Thomas Carlyle – TonyFine.blog

Examining Epictetus #2: To Be, We Must Do

First, say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do.
Epictetus

As a youth, I had some lofty goals. They were always in the same formula:

A + B = C

A = Someday

B = Unknown

C = Goal

Coming up with C was easy. My problem was I never knew how to identify A and B.

A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.
Thomas Carlyle

I had both a ship and a rudder. Unfortunately, I was lacking a schedule and a map. The result was years of entering the wrong harbors and not maximizing the trade value of the goods in the hold.

10-3-1 Finding A

My first step is to clearly identify the A in my formula. Someday is too vague. It doesn’t require a sense of urgency and allows external interference. A is my schedule.

10

Where do I want to be in ten years. Ten years is my moonshot. It can be as lofty as I want it to be. Ten years provides me a finish line for the current race that I am entering. This is a marathon. I don’t have to break any speed records. Instead, I just need to run my race. Personally, I have four different ten-year goals. Two of them are where I want to be professionally. The other two are where I want to be personally.

3

As in three years. My first major milestone is three years away. To achieve my ten-year goal, I must define my ideal schedule of progress after three years. Rather than a moonshot, this is just getting off the planet. My three-year goal is doable and aligns with the ten-year plan I have in place.

1

You guessed it! This is the one-year plan. It is the mini milestone that gets me closer to the major milestone. The one-year plan is very doable. It breaks the three-year plan down into smaller chunks. In the recesses of my mind is the moon. Not so far back is the three-year goal of getting off the planet. In the first year, I am looking at the prototypes of the rocket ship, the logistics of the journey, and the beginning of any required training.

The one-year goal is getting the business up and running. Turning profits is the year three and Fortune 500 is year ten.

In my A + B = C formula, this is how I identify A.

Breaking down the B.

B is the how-to that for me was always an unknown variable. It is more difficult than defining A, but it needs the schedule that A provides. B is the action, and I must know what B looks like at 10, 3, and 1 years.

The action at ten years is complex. Even the three-year mark is at a higher level than the first year. One being the easiest and closest to my present moment, I will start here. What actions are required to hit my first mini milestone?

In the first year, I am a novice. To build up to my ultimate ten-year dream, I must lay the foundation. There are two key elements crucial to my foundation: discipline and knowledge.

Discipline

Discipline comes through the creation of daily habits. These habits will drive my productivity. Starting out small is a good idea. Reevaluating a habit’s effectiveness over time is prudent to see if it produces the desired results. This is also a good time to look at any current habits that may be counter-productive to the 10-3-1 plan.

All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.
James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Knowledge

As a novice, we must gather knowledge. This is the first part of wisdom. The second, understanding, will come in time. The accumulation of knowledge is critical to the foundation. If we do not have it, our final structure, the goal we desire, will be shaky. How do we get this knowledge? Living or deceased, we start with mentors. Somebody has been down this road or a similar one before. We can save an immense amount of time by studying their words and works. Their knowledge will become ours and help to ensure secure foundation.

Keep in mind, not all knowledge is needed here. We must curate what we take in and guard against consuming material that is not beneficial to our cause. If it does not get us closer to our goal, we may find ourselves going down the wrong path, which of course will cost us valuable time.

To be, we must do. Easy words from Epictetus, but not so easy in the execution. By breaking down what we desire to be, we can have a plan for the doing. We can take our dreams and make them a reality.

Crafting Your Biography

Have you ever walked down the biography aisle at your local bookstore or library? What you see on those shelves is history and how one person played a part to impact it? These are the lives of extraordinary individuals and an account of their actions.

Actions. Rarely is a biography about something other than action. Nobody gets written about based on what they said they were going to accomplish. Instead, it is all about their actions. And those actions were not a one and done event. No, they were actions built over a lifetime.

Imagine a biography in that bookstore with your name on it. What would be in it? What would the writer say about you? What actions made it into the book? Without a purpose in life and daily steps to achieve that purpose these questions are difficult to answer. But if you want to become great and worthy of a biography someday, just look at the advice of those who had volumes written about them:

The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it.
Henry Ford

It begins with planning. What is your mission in life? If you don’t know, then it may be time to start scratching multiple surfaces until you find one that suits you. Click here to help you discover your massively transformative purpose.

You have to assemble your life yourself, action by action.
Marcus Aurelius

When you have your purpose, you must break it down into smaller, manageable chunks that you can work on daily. Make your lists, complete them religiously, and start stacking your wins.

Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.
Abraham Lincoln

Taking the easy path will never get you closer to your life’s goals. We must sacrifice immediate gratification and keep our eyes on the prize that lay ahead. We must be disciplined.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
Thomas Carlyle

To make it in the biography section, you must shoot for greatness. You can’t play small in this arena. No, you must go big. The journey is arduous. But for the one that would change the world, that is not a problem. Your actions, your life, will not be in vain.

Feature photo by Moritz Kindler on Unsplash

Building to Win

I have a friend who plans to run his first marathon in the summer. He has only been running for about a year. Back then, he was a smoker and knew he needed to start doing something to get into shape. So he started running. He committed his time to this endeavor. As a result, his mileage has gone up, his weight has gone down, and as far as I know, he stopped smoking. If he completes this marathon, it will be an amazing accomplishment.

