Avoid Soul Crushing Demoralization and Float Like a Butterfly
Floating like a butterfly sounds much better
You have a dream but there’s a lot you don’t know.
Trying to match the pace and knowledge of others can be a crushing demotivator. You might see others do what you want to do, but for you it is impossible. This can be demoralizing. You feel like you can’t achieve what seems to come easy for other people. But hold on. There is always a way!
We must evaluate our work with an appropriate measure. We must set our expectations accordingly. This is wisdom.
Beware of Experts
You have a dream but there’s a lot you don’t know. In order to fill the gaps in our knowledge we naturally seek sources of knowledge. However, seeking knowledge can be very tricky. We don't have a personal Jedi Master for our dreams, and ChatGPT is no Yoda. Therefore, we must filter information very carefully. Trying to adopt someone else's ideas, views, and opinions is a mad path to burnout, demoralization, and dead ends. (The wisdom of Yoda for Living Your Dreams would be a fun read. I’m sure “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” would be in the first chapter.)
I used to believe that so-called authorities who achieved success must be right. Well, they probably were right, but only for themselves. In theory, you could copy everything they did and achieve similar results, but that’s a bad theory. Fact is, we are all different, and the only formula (and measures) for success is the formula you create for yourself through study, trial, error, and refinement.
As an example, I took a writing course a few years ago. It was taught by two successful writers. By successful, I mean they made a respectable living through their trade. One of the writers said you should be able to write at least one article a day in one hour. One article, in one hour, every day?! I never came close to writing one article in one hour every day.
However, what they didn’t teach was crucial: First, it might take years before you can produce at this rate. And secondly, you might not even want to be an article factory and produce an article every day. For me the experience was demoralizing. Which caused me to wonder if I was wasting my time with writing. But thankfully, I recovered. You can always recover by holding on to your calling, purpose and belief.
Be Aware of Where You Are
An important tool that helps in adopting proper expectations is to be aware of where you are in your journey. Any long journey has stages and will require changes in approach. For example,
A journey might consist of the following stages:
Exploration, experimentation, narrowing of focus, gaining expertise, productivity, and improving quality.
These stages are transformative as they produce personal growth. Living your dreams is transformative. When we start on our dream building journey we don’t want to be burdened with future stage concerns such as expertise, productivity and quality.
What you build, how you build, how much you build, and the quality of what you build are based on where you are in your journey. You are the founder of your dreams, you set the standards, and you make the calls.
Be free like a butterfly to taste and explore. In due time you will find a deep path and uncover its vast mysteries. Then, with joy, you can reveal these mysteries to others. This is the beauty of living your dreams.
Finally
The key is to know where you are in your journey.
Don’t try to live up to someone else's standard. It’s probably not even the proper standard for you!
Always question everything. Question everything until you have your own answers and you are reasonably confident in your answers.
I love Elon Musk’s philosophy of being less wrong. This makes us question all beliefs, including our own. It helps us to be open to corrections and new ideas.
“Do not judge by what you see. Only judge by what you know is true.” -Inspired by Yoda
To your success!
James Wilder
The core value of this newsletter is the books. I have taken everything I know about living your dreams and distilled it into a set of books titled FOUNDER, BUILDER, and MASTER. These books follow the transformational stages of living your dreams, from founder, to builder, to master. These books are free for supporters. You can download the books in PDF form on the Books page.