Carpe Diem – Carpe That F’n Diem
Ever wonder how Steven King writes such great books? Have you ever dreamed about writing a book? Making a movie? Creating a Great Music Album? In this article I’m going to tell you how to do all three.
Let’s start with the definition of Procrastination.
pro·cras·ti·na·tion
prəˌkrastəˈnāSHən
1.the action of delaying or postponing something.
“your first tip is to avoid procrastination”
Procrastination is the biggest wealth-killer there is. In other words: most people do not take action and therefor never start and thus never even come close to achieving their goals.
I’ve been listening to a great blog every day called Eventual Millionaire. What I like about this blog is that the Author (Jamie Tardy) interviews nothing but millionaires each week. Many of these Millionaires have books – and with my two kids – time to read is few and far between. Many of these millionaires summarize their successful actions and their experiences – so by listening to their podcasts, I end up basically reading a new book every day – I highly Recommend it.
Anyhow, when I was a kid, I dreamed about being an actor: even today I often hear a great album and wonder what it would be like to make my own album. Today I often ponder about writing my first book.
But here’s the question… Until now I never realized why it didn’t happen. And it took listening to several millionaires to wake me up to the fact that they all did basically three things to achieve their wealth:
The three simple steps to achieving your Goal:
- Step One: Create a crappy first draft.
- Step Two: Create a Mediocre More-Experienced version.
- Step Three: Create an Awesome Version.
I believe that every truly great piece of work goes through these three stages. The point is to start and expect to go through at least three iterations.
How Steven King Writes His Books:
So you want to write a book? Why haven’t we yet?
Steven King said it best like this.
“Write with the door closed, and rewrite with the door open.” – Steven King
In other words: write as if no one in the world would ever read it.
Like in the movie Frozen: “Let It Go!”. Say what you feel. Don’t think. Just get all of your thoughts out there in all their poorly written crappy glory.
Stephen King calls it writing with a “door closed.” It’s just you & your work, nobody else, and it’s the first stage of writing an amazing book.
The second step is opening the door to the rest of the world — of course pondering how the average person might respond to your new creation and making the changes necessary to help it take off. Take the audiences point of view. Make changes from the Audiences point of view.
Yes, there will be changes. A Plethora of them.
“We need to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience helps us to recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them.” – Steven King
The Same Goes For Starting A Business – or a Website – Start With A Crappy Version!
I’ve worked on sites that get more than twelve Million Visits a month. How do they do it? Easy, they provide Value. They keep providing value and people share it.
If You Are Unhappy – Try This
I remember when a magic moment occurred in my life. About 10 Years ago, I realized I was unhappy. I didn’t know why- and finally when I figured it out, everything changed…
Why was I unhappy? Because I strayed away from my goal in life. I strayed away from what I loved to do. And as soon as I spotted that I was “off my purpose” I became happy again. What is your purpose? Mine was to raise the society up by using the arts.
I think that may be your purpose too.
I care about you and your happiness, so try it. Try making a very crappy version. At least you will be miles ahead of someone who never even tried and woke up at the end of this life saying “why didn’t I ever do that”.
Conclusion
What do you think about procrastination? Let me know what you think…
Psychology-Behavior-InfoGraphic
