Thanks to Jazmin Quaynor on Unsplash
Pursue your dreams, your way.
The important and difficult job is never to find the right answers. It is to find the right question. — Peter Drucker
I took a simple step; my knee cracked and bent sideways. When I fell on it, it got back in place, and I attempted to get up. I couldn’t.
Before pain completely overtook my brain, I heard a wave of gasps going through the audience.
From the ages of 14 till 18, I was a hip hop dancer. I was good too. In 2015, a bit after I graduated high school, a bit after I got rejected from all universities, on a silly gig in front of a hundred people, I fell and broke my meniscus. When they did the surgery, it turned out it was more than just the meniscus, but I’ve forgotten the details.
A year later, our dance group was to take part in the World Hip Hop Dance Championship in Germany. I was cautiously going back to dancing at the time, but my trainers wanted me to be a part of the team to go to the championship. They thought it would be good for me after the year I had.
And I totally let them down. About a month into rehearsal, I gave up.
Dancing is one thing. Training for a world championship — a whole other. We danced 8 hours a day. I was exhausted and terrified of getting another injury. It hurt so bad.
Breaking a meniscus is nothing in the sport’s world. Football players get those surgeries in between their massages. It’s not a serious injury, certainly not one to make you give up.
But it was enough for me to give up.
Giving up was a shitty thing to do, and I’ve felt like shit for it for a long time. But I know now I shouldn’t have. My mistake wasn’t giving up; it was taking on the challenge. Dancing simply wasn't my thing.
Since then, I’ve tried and given up many things. Some were successes; others were disasters. I am now 34, and I finally know what I want from life and how to stay focused, confident and authentic in getting there.
The knowledge came with 5 questions I ask myself a lot. Like, a lot. Almost daily. Ultimately, they’re the questions that help me stay true to myself.
Some may seem similar — but they make you look at things from different perspectives.
So go through all of them and give yourself honest responses before you realize you have to be the shitty person who gives up the World Championship in the middle of rehearsals.
The question that will help you find your thing.
My mom says that relationships last not when you appreciate your partner’s great qualities but when you can live with their drawbacks.
When you’re smitten, it’s easy to focus on the good and justify the bad. But can you really take the bad? Can you take it long term? Because it’s not going away.
It’s the same with your career. I loved dancing, but I didn’t love it enough to go through the injuries and pain. I didn’t love it enough for it to be the only thing I’m doing — because when you dance at the top of your abilities for 8 hours a day, you don’t have the energy for anything else.
So the question to ask is this: What do I hate about this? Can I live with it?
I can live with the drawbacks of writing. I can write and rewrite a million times. I can keep my focus on the details as I edit. I can learn writing techniques and test them until my fingertips bleed.
I can handle rejections. It’s not easy, but it’s also not a problem.
Can you live with the drawbacks of your passion?
The question that will keep you focused on your ultimate goals.
Imagine if J.K. had said to herself, “This writing children’s books thing won’t get me far. It would be best I find myself a well-paid job and a husband. I have a daughter to support.”
Instead, she raised a toddler alone, living on minimum welfare, and wrote a book. She was brave enough to do it. As she says herself, she was the biggest failure by anyone’s standard already — she had nothing to lose.
So she played Vabanque.
To do the same, I’d like you to ask yourself this: What would I be doing if I could have or do anything? What would I be aiming at?
I almost got back into sales a few months ago. I needed the money, and I heard you could start a career as a freelance salesperson and make great commissions. So I wasted a whole lot of time trying to make that work.
Good thing I came to my senses and asked myself that question.
If you knew for a fact that ultimately you’d be successful in whatever you focused on, what would you focus on?
My answer is telling stories. I want to succeed by telling stories because I want to continue to tell stories.
“So what the hell am I doing selling stuff?” I said to myself out loud and scrapped the whole thing. Then I went back to writing.
This brings me to my next question.
“The best way to encourage more of the behavior you want is to create the conditions in which that behavior will arise naturally.”
― Hal Gregersen, Questions Are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life
The question that will help you be you.
