The fallacies

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I'm somewhat frustrated because I thought I'm taking the right steps, yet continuously find myself back at the square one: thinking, searching... etc. And I'm beginning to think that the reason is adoption of certain fallacies, principles which at first seem perfectly valid, but somehow just don't work out in practice, in my own case on my own time. Here are some of the examples of these fallacies.

1. Taking out-of-context, out-of-system advice

The fact probably is that there is a particular exact system by which each of us can become successful, whatever success to us is. But it is a system meaning that there is a precise sequence of actions and a precise mentality. And it's a specific version that fits only the individual in question, only you or only me, nobody else.

But what we often do is take a tip here and an advice there and just throw it into the pot of our mind and stir. We try to apply them all but we didn't exactly grasp the precise process. It's like memorizing a bunch of randomly ordered quotes. Someone says this, another one says that and we're all excited by how much sense it makes, but often fail in application because we didn't find the right place in the puzzle of our success system to put it in.

And apparently some effort ought to be spent in actually creating our own system of success. This also means that the best place to take advice from are books and articles which actually lay down an entire system, revealing a full context rather than just dispensing random tips.

2. Am I really ready to set an overarching goal?

"What do you really want?" must be the toughest question one can ever ask self. Books like Think and Grow Rich insist that we should set a single overarching goal, the ultimate purpose for this time of our life that we absolutely desire and have faith can achieve. Yeah, easier said than done! How do you know what exactly do you desire most?

Yet, when hearing this advice we naturally rush to come up with some big goal, as fast as possible because we're eager to test this new philosophy and actually achieve it. And then probably find self in a bit of a chaos.. not feeling quite right, the desire kinda fades away and our experiences have us craving for something a bit different.

Bottom line is that there is such a thing as setting a goal prematurely, before actually testing and knowing yourself.

3. Focus isn't necessarily a good thing to start with

This really ties in to the above. We're advised to focus on one thing and one thing only, but how do you do that if you're not quite sure yet what exactly do you love, what exactly is your overarching desire, what exactly are you best with and therefore what should your single goal be.

PhxMJ said he didn't make real headway before he begun focusing on one thing. True, you probably wont be making headway, but my theory is that the phase of actually suspending this "focus principle" and just trying stuff out, just trashing around experimenting might actually be absolutely NECESSARY before you can know WHAT to focus on.

4. There is no slowlane for the fastlane you.

I'm not 100% about this, but I'm thinking fastlane isn't so much of a contrast between one types of work/business/efforts and other types as much as it is about mentality. Once you're in a fastlane mentality slowlane no longer exists for you. What I'm saying is that saying things like "blogging isn't fastlane" or that any other line of work isn't fastlane is probably likely to be a fallacy. It depends on you. If your passion is in blogging and you have something to say that people want to hear then it might as well be. There's no spoon. Now bend it. There's no slowlane. Make it fastlane! That sort of thing.

Thing is, if I actually start believing "this is slowlane" chances are it really is gonna be. That's due to that saying.. "whether you think you can or you think you can't you're right".

5. Money might not be the best goal to set, or at least not just money.

I set a goal to make $5K a month by September with an online business of some sort, but I'm beginning to wonder if that was still a little too unspecific. The "online business" is just a caveat that could cover any online business I can think of. That's just the way I liked it because I wasn't quite sure WHAT online business I really want to do. And even today I'm still in the "experimentation" mindset where I just want to try a bunch of things out until I hit the jack pot. However, I kept forcing this idea upon myself that I should focus on one at a time, that I should when I take a project forget everything else.

And when I fail to do so I end up rationalizing and overthinking. The fact appears to be I simply haven't been ready to set up that kind of goal. I still don't quite know! So the $5K goal might as well be taken as a token. I think I can do it, anyhow, but I also realize that the true big goal is gonna be something far more specific and far better defined than solely the dollar figure.

Also, what made me rethink the dollar goals is tis excellent article: The problem with chasing money.


So I guess it comes down to knowing who "yourself" is and what system of success for yourself most applies before trying to setting yourself goals, and trying to focus. And in doing so you become a fastlane person for whom slowlane disappears out of view.

It's interesting how some people never actually go through deliberate process of devising strategies of success like we do here. They somehow just naturally pull it off. It just so happens that the experiences they had ingrained all the success principles into them. It's a path of least resistence. They didn't try to succeed, they just did it. So any time anyone feels like (s)he's forcing something (like I kinda do).. there ought to be something wrong somewhere.

Feel free to comment or add other fallacies you found...

 

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