Let’s recap his journey:

Made a decision to start running.
Made changes to way of life to accommodate for time.
Got friends and family involved. He even runs with his mother on a regular basis.
Made changes to what he puts into his body.
Became comfortable running longer and longer distances.
Entered first race and completed it.
Signed up for marathon and began training.

Each bullet point was a decision. Each decision turned into an accomplishment that validated his initial decision to get into shape. Completing them boosted his self-esteem. If you asked him a year ago about his confidence running a marathon, he probably would have laughed at you and thought you were insane just for asking. But he built his confidence up mile by mile, day by day. He built it up every time he laced up his shoes to train, regardless of the weather conditions. Now, he firmly believes completing a marathon is possible.

Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment. –Thomas Carlyle

A marathon is a big deal. It is a big commitment. You don’t wake up one day and out of the blue decide to run a marathon without training. You start small and build up to it. The journey to running 26.2 miles at one time began with one step first taken long before race day.

Great achievements are possible. Make the decision. Do the work every day, even on the days you don’t feel like it. Get small victories and then scale up to larger challenges. In time this body of work you have created will be the preparation you needed to win the dream you started with so long ago.

Letters to TS #2: Hope Tied to Health

Hope 12/14/2019

Letters to TS #2: Hope Tied to Health

In our last conversation, you stated that you wanted to look like you did ten years ago. “Hot” was the word I think you used for yourself back then. But after a decade of heavy drinking, the alcohol has left its mark on you.

You’ve gone two months in between drinks, and now you are beating yourself up over your last episode. You embarrassed yourself. The hangover lasted two days, but its memory is still very fresh in your mind. You feel miserable right now, and it is warranted. But there is also a positive here. You went two months. When was the last time you went that long? And if you can do two months, how long can you go until your next drink?

There was one thing that bothered me in our conversation. We know you are running away from alcohol, but are you running toward anything? What do you have driving you forward into the future? Do you have any goals other than to stop drinking? Do you have a purpose?

You have a ten year-old picture reminding you of what you used to look like. You blame the alcohol for the way you look now. You are right. It deserves some of the credit, but it goes far beyond that. As an alcoholic, you tend to justify too many things. And when it comes to being healthy, you can’t justify a poor diet or a lack of physical activity. You can’t be both an alcoholic and healthy. And even though there are some that seem to be both, one behavior will eventually be sacrificed for the other.

My friend, you need to run towards a healthy life. You need to visualize the life you could have if it wasn’t tied to the bottle. Once you have that picture burned into your mind, you need to let it consume your every waking desire. You may never look like you did ten years ago, but you could look good again. You could feel good again. No longer would you be dumbly and drunkenly walking toward your grave. Instead, you would be making the most of this precious time you have left on this earth. Fight for your health and find the hope that comes in the pursuit. It is that hope that will light your path in the future.

Always your friend, TF.

He who has health has hope; and he who has hope, has everything. –Thomas Carlyle

Stuck

Ever find yourself stuck, not knowing where to go, unsure of the next chapter in your life? Of course, you have big plans, hopes, and dreams, but you seemed to have stalled?

The ship left the yard. Sleek, shiny, and new. It was built to cut through the roughest of seas. But without a navigator, it only sits in the harbor. Oh, don’t worry. Nothing is going to happen to the ship. The harbor is protected. The ship sits in safety.

A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for. -William Shedd

How many hours I have passed lying in bed? How many hours sitting on the couch, playing video games or watching television? How often have I made the choice to relax in comfort in the safety of my home? Living a life consuming, rather than creating? If I get really down to the brass tacks, how much time reading? Is reading really that much better than watching? Am I not still consuming in the safe confines of my personal harbor? Is this what I was built for?

I was built for action. I was built to move. It is what my early ancestors did. Hunt, gather, or die. They didn’t sit in the cave hoping food would appear from nowhere. If they wanted to eat, they had to get it. Generation after generation until I showed up on the scene. Did I think sitting in the harbor was the best use of the genes that made me who I am?

A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder. -Thomas Carlyle

It is July. More than half way through the year. As I look back on the last six months, I was on a self-improvement roller coaster. Climbing, coasting, running flat. I think my elevation gain on life’s journey has been positive, but am I really better than I was at the beginning of the year? Am I any closer to the goals I laid out six months ago? How many times have my goals for the future changed over the last few months? I may be a man with too many goals spinning around in erratic circles.

There is something I need to do. It may be something we all need to do. I need to stop, get out my compass, and find my true north. What is it I am really aiming for? Can I get there if I have too many way-points along the journey? How can I get where I want to go, if I don’t even know where I am going?

If you don’t know where you are going, you might not get there. -Yogi Berra

Judge Yourself

Justice 5/22/2019: Judge Yourself

Of course, we want to be honest in how we deal with other people, but…

We also need to be honest with ourselves. Can you do it? Can you be honest with how you truly assess where you are at? We need to take a moment and see where we are. We need to do it in an honest way and not sugar coat the facts. Too many times in the past, I glossed over my shortcomings and neglected taking action to correct them. To lie to myself does me no good. I have to make an honest assessment. I have to be my own most critical judge.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one rascal less in the world. -Thomas Carlyle

Hope 1/12/2019

A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.-Thomas Carlyle

Do not be aimless. Set your course and then navigate your way there.

______________________

The Virtue of Hope.

There is a belief by some that tomorrow will be better, that our future will be a little brighter. This hope is what spurns them to keep going even when the day is at its darkest. Without hope, we are lost.

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