Tag Archives: Success

Planning and habit

It seems I really developed a habit, the habit of finishing the daily tasks I am planning for myself for the last few weeks. And indeed, habits are strong, as today, this afternoon, the end of the afternoon I felt very tired and I was very annoyed with something that had happened earlier today. But somehow I felt the urge, more urge than usual, to do the things I had planned to do today. So I did, even though I was very sleepy and didn’t really feel like doing it.

And I am still tired and also don’t really feel like writing here. Or even sending the daily quote. But somehow I programmed myself to write, so here I am, writing again.

But the next step is creating more useful habits. As I still don’t feel satisfied most of the time, even though I am becoming very successful in all kinds of things. And I keep telling myself that this is all a build up for the success I am really looking for. And of course that is also true. But as of now it still doesn’t feel like it and I guess that’s what it is all about in life in the end: feeling good.

And I have no real clue if what I am writing here now has any use to you, to others. I do know some people like my daily quotes. And I do know the site has some traffic. But until now hardly any comments, whether positive or negative. And no real contribution from the team. So I still feel quite alone, no matter what I do and no matter how successful I am doing things and achieving things.

Ah, maybe nice to tell and that is that I had planned some time today to work on what I call the IFS Tools. So I did and I am happy to tell you that very soon you will be able to log into the site and e.g. put your goal or goals or definite purpose in the site according to the Principles of Success of Napoleon Hill. And again, I feel a bit alone with it, as in the end I just built it all myself. But yes, as long as I make progress it’s of course okay.

Still, it would be nice to do it in a team or get some feedback from readers. But yes, while writing this I know it will come. As I am starting to believe more and more that most things in life are about being persistent.

And yes, looking back, what a journey I had the last one and a half year. And it all started with the deepest down in my life and a book. Imagine.

Anticlimax

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I had a big issue with the website of one of my customers as due to some bugs in the website code there were a lot of copies of the images in that website taking up quite a lot of disk space. And as I regularly download backups of everything I host in data centers this was, in combination with my internet problems, quite a problem for me.

As this was quite a large job and needed to be done with care it took me a while to start with it, but about one or two weeks ago I found time to start with it. But as the problem was a bit complicated I was not able to finish it in one working segment. So I planned another and another, not pushing myself too much as, again, it was a job to be done with care as a mistake might cost me a lot of time to solve. As one of the risks was that the photo’s would be gone, meaning I would have to upload them from a backup in the office to the hosting server. And that would take a lot of time, as for these type of things internet speed is pretty slow.

Anyhow, today I was kind of committed to finish this project, but it took me still quite some time to get all the bugs out of this small program to delete some stuff that was not needed anymore. Ah, and it was about thousands of photo’s, so not something you would do manually and also quite complicated to check.

So after finally running my last tests on my local system I decided to upload, do one test run (without making changes) and after that looked okay run the final program and solve the problem.

And I was amazed, as the test run was very fast, like a hundred or a thousand times faster than my test runs. It was like a few seconds. And the final run I expected to be slower as it involved quite some data,but no, that was also fast, like a few seconds.

And it really felt like an anticlimax. As I had spend hours, days to create this program. And it just ran for a few seconds and that was the end of it. And to be honest I felt disappointed. Somehow I still expected problems to be solved after running the program or still having problems with the data not properly converted or deleted.

But no, in a few seconds, imagine even over the internet, the program had done its job and the project was finished and the problem was solved. And I didn’t feel satisfied or proud or happy; no, actually I felt dissatisfied and disappointed. And I still feel like that.

So what weird mechanism is working here? I should(?!) feel satisfied and happy and proud as I had solved a major problem that had haunted me for months. And yes, looking back I know I spent the time and the effort to make the program do what it was supposed to do. So I have all reason to be satisfied. And apparently all my testing paid off, as the bugs came out while testing, not in the final run, as it should.

But I had expected some kind of ‘booooom’. Or at least the program running for a few minutes. And I think the last was the major thing, that the final run was just so fast. And then it was over. And the program is never to be ran again. And that’s what I spent hours and days on.

And I know somehow this is very common when achieving success by working for it. Like I often read that ‘success’, that winning in sports for example, is in the training, in the preparation. Not in the game itself, the game that is also often only hours or maybe even parts of an hour.

But still weird, this feeling I had today. And I also still don’t know what to learn from it,even though there are quotes in my mind like the journey is more important than the goal. And I also know from riding a bicycle climbing mountains in the end it’s about the climb, not about the going down. As also there the climb is hours and hours, and the going down is often less than an hour.

But seconds versus hours and days? That’s still weird.

Planning

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I thought I was not good in planning, but it seems that I am starting to learn. And it is weird to see that it appears that planning makes my life easier, more relaxed. As e.g. when I am finished with the plan for the day I am just finished.

