy. Life is trying to teach you that you should pursue your dream, but not regardless!

How to identify: Whenever you’re pushing to get to that goal, something happens. You get ill, your spouse or your children get ill. You lack the energy to get the job done. You suddenly get anxiety attacks.

The action to take: Set your priorities straight. There’s more to life than accomplishing your dream. You need to be fit for purpose to get it done anyway. So take your time to be healthy and relax, take the time to have a family and social life. Living your dream is hardly ever done alone.

Challenge 3: The skills test

Identify the major obstacle that stands between you and your goal and begin today to remove it. Brian Tracy

It may also be that you don’t have the right skills yet, to fully pursue your dream. The obstacles that will arise are those that will call for these skills specifically. Life’s pretty smart when it comes to obstacles

It’s okay to find out that you don’t have the skills yet. Just don’t give up, but make another plan. What you need to remember here is that learning an essential skill to reach your dream, is working on accomplishing that dream too! You may feel like you’re working on something else, or losing time, but in fact you are setting the stage for success later on.

How to identify: You know that the task at hand is essential to achieving your dream, but you are unable to do it. You’ve thought about other ways to get around the problem, but keep getting back to that skill your missing.

The action to take: Learning a new skill might feel like a mountain to conquer. But my experience is that if that skill is necessary to get closer to fulfilling your dream, learning the skill is not that bad after all. The trick is to get started, so take the first step to learn that skill!

Challenge 4: The commitment test

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness. Seneca

This is the true test. You’ve got it all going: It’s the right dream, you’ve got your priorities straight and you’ve got the skills you need. But…are you ready to do what it takes? Because that’s what life is going to test right now.

It’s going to set a stage where you need to show endurance and perseverance. It’s going to make it hard on you, to test wheter you are man or woman enough to deserve to have your dream fulfilled. This is the time to bite yourself into the matter and push on!

How to identify: You’re certain that you’re not dealing with any of the other three challenges, but there’s a challenge nevertheless. You’re not progressing as fast as you had hoped or planned. Or you find that you may need to take another approach to accomplishing it. Or you may need more funding to take the next step. Or … well any step that needs perseverance actually.

The action to take: Persevere! Make a nice visualization, either imaginary or by creating something that will help you visualize. Make small cuecards that help you remind you what you’re trying to accomplish. These will help you stay focused, when endurance and perseverance are called upon.

Image by absolutwade

Identify the challenge and take appropriate action

Life’s up and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine your values and goals. Think of using all obstacles as stepping stones to build the life you want. Marsha Sinetar

These four challenges have their own lessons to teach. But it is essential to identify what challenge you are dealing with. Only with the right action can you pass. You don’t want to push on (action for challenge 4), when you’re not really pursuing your own dream (challenge 1). And you don’t want to redefine your dream (action for challenge 1), when you find out you don’t have the right skills yet (challenge 3). If you take the wrong action, you are not moving closer to fulfilling your dreams. But if you take the wrong action, most of the time Life will just keep on pushing obstacles on your path.

So when life decides to pull you a trick, and place an obstacle on your path, be grateful! It’s an opportunity to learn something about yourself, and you can consciously choose how to deal with that obstacle. Remember that life is not the opponent. Life wants you to live your dream, and will help you to do just that. It’s good to know that Life’s favorite trick is to challenge you. All we can do is listen and learn.

Dear Jesse,

Congratulations on your first birthday!

I remember that night a year ago very vividly, when you came knocking at the door in the middle of the night and over 5 weeks early. I guess you were ready to step into this world and move ahead, as you do so powerfully since that day.

The kind of love you awakened in me took me by surprise. It’s not more or better than other love, only different. Different from the way I love your mom, different from the way I love my parents, brothers and sister and different from the way I love life. It has enriched my life.

And with that love comes a full range of other emotions. I have experienced feelings of helplessness when you were in the incubator in the early weeks, feelings of despair when you were crying relentlessly in the early months. Feelings of pity when you were in pain from what we now know were food allergies and feelings of insecurity about all the new aspects of life that being a parent brings with it. They too have enriched my life. Click to continue »