Jeremy JohnsonHigher Learning For Success

Shiv Khera – an Indian motivational speaker and author of self-help books.

It’s difficult to keep working on a skill consistently. After a time it gets monotonous. It gets difficult. It gets annoying. It gets painful. Is this what stops you? Think about something you want to do. You have the idea for it already. That’s not the problem. The problem is you’re not willing to go through the pain and difficulty to make it happen. You’d rather be comfortable. I’d rather be comfortable any day.

How has this worked for you? How has it worked for me? I’m not thrilled to say that spouting off my ideas has not been enough to make them happen. It’s very easy to have ideas. I know this from experience. I have a lot of them. I get an idea for a website almost every day. I’m serious – every day! The last few days it has been this:

• A detailed reviews website with personal videos by me, along with an article.
• A website dedicated to ways humans can augment their own abilities.
• A website that lets you create your own “Choose Your Own Adventure Stories.”

So the problem is not that ideas are not flowing. Trust me, they are flowing. You are a human being with a smart brain. The problem is in the EFFORT. I face this challenge. I don’t want to sit and work on something because it will mean effort and effort means pain. So I don’t. Instead I will go watch TV or watch YouTube videos or play a game or something. Anything to get out of work. Maybe it’s from bad experiences related to work growing up. I’m not sure.

What has worked for me

What has worked for me might work for you. Music continues to be an important catalyst to get my butt moving.

Faith is another one. Often times a lack of belief in my ability to make something work stops me from trying. But when I start playing my pump it up music and focusing on the skill I have, I notice things start clicking. I’m able to work without much effort.

Finally, there is courage. It takes courage to do more than just try and get by in life. It takes courage to have an idea and share it with the world. Those of you who have your own websites reading this are courageous. You are sharing your ideas with the world. I admire and honor you for this.

Music, Faith, And Courage

So when you find yourself in a rut and wondering why the heck you can’t make any progress, kick in the music. That part isn’t hard. You just have to turn the music on. Whatever music turns you on is all that is required. Then focus on your ability and the faith to make it happen. Have the courage to share what you have with others. Repeat this process consistently. It is serving me well right this moment and will for you as well.

Evelyn at Abundance Tapestry is a catalyst in the visual activity I have for you for unclogging your mind. You should now have a list of all the things you want to do in your life. If you don’t have that list, go to unclogging your mind phase 1 please.

Your fleet of ships

I love ships of every kind. From spaceships to sea-faring vessels, ships are fascinating. For purposes of this visual activity, I want you to think of a squadron of ships sailing on the water. What kinds of ships might there be? There might be Battleships. In World War II, these were the staples of any naval fleet. You’d have Aircraft Carriers. These carried fighters to be used in attack enemy ships or land forces. Beyond that, you have Cruisers (for anti-air), Destroyers (to find submarines), submarines (to ambush ships), and PT boats (to scout).

Each boat has a purpose, but a few were key while the others were support. The Battleships led the charge along with the Aircraft Carriers. These two ships are most important. Without them, your entire navy is doomed. Of course nowadays the Battleship is pretty much retired, so I’m going to change the name of Battleship to Mothership. This ship is the leader of your navy. It directs everything. Without it, your navy will fall.

Let’s begin the activity then. We’re going to build our very own navy. We’ll build it with the things that are most important for you. To start, create the mission of your life. What is your life about?

Then use the Mothership for your most important area of your life. This is the ship that will lead your navy. It is your lead ship. What on your list of things is most important to you? This will be your Mothership. This is the thing you will spend the majority of your time on. It is your mission. It is your destiny. It is your career. Think carefully about this. What is it?

My Mission
The mission of [your name here] is:

The Mothership

1.

Left Wing Carrier

2.

Right Wing Carrier

3.

 

Cruiser

4.

Destroyer

5.

 

Submarine

6.

PT Boat

7.

 

 

There’s 3 main ships here. Leading the charge is the Mothership. It’s going to take you where you want to go. It’s going to lead the charge. Flanking it are two Aircraft Carriers. First, take the #1 thing on your list and enter it in the box below the Mothership above. Then take the #2 and #3 things on your list and put them underneath the Aircraft Carriers. The second one goes on the left, the third one on the right. Write a few sentences for each one.

The next four ships are the backups. These will be the areas you will focus on only if there is a break or a pause or a need for variety in your first three areas. These are your backups in case you’re not able to work on your top three. Write down the next four things in your list that are most interesting/important to you.

As an example, here are my top three things

The mission of Jeremy Noel Johnson is to author books for the world to extract value and entertainment from, to create informative websites that solve real world problems, and to continue to grow personally, professionally, financially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

• 1. Mothership: Author books for the world to extract value and entertainment from.
• 2. Left Wing Carrier: Create informative websites that solve real world problems.
• 3. Right Wing Carrier: Continue to grow personally, professionally, financially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

And my final four things

• 4. Crusier: Build investments in stocks, real estate, and anything else that presents opportunity.
• 5. Destroyer: Create presentations and speak in front of people.
• 6. Submarine: Interview and meet with successful and inspiring people.
• 7. PT Boat: Help create a compelling computer game/software application.

