fears – From the desk of Adam Thomas

No wallet lessons:

It is easy to go on a tangent when you have options. If I have no money and no options, I go directly to the place where I need to go. If it isn’t in the plan there is no reason.
- Takeaway: Plan out my day and don’t leave an escape route.
If something feels remotely difficult, I try to escape mentally by buying something. I don’t think about these things after I buy them.
- Takeaway: If I want to buy something, think about it for a while. Take a second every month to look at my purchases, be aware of the things I don’t use and spend.

Publicising lessons:

It is hard work. I couldn’t jut wing it. Doing it properly took some time. There are tools to help this process.
- Takeaway: Dedicate time to it like I do with this blog. I can’t wing something like that and expect results. I can use tools like Buffer to get results.
Fear is at the heart of not doing anything when it comes to making things public. Being scared is part of the game, and it comes in many forms.
- Takeaway: Make taking things public a part of my routine. Not just with twitter, but with Facebook, Instagram, and a mailing list.

I have to find purpose in my twenties.

At least that is what I think when I sit alone in my room, staring at the corners and dry paint. This is the time in life where you have the ability to screw up completely, and not have it ruin your life.

I am 26 now, and I feel like I am working on making my twenties worth something, both by forging connections, and by creating rituals that will serve me better through life. I don’t know where these things will lead, which is odd considering the reason behind them is to give me purpose, but I do know that I will be a better person for it. It will make my path clear and give me the opportunity to see what I can achieve.

I want that freedom later in life to be able to look back on this and laugh, say I struggled, say it was for a good cause, and say I didn’t have any regrets. I am getting better at making this work, but who knows where the rest of this leads.

I will say this, doing this has opened up a lot of questions about me as a human being. One being do I hate competition. Phil says that I don’t quite make the effort of showing my cards, that I quit. When he says that, it gives me a pain in my stomach, and for me, that usually means that it is rooted in truth.

I think I have to look at myself and really sit with this one for a while. Whatever truth I find out, I am going to tackle it, with both routine and habit, along with whatever knowledge I pick up along the way. I never knew through meeting people and facing fears, that a lot of flaws come to the surface. This makes me happy actually, and it goes back to what I was saying earlier. It helps me find purpose, and helps me become a better person overall.

To that end, I was reading a post by Seth Godin today (http://www.sethgodin.com) about your perfect self. I am not a religious man by any means, but sometimes, it does feel like the fates come together and push knowledge onto you.

The post described exactly what I was talking about above. It starts off talking about setting the bar too high. I know I do that mentally all the time. I have to be amazing, I have to be spectacular, or it was a waste of time. This goes back to my growth mindset post of yesterday. I am at a fixed point, taking every no as concrete evidence in the hypothetical trial of should I do said thing.

I look at this and I begin to hide behind the nos, use that as fuel to help me quit whatever I was doing, and move back to a life where i can say i didn’t get hurt. It allows me to keep my ego intact, look at the world and say, i was better than that, and they just didn’t give me a chance.

I do that a lot in life, so maybe what Phil was saying is right. I must say, when typing this, my stomach did start to hurt a little bit, so I think mentally it is right as well. With that said, I am discovering this now, even as I type, so its interesting to see where me bringing this up to the surface will do, how will this work out.

The growth mindset is the thing that allows you to build yourself into that spectacular being. I read in 99u that you have to use ignorance to fuel you, and that is true. Ignorance plus the growth mindset equals something spectacular in my head. I think hat allows you o learn, get all the no’s out of the way, and then build on turning them into yes, by allowing yourself to receive feedback and show you are determined.

With that said, there is still a part of me that knows my best shot of making all of this work is to give myself some time to learn, and not to face those challenges without the tool kit to slay it. Even so, I have been working on a lot of this for years. I need to work on cashing in, so even failure becomes a step forward.

Manage your Day to Day is fantastic for anyone who wants to become a creative. The short posts by each thought leader is just enough for you to get the gist of what they are talking about, and fo you to want to learn more.

I have become a big fan of Gretchen Rubin lately, based on the book and the stuff on twitter and 99u I have read. I am constantly looking to expand my mind, and hopefully that book can help.

Farnam Street also submitted the summer reading list, making me get 4 more books I should read to expand my mind. They have been on point so far, since i have been following the site, so I don’t need much push to get me on board with following it.

The hard part is reading it, and for that, I still need to get into the habit of reading a bunch of pages a day. I am thinking if it should be something I add to the habit list, and keep track of. I may o it starting in June, especially as the May habits start taking shape, and I get to see where they stand.

I take the CPAP off in my sleep. This worries me, because I would like to use it for it’s intended purpose. I remember putting it on, but i wake up, and it is sitting net to me, properly put off to the side, on the counter, on top of my notebooks.

It is a very odd thing, and I wonder if I can fix it so I keep it on my head throughout the night.

1000 words. We have done it!!!! First time!!!!

What scares me, right now