I finally took the leap of faith I had always been wanted to.

Since 2012, I have been on a journey to dispel a lifelong fear of mine: reading.

I completed my elementary schooling (grades K through 6th where I’m from) at a nationally recognized blue ribbon school. The teachers were outstanding, the learning environment was always engaging, and I most always felt like the school as a community was genuinely trying to what was best for me and my other classmates.

Fast forward 11 years later, and now I myself am an educator teaching grades 6th through 12th and mentoring students from all backgrounds of life.

Through teaching, I have come to learn that in the world of education, plans and initiatives often sound much better on paper than they actually perform in reality.

Growing up at my elementary school, I was put through a reading program which sounded much better on paper than it actually performed in reality, and to be honest, I am disappointed to know that this program is still in use today.

The idea was simple: for every book a student reads, he or she is awarded points. The more points they earn, the more incentives and rewards they are given. How is it determined if a student read a book? They are given a “test” on the book, and are questioned only on what happened in the book, nothing else.

Simple enough, right?

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In July of 2013, I stepped through the doors of a classroom for the first time, not as a student, but as a teacher. Little did I know, I was about to embark on the journey of a lifetime.

They say that most teachers don’t make it past the first year. Most first year teachers usually choose to go back for graduate school or to pursue a different profession.

And don’t get me wrong, I was guilty of considering such plans at many points throughout the year, not because I pretentiously felt that I was too ambitious, but because it was honestly a rigorous challenge.

But in my opinion, overcoming difficulty is just a part of the learning process. When we truly struggle, we grow. Perhaps not too many people continue teaching after the first year because it causes you to dig deep inside yourself to employ powers you never knew you had.

This remains true for many industries, and not only those involved with education. Many people shy away at the first sign of challenge, and often question their abilities, while forgetting why they got into that position in the first place.

I frequently reflected on John Cage’s 10 Rules for Students and Teachers throughout my first year. Rule number four, in particular, has probably saved my life in more ways than I can acknowledge.

In all honesty, I think that rule number four should be at the heart of any new endeavor.

John Cage’s Rule #4: Consider everything an experiment.

It was this mindset that got me through my first year of teaching and kept me motivated to not look at my first year as a period of survival, but rather as an experiment that would yield me growth and lifelong lessons.

Here is what I learned.

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The Universal Problem

Have you ever stopped in the middle of your hectic day and had the realization that you may just have all of the things you need to be successful? If you really think about it, it’s true. Everything else that we claim to lack is just an excuse.

For years, students and friends have often bombarded me for quick fixes for many of the issues and obstacles in their lives. Some of these issues involve time management, productivity, goal execution, and even relationship conflicts. And while these are all universal issues that we’ll all eventually face in our lives, some people tend to have the same problems again and again. And the true surprise always hits me when I see how people go about solving their problems.

For some reason, we feel that there is always a need to fix everything in our lives. But not everything is broken. You’ve most likely heard someone at one point say, “There are just not enough hours in the day!” We’ve all been guilty of searching endlessly for a magic phone application that can streamline all of our daily tasks as a means of improving the organization of our schedules down to the minute. Some people have even gone so far as to create rules and systems for themselves.

But we always end up back at square one.

We have all been guilty of trying to make ourselves more productive. It’s natural. In such a fast pace world like the one we live in, who wouldn’t want to refine personal productivity? But the real solution to all of this is actually quite counterintuitive.

Instead of trying to put new fixes and processes in place, perhaps it might be time to start taking things away. Maybe the refined inner self does already exist in our lives, it’s just under a bunch of clutter.

“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.” -Bruce Lee

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“Do the thing, and you will have the power.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Universal Problem

Everyone is capable of great ideas. We’ve all had them, and we’ve all experienced what it’s like to be excited about something that came up on our own.

It makes us feel unique, creative, and innovative. But why don’t we ever actually pursue these ideas?

The Truth

In his book Psycho-Cybernetics, Maxwell Maltz makes a very intriguing statement that has enabled many of my own students to dramatically improve their performance. The initial problem that my students faced was actually a universal problem in many of my own personal relationships.

It always seemed to me that people were great at talking about what they wanted to do, but seldom did they actually sit down and put in the work to do it. You may have experienced this in your own relationships, but truth be told, we are all guilty of this.

Many cynical people will make the argument that this happens because people are lazy or just don’t have enough drive. I profoundly disagree. In my experience in working with entrepreneurs and students, this is absolutely not the case and in fact, the real problem is that we have all been chasing the wrong solutions for a very long time.

I have discovered that people have all the drive in the world to do the things that they want. That is, if drive is the unwavering force that compels you to want to do something. But nonetheless, the fact that a person can dream up some sort of huge possibility for themselves is often enough to motivate them. So what’s stopping us?

The real truth is that people are paralyzed because of a fear of failure.

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