This is one in a series of interviews of self help experts and bloggers in the Tips from Masters series.
Glen Allsopp is a personal development blogger from UK who writes at PluginID. Glen’s goal is to awaken, inspire and motivate others, and I think he’s quite successfully accomplishes it with his writing. Enjoy Glen’s advice on
1. How did you find your passion? What do you think is the best way for other people to find theirs?
I found my passion simply by living life. I tried so many things that I just ended up with a few that I really loved. I don’t think you ‘find’ your passion and nor do I think it finds you. Instead, I believe that you should live your life to the full and follow the things that most interest you right now. I don’t believe that we have a life purpose or set passion, but that we should explore whatever interests most.
From there, doors will open and things will happen. That’s certainly how things worked out for me.
2. How do you go from goal setting to implementation? How do you make sure that you take constant action toward your goals?
There are two easy ways to make sure you take action towards your goals. The first is that you set a public deadline of when the goal will be completed. This pushes you to work on something so that you don’t let yourself or others down. Secondly, and the one I prefer, is just to only work on things you totally love. I have eliminated pretty much all tasks that I don’t love from my schedule and I have no problems getting motivated for the goals that I have.
It’s possible this section option means that you let people down or it takes time to have that much freedom, but I believe it is worth it.
3. How do you stay focused? How do you keep distractions at bay?I struggle with this one a lot, and I’ve tried many different methods. The easiest way to stay focused, which I covered in the last answer, is to work on things you’re just naturally, totally passionate about. If that is not an option (naturally) then I like to use a timetable system. Yeah, those things we used in school. Each day I set myself a timetable for what I want to do and how long I give myself to do each task.
Some things to note on this are that:
- If I go over the time limit for a task, i will stop working on it. No exceptions.
- I do not fill my whole day with the timetable. Instead I schedule about 4 hours worth of work which keeps me flexible for life’s interruptions
- The first thing I do each day is write my timetable. That way I get into a habit of just naturally getting to work and taking action
Timetables won’t be for everyone, but if you are struggling to stay focused on things and take action, I highly recommend trying them out.
If you want to learn more from Jonathan, visit his blog, jonathanfields.com, or read his book, “Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love”
This is one in a series of interviews of self help experts and bloggers in the Tips from Masters series.
Glen Allsopp is a personal development blogger from UK who writes at PluginID. Glen’s goal is to awaken, inspire and motivate others, and I think he’s quite successfully accomplishes it with his writing. Enjoy Glen’s advice on goal setting
1. How did you find your passion? What do you think is the best way for other people to find theirs?
I found my passion simply by living life. I tried so many things that I just ended up with a few that I really loved. I don’t think you ‘find’ your passion and nor do I think it finds you. Instead, I believe that you should live your life to the full and follow the things that most interest you right now. I don’t believe that we have a life purpose or set passion, but that we should explore whatever interests us most.
From there, doors will open and things will happen. That’s certainly how things worked out for me.
2. How do you go from goal setting to implementation? How do you make sure that you take constant action toward your goals?
There are two easy ways to make sure you take action towards your goals. The first is that you set a public deadline of when the goal will be completed. This pushes you to work on something so that you don’t let yourself or others down. Secondly, and the one I prefer, is just to only work on things you totally love. I have eliminated pretty much all tasks that I don’t love from my schedule and I have no problems getting motivated for the goals that I have.
It’s possible this second option means that you let people down or it takes time to have that much freedom, but I believe it is worth it.
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