How cool is that? I’ve just created the leaders of my navy. They are formidable warships that will definitely help me complete my mission. The next four things are areas of lesser focus that would still be nice to make progress in if time allows. These are the Destroyer’s – the lesser ships – still important, but not nearly as important as your top three.

What about everything else you want to do? Keep it in a safe place. There may come a point in time where you can get to it. But you’ll never complete your dreams and ideas if you are focusing on everything at once.

What do I do on the next screen? When you click ‘Build my fleet’, look over the next screen. If everything is good, click ‘File->Print’ and print the page for you to hang up somewhere. Otherwise, click your Browser’s back button and change what needs to be changed :) You can also save the URL on the next screen and refer to it anywhere you want, on any page!

Your challenge!

Fill in your top three things you will focus on in your life. Then fill in the last four. Click the ‘Build My Fleet’ button when you are done. My hope is that you’ll create a powerful navy that will help complete the mission you set out to accomplish in your life.

My Friends: Let’s see the navy you’ve built. You should have a unique page that was created for you that you can link. I’d love to see it!

Evelyn at Abundance Tapestry is a vision wizard. She has a knack for taking problems and showing ways to solve them using visual items. This includes mind maps, vision boards, and an inspirational book with a special item for each day of the week. Evelyn is helping me move from using just words as a solution to creating visuals. Later on in this series, I will have some visuals to show you in helping you unclog your mind.

What to do when your mind is clogged

Have you ever been thinking about your next move and felt unable to act? You’re not alone. This is an obstacle I’m facing. I want to make measurable and meaningful progress. I want to make a difference. I want to change the world. I’m sure many of you reading feel the same way, or you wouldn’t be here. One of the biggest challenges I’m facing is figuring out what to do next. What do I do? Do I write a blog post; do I interview someone; do I write a book; do I comment on other websites; do I [insert task here]???

I feel like the sink up there in the picture. I’m totally clogged. Have you felt this way? It’s as if you are in a dense bog and are trying to make quick progress; but, instead, getting anywhere becomes a challenge. The bog feels like quicksand, trapping you. To combat this challenge, Evelyn has inspired me to create an exercise for unclogging the mind. I call it, “Unclogging the mind.”

Start with everything you can think of

What you want, get it all down in a list, every last drop. This is what you want to do with no restrictions.

• A family with greater opportunities and growth than I had growing up.
• A loving and fulfilling marriage.
• Growth and success at my full time job.
• Become a published author.
• Write and publish many books (fiction/fantasy and self development).
• Play pickup basketball as long as I am able.
• Travel to any part of the world with my family whenever I like.
• Attend seminars and workshops as often as I like.
• Own vacation rentals.
• Own real estate property (condo/house).
• Have a million dollar investment portfolio (stocks, mutual funds).
• Speak in front of 100 people.
• Speak in front of 1,000 people.
• Speak in front of 10,000 people.
• Speak at my old high school, Kalamazoo Central.
• Live in a gated neighborhood in a customized dream home.
• Have an in-home movie theater, basketball court, and indoor swimming pool.
• Become physically fit at a high level.
• Average 500 visitors daily for a website.
• Play basketball in the NBA.
• Invent an anti-gravity machine.
• Create an AI human-like search engine.
• Invent an easy way to fly for anyone.
• Learn how to use jedi powers or wizard magic
• Marry a cute, awesome woman (oh wait, I already did that!)
• Get to know and work with inspiring and highly successful people.
• Learn to teleport.
• Create valuable, unique websites which enhance others lives.
• Create a computer game that has the same impact as the great ones did on me when I was young.

I call this the “leave no stone unturned brain dump.” Get EVERYTHING out of your brain that you want to do. You may not even get it all the first time. This is similar to a bucket list except that you get everything out – even the stuff that is very far fetched (like teleporting and wizard powers). This is helpful for me because I can see each thing now instead of looking through my clogged mind trying to find it – the information is set here and I can’t forget it or lose track of it now that it is here.

Feeling busy but not making progress

This list does not include ‘busy’ work. It would be VERY long were I to do that. Is it any wonder sometimes one can feel like they are busy but not making any progress? This opens my eye and shows me I am spending far too much time multi-tasking. With trying to do so many things at once, it’s no wonder any one thing getting done is a challenge.

Your task here is simple: get everything down you can think of you want to do. No restrictions – no limitations. Once you have your list, you can await the next article in this series, which will begin to organize these in a visual manner.

Don’t fret! We’re going to be diving into how to organize this so you are maximizing your work with the things you want to do the most. That is coming up next, along with some graphics (thanks to Evelyn for the inspiration).

image by quinn.anya