Author: Phil Garland

I have been trying hard the past couple of weeks to challenge myself to tackle new projects and try new things. Every day, I set a few goals I will try to tackle, each goal incrementally a little harder.

In life, you have basic requirements that you must fulfill. Work (unless you’re wealthy enough not to earn money), eat and sleep. After those things have been completed (about 10-18 hours of your day) you have plenty of time to try new things. This can be anything you want it to be. The goal is to make sure the new thing is a challenge and you are unlocking a new skill. Although no skill is developed in a day, continuing to practice this idea creates a snowball effect of development. Eventually, when you look back, you’ll see the challenges you completed piled on top of each other and shake your head at the old you.

Challenging yourself every day doesn’t have to be hard. Make it something simple at first and watch the challenges get easier even when they’re incrementally getting harder.

Ray LaMontagne.

I think I’ve blogged about this before. But there’s a great excerpt in The Talent Code by Daniel Coyne about how Ray LaMontagne became the musician he is today. Here it is:

Another example is Ray LaMontagne, a shoe-factory worker from Lewiston, Maine, who at age twenty-two had an epiphany that he should become a singer-songwriter. LaMontagne had little musical experience and less money, so he took a simple approach to learning: he bought dozens of used albums by Stephen Stills, Otis Redding, Al Green, Etta James, and Ray Charles, and holed up in his apartment. For two years. Every day he spent hours training himself by singing along to the records. LaMontagne’s friends assumed he had left town; his neighbors assumed he was either insane or had locked himself inside a musical time capsule—which, in a sense, he had. “I would sing and sing, and hurt and hurt, because I knew I wasn’t doing it right,” LaMontagne said. “It took a long time, but I finally learned to sing from the gut.” Eight years after he started, LaMontagne’s first album sold nearly half a million copies. The main reason was his soulful voice, which Rolling Stone said sounded like church, and which other listeners mistook for that of Otis Redding and Al Green. LaMontagne’s voice was a gift, it was agreed. But the real gift, perhaps, was the practice strategy he used to build that voice.

Not only am I huge fan of the singers he emulates (yes, I spend weekends listening to Bill Withers, Al Green and Otis Redding) but I also love the fact he is self trained. The amount of tenacity it took him to practice for two years, getting his vocals perfect, and performing in front of the few who rolled into a must bar is truly outstanding.

I look at LaMontagne as a role model of who I can become. At age twenty two he had the presence to change his path and become a world famous artist. If I can put two solid years of practice, and another eight years of hard work, I know the results will follow.

Ray LaMontagne is my favorite artist because he gives me hope I can become what he has become. Maybe it’s the Maine connection (I was born and raised in Maine) or maybe it’s the gritty voice that draws me to him but at the end of the day, listening to LaMontagne always leaves me believing I can become the person I want to become.

There’s a concept I’ve been kicking around in my head for a few months that involves building the person you want to become through a mechanism similar to bricklaying. Simon Sinek, and others before him, talk about two different construction workers. One person is in it to be paid and quickly gets bored of laying brick after brick after brick. The other comes alive because he can see the beautiful building that the bricks will become and he is always moving forward.

Each day, I aim to move forward, and by doing so, my actions start building my own cathedral. Instead of lamenting about life circumstances, or giving into resistance, I practice to become better every day. I tally my wins. I count my blessings. And I make sure the bricks I lay today are moving in a forward direction.

I don’t have to look back at the bricks I’ve already laid, or the bricks I’m going to lay in the future, because I know that each day that I lay bricks with a sense of dignity and a sense urgency, is a day I’m building up. I am becoming the person I want to become, brick by brick, even if I don’t always see the results.

My mood has changed from construction worker one to construction worker two. I now see the cathedral, or house, I’m turning these bricks into. I know I have a long way to go but I also know everyday I inch a bit closer. That’s what keeps me going and it’s what keeps me from looking too far into the future. I cannot accomplish anything in all of my tomorrows, I can only accomplish things during my today.

Moving forward is building up.

There is something so satisfying about taking the junk swirling through my head and turning it into words, sentences, paragraphs and posts. Each time I do it, I get a sense of achievement. Not because it’s good writing or an amazing topic, but because I take my thoughts and turn them into something tangible.

I’ve started personal journaling too (thanks Taylor Pearson). Every morning I write three things I’m grateful for, a thing I want to accomplish and one thing I believe. At night, I write three wins (accomplishments), one lesson I learned and how I can apply it, and one thing that’ll make my week easier. Combining blogging with this habit makes me accomplish even more.

Not only do I have to hold myself accountable to blogging daily, I also have to make sure I made three wins. Doing those four things each day will add up. As Bill Gates says “We overestimate how much we can accomplish in 10 years but underestimate how much we can accomplish in one year.”

I’m not sure the direction I’m headed, or the path I’m going to take, but I know if I accomplished four things every day, and learn from my lessons, I will be better each and every day. 

As for blogging daily, I’m about to go on a mountain camping trip for the next four days and completely disconnecting. I’ll be back next week.