The full story behind 1$tips

I think we don’t really appreciate our experience. In “Cultivating an Unshakable Character” Jim Rohn said, that if you have no other source to build your confidence on – education, achievement – you can build it on the fact that you exist. It means you have valuable experience, the one which allowed your survival – he argued.

The incentive for 1$tips

One day I was going to work by train. I heard a lady talking quite loudly on a cell-phone.
She was complaining to relative, that her teenage son plays computer games too much and slacks in his school work.

I had a similar problem with my son. I managed, more or less, to handle it. And I had a solution for her from my experience. My answer wasn’t complicated or 100% effect guaranteed, but fast to implement and effective.
But I didn’t share it. I’m too shy to talk to strangers. She was continuing her call and a train was stopping at my station.
It was pure chance I met her and heard about her problem. I don’t usually commute by that train. Probably I won’t see her again.

A wish

That day I decided I will put on a website as many of such simple advice as I could think of. Things I know from my experienced that works. Worked at least for me. Easier said than done. Everything I do habitually is buried deep in my subconscious. The easy part was to write them down and arrange categories, give titles etc. But figuring out what to write – oh, that was a struggle! The hardest part was to come up with every “new” tip.

Excuses

I considered this an impossible task. I had a lot of excuses, the main few were: “I’m not an expert, so I had nothing to share”, “What do I know? It will be just several tips, that’s all I can come up with”, “It will take a lot of time to arrange. It’s hard”.
And I procrastinated.

The resolution

Then the Lent has come and I felt I need to do this as a Lenten resolution. Once I decided seriously and said goodbye to my excuses the process was quite easy. Not without obstacles and struggles, mind you, but much, MUCH easier than my imagination had suggested.
For over a month I woke up 10 minutes earlier than usual and meditated upon my experiences. I didn’t stop till I found at least two. Then I wrote down the appropriate keywords to commit them to memory. Later during the day I phrased those experiences into website posts. That’s it. Three simple disciplines. Meditation, keywords, posts and in less than 2 months I had 98 posts.

The process

Intellectually I knew it was possible to do it. But every time I started my meditation the mantra: “You found so many of them, there is NO WAY to find more” was in the back of my mind. And every time I replied: “OK, just two more, only two”.
Later on, creating a webpage was just a question of technical issues (and money). Now, it includes 115 posts, regarding different areas of my “expertise” – health, parenting, relationship, frugality, time management…
And I add a new post every week. In 10 years there will be over 600 posts. My real-life experiences.

Lessons for you

So, don’t listen to your excuses.
Made a decision.
Look for solutions.
Break the task down.
Transform it into the series of daily disciplines.
Do it until the “impossible” will happen.
And don’t undermine your experience 😉