Mindset, Skillset, Get Off Your Ass-set

Angry over missing an important deadline, one of several I've missed or nearly missed, in the last year, I got up at 5:45am this Saturday morning because I not only needed to get some work done, but I also needed to turn some things around—like my working habits, how I spend my time when I’m supposed to be working, and what am I choosing to work on.  Am I working on the important stuff that can significantly help my career, or the busy-day-to-day-email-related stuff that crops up and crowds out your day?
 
I remember Jim Rohn once said, “Some people have a tendency to major in minor stuff.”  In other words, the important stuff never gets done.  They focus their time and energy on doing the wrong things.  If you do that day in and day out, that’s exactly where you’ll end up, with nothing significant to show for your days, weeks, months, years.  The time is gone, and spent on what?  This is a question I’m now asking myself.  I don’t want to make excuses to myself or my family over why I missed an important deadline, when the time was there and it got frittered away doing insignificant stuff.

Writing, like in any other entrepreneurial business, it’s so easy to get discouraged by the marketplace (agents/book publishers/editors).  But is it the marketplace that is the problem or is the problem you?  We all have a tendency to blame everyone else when things don't go according to our “master” plans.  But should you always blame the economy or other outside factors, or maybe it’s just the way you choose to spend your time (or how you present yourself or your work), or the projects you choose to do?  Ask yourself what are you thinking about, what are your goals, and what are you actually doing about it-- now, not when you finally get around to it?

So this powerful three minute interview by Jack Canfield, author of The Success Principles and the Chicken Soup for the Soul series with James Malenchak, featured in “Secret Millionaire” a reality show that will be airing in March 2011, struck a chord with me.  James three-set framework for success goes way beyond your typical positive and wishful thinking (law of intention, law of attraction) your way to success. You got to do something.  In quoting someone else he says, “You actually accomplish more through movement than meditation”

       1)  Mindset: Need to train your mind to think in a way to get things done to produce fast results. 

 2)  Skillset: Master a skill that can cut your learning curve from 50% to 90%. 
       3)  Get off your Ass-set:  Without this third one, you’re going nowhere.  You actually got to do something.  Keep asking yourself what am I doing?

  

Be your own get-it-done gal or guy!  Play this video over and over.  It’s three-minutes.  I've played it four times and it's not even 7am in Borneo yet. What a great way to start my weekend. I'm motivated in more ways than one.  Positive anger only gets you so far (it got me out of bed), but action can be life transformation. Make it a habit.  Don't major in minor stuff.  Good luck.

Of course, for writers, you actually get more work done when you are sitting on your ass-set.  Bum glue is what you need to keep yourself there and not wandering all over the house like a lost puppy.

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

We Are Who We Choose to Be

 

This is a powerful Will Smith interview whereby he talks about the Law of Attraction, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and getting ahead in life by choosing who you want to be. This is from a guy who has done some amazing things in his life starting as a hit-making, song-writing teenager, to a star in of a hit TV program, to a string of iconic movies.  And yes, he still sings. 

What he says also applies to writing, choosing who you want to be and out hustling others to get the deals you want and that means beating out those who are more talented, more smarter than you.  When it comes to writing, talent is a given, but it's not enough.  It often comes down to, how how hard are you willing to work, and how bad do you really want it.  

For example the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, I know some talented, unpublished writers, who are thinking about entering, but who probably won't get around to it, or others who will try on the last day and find themselves closed out and will make excuses, blaming everyone but themselves.  

Meanwhile, I'm working around the clock rewriting novels, redoing the excerpts, and going over those pitches until I'm sick of them, but that's what it takes.  I may not win, I may not even get to round two, but right now, like everyone else who has entered, I have a chance, and I'm taking that chance given to all of us.  It comes down to what choices are you choosing to make? It comes down to  pushing yourself just a little harder to get where you want to be.

I believe, if you put your self out there, if you give yourself a fighting chance, magic will happen.  At the very least, you can tell yourself, you did your best, and you went down fighting.  And who knows, your dreams might even come true. Will Smith is living proof of that.

*Update, the 20th anniversary of Lovers and Strangers Revisited

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I