“The toughest transition is the transition to understanding that being yourself is all you need to be.” — Kevin Hart
For some reason, being yourself is the simplest yet most difficult thing to do. It takes most people decades to be able to pull it off, and some die hidden under the masks they’ve chosen to wear.
The only way you can be successful and happy is by approaching everything as your authentic self. That’s how you’ll learn the lessons you’re supposed to learn. That’s how you’ll see the opportunities you’re supposed to see.
But how do you stay on the “you” track without veering off to what’s ‘logical’ or what your mother advises you to do?
Ask yourself this question: Why am I doing this? Is it because I honestly enjoy it, or is it because I want the results it could bring me?
Here’s something we don’t always realize. Success and failure lead to the same thing: doing more of what you’re doing.
If you don’t make it as a writer, you’ll write more trying to make it.
If you make it as a writer, you’ll write more, trying to keep it.
So if you don’t enjoy writing, if you don’t enjoy whatever it is you’re doing, you'll be miserable even if you’re successful at it. You’d also be miserable if you tried to write like someone else. Are you writing like someone else for the results it could bring you? What if you wrote like you?
You do you. It’s your only job.
The question that will keep you in an abundance mindset.
We like to say to ourselves that “Anything is possible,” but the moment we utter the words, we hear that other voice. Your inner critic’s voice. Mine is the voice of a teenage girl texting. She smirks and doesn’t so much as look up from her phone as she says, “No, it’s not.”
But I have the question to shut her up. Actually, I have the question to make her put down her phone and work with me. Here it goes:
What if we lived in a reality where this actually happened? How would that reality look?
This instantly changes my focus. Instead of thinking, “There’s no point in trying”, I’m thinking “, Here’s the best I can do to make this work.”
You’d be surprised how often impossible things work out when you give them your best without worrying too much about what’s possible and what isn’t.
The question to help you make tactical decisions.
Sometimes I’ll push myself to post an article when it’s not ready.
Or to enter a writing contest for the chance to stroke my ego.
Or my husband will try to sell me on writing for a “great client” for “good money”, “just a few days worth of work”.
It’s tempting to give into inner and outer pulls in various directions. There’s always good reasoning behind it.
The more articles I post, the better.
Why not write something for a reputable contest — it’s a great way to work on my writing, and there’s a chance I’ll be noticed.
Of course, I’ll take on the project. It’s just a few days, we need the money, and I’m familiar with the topic.
Before I say yes or no to anything, I always ask myself this: If I was already successful, would I be doing this?
If I had 200K followers and a book deal, would I post something I didn’t feel was good enough just for the sake of posting? I wouldn’t. I’d wait a little, rework it, and either post it the next day or post something else.
If I had a deadline by a publisher to finish my novel, I wouldn’t be distracted by contests.
If I made enough money doing what I love, I wouldn’t be working with clients.
Maybe sometimes you’ll have to say yes to things even though they don’t match the answer to this question, but at least you’ll be aware of it. You won’t let yourself get completely off track.
When you’re successful, you raise your standards about what goes. Raise them now.
The report, Lessons from State Performance on NAEP: Why Some High-Poverty Students Score Better than Others, examines the relationship between the academic achievement of students from low-income families and states’ implementation of standards-based reforms, such as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). According to the report, standards-based reform generally refers to educational practices built around a set of academic standards that “specify what students should know and be able to do in each grade level and subject” and that “guide educators’ work in the classroom, helping teachers set goals for students.”
The CAP report finds that “improvements in state standards policies were associated with academic growth for students from low-income families, as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP].” — Alliance For Excellent Education
Final Words.
If you look at all the things I’ve given up in my life, you’d think I’m the biggest loser of all time. I know I do sometimes.
But the fact that my crew killed it in Germany and won sixth place (which is huge for a country like Bulgaria) proves that the world doesn’t rest on my shoulders. Instead of feeling guilty, I focused on finding myself.
Don’t make the same mistakes I made. Ask yourself for advice: you know best what’s best for you.
Sharing the journey to greatness. Aspiring novelist (traditional publishing only), mother of two, wife, weight-loser.
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