And my planning comes with some decision power. As for the last few months I try not to change decisions after I make them. And also that makes life easier, as I don’t have to think so much, I don’t doubt so much anymore. As when I have planned something, decided to do something, I will normally just do it, even though it sometimes feels weird. And yes, I still tend to plan too many things, too many things in one day. So I still get tired from overload. And then indeed I sometimes just stop, don’t do anything anymore, which still kind of makes me feel guilty.

But somehow the ideas of Napoleon Hill as written down in Think and Grow Rich are starting to make sense to me, are starting to help me. And recently even make me feel much stronger.

And still, one of the most powerful things I experience is the coming alive of my desire document. And no, I didn’t make all the dates there. But yes, it helps me keep on track and it is very weird to see it come alive. Very weird.

So yes, recently I also started reading it aloud again. And sometimes I don’t feel it, don’t feel anything. But mostly I see and feel the things written there come alive. And yes, it is kind of a self fulfilling prophecy, as one of the weird things that is happening around that is that it gives positive meaning to events that I would normally consider negative.

So yes, again, I can certainly recommend to make a written statement on your definite purpose or your goals and dreams in life. As one other major thing I also got from the ideas as written down by Napoleon Hill: if you just have one goal or definite purpose and stick to it, only two things can happen: you reach your goal or you die while being on the way to it. And talking about lifetimes the first is much more likely to happen than the second. As most people overestimate what they could achieve in one year and underestimate how much they can achieve in ten year. And being fifty now I can state that ten year is not that long. And that in one lifetime there are mostly multiple periods of ten year.

So yes, better just stick to your goal and reach it. And yes, if you failed, or better say you were defeated, just set your sails once more on the way to your goal(s) and with this type of mindset it is very unlikely not to reach your goal. I promise you.

No clue

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I have no clue what to write about right now. I am still kind of bothered with all this internet stuff, even though I decided to NOT work on that today, but do something tomorrow with it, about it. But not easy as even while I was checking this page and writing right now I see that is messed up by the Globe malware/spyware. And yes, that’s what I learned, that sticking to decisions is quite helpful, even though it’s not always easy. As it makes life kind of simpler. And I learned some discipline, like finishing all the tasks I put to myself every day. And mostly I do, even though every now and then it’s just too much and I allow myself to stop, to rest.

And that still seems to be one of my weaknesses, that I’m just planning too much on one day. And/or just continue going, even though maybe I should stop, say stop to myself. But that’s still kind of a dilemma to me, as I still kind of presume that successful people are busy. And yes, mostly they are. But I also am, even though I often allow myself to do ‘nothing’.

But yes, I also agree with what I read somewhere, that successful people often don’t work so hard. That they somehow manage to get things done without too much effort. And that must be like putting other people to work or something. But somehow that’s not it.

So yes, still some secret there, something I still don’t get. As I am persistent, if not just very stubborn, can work hard and often do more than I see other people do and somehow it doesn’t seem to work.

So what about you? Are you successful? So what’s your secret? Or are you not and still kind of struggling like me?

Please let me know your thoughts.

Inception

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Inception

I was just watching the movie Inception, that I still like, so I saw it many times before and sometimes just like watching again. And one of the scenes I like most is when the girl, the new to be designer of the dreams, starts messing with reality, with the physics of things, turning a part of Paris on top of another part of Paris. And she does it with so much imagination, like closing mirror like doors near or on a bridge over the river Seine. And twisting more things around in a way that is kind of believable, but in the end is not. A bit like in the old cartoons, where cartoon characters walk off a cliff in a straight line and only fall when they see they’re not on stable ground anymore.

And yes, also this movie is a good sample of real success, a whole team of people creating something virtually perfect, at least I never really saw mistakes in movies, although I know there are. And yes, I know how much effort is put in such a result, how much practice by the actors, how much directing by the directors, how much editing by the editors. And you just watch it and don’t realize what an enormous amount of effort (and money) it takes to create a movie like this.

Ah, and I forgot the writer and/or the person or group of people who came up with the idea, the basic idea for this movie. And again, everything starts with an idea, like the idea of dream within a dream that makes this movie, the concept of inception, of planting an idea in someones mind without him knowing it, so interesting, so unique, so worth of watching.

And yes, as in most or all movies, it is also always about people, about reality, about humans, about humanity, like in this case a father doing everything to be back with his children, as any father in real life would do.

And yes, still something else in my mind, as I have always been wondering how the movies Inception and Shutter Island are related. As part of the plot is so similar, a father wanting to return to his children. And they ware made around the same time and the main character in both movies is played by Leonardo DiCaprio, so that cannot be coincidence. And both are dealing with some kind of virtual reality, something playing with the mind, with minds.

And I’m not sure how to continue with this post, how to make something really inspiring out of it. Or maybe just that both movies, like all ‘Hollywood’ movies are made being perfect, meaning are made successfully, are made by successful people, by successful teams. And that both movies are full of ideas like ‘idea’ and ‘mind’ and maybe even something like Infinite Intelligence.