Reaching a Pivot
Those couple of weeks of Data Analytics were, illuminating, thought provoking, frustrating, and fun. It's been a while since I felt this sense of wonder, and excitement for something, but with that said, my thoughts, revolved around something else, my dreams were of something more... different?
At the beginning, I thought, "maybe I'm just saying that to just quit, after all Athoug you do quit what you start". I couldn't get that thought out of my head, it kept creeping in over and over, and I'm working on changing, on doing what I say I'd do. So I kept at it. Doing the lessons, quizzes, practicing, and writing about it, but those thoughts of different never left my head, they were lurking in the background.
I was reading the book, The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin, and it made me aware of something. I'm not thinking these thoughts just because I want to quit. No, actually I've been distracting myself, and using this course as an excuse. An excuse to avoid what I really want to do. Don't get me wrong I like Data Analytics, and would definitely come back to it in the future, but if I had to rate it, in level of importance to me, it wouldn't be my top priority.
So I decided to do a practice or rather an exercise to get clear.
Getting clear
To get clear, the first thing I did was list down how I want my life to be in the future, which consisted of answering the question, what did future Athoug achieve? It wasn't limited to career/work but rather life such as health, relationships, experiences and what not. So begin by listing your future life.
Here are a couple of what I mentioned
After listing all the things that I want, pick 3 or 5 you'd like to focus on. Next, I asked myself, if I could do anything in life, regardless of money, what would it be? You might be wondering, why ask that? Didn't we just list out what we want? Yes, we did list them out, but at times, money clouds our wants and that's sadly reality. If you were honest with yourself and answered both questions from the heart you will fine that there's point of intersect between the two answers, and that is what you should focus on, and do.
I realized that I really want to do is create content and make stuff, it's time to see how what I am doing right now aligns with what I want to do, so this is simple, just list out what you're doing at the moment (this will show you how you're not doing what you must be doing) and then list out what you should start doing to get where you want to be.
And by doing so, you have a list of tasks or mini goals to achieve so stop wasting my time, and just do.
Now what?
So the whole point of this is to say, that I'm stoping data related (well not fully since everything is data) topics and well and pursue content creation.
To be honest, it's a thing I've wanted to do since I was 17. I did try a couple of times, but I always stoped after a month or so. Why did I stop? Because I was afraid. I felt like an imposter, and just stopped making.
What's different now though? To be honest, I'm still afraid, filled with crippling self doubt and imposter syndrome along with the belief I have nothing to offer, but I still want to do it, despite all those feelings, that's what's different, I won't stop this time.
So what now? Well, expect more posts about projects that I'm working on, thoughts, streams, videos, and just anything 🙌🏼
Takeaway
I asked someone, the question I mentioned in getting clear "if I could do anything in life, regardless of money, what would it be?" She stopped for a moment, thought for a bit, then with a huge grin said, I'd open a bakery! It was a surprise because what she does is more in the medicine field, when I asked her if she baked, she said no, but would love too. I asked her, how come she doesn't start, she said she wants things to be perfect to start.
What I want you to take away from this, if anything at all is don't left perfectionism stop you from what you want to do, or if you're like me, don't left fear and doubt stop you. Get clear on what you want and chase it! Life is short, don't spend it with regrets.
If you need more pivot stories, here's a bunch that hopefully might inspire you.
