AndreiC

@Jordan wang I can definitely see that as being worth the time and effort. If nothing else, it's still a good way to experience and understand how the comfort zone actually works. I think that will bring important wisdom in decisions that matter where the comfort zone is always involved. There's no reason to go overboard with it, but it's a good exercise in my opinion. That's kind of why I imagine people walk on charcoals.

Here's an exercise for thinking outside the box. Acting is skill and it can be used in a number of ways, if you just go the typical road and hope to act in big cinema or theater from the get go maybe it's not the best solution. Think about other interests you may have, and try to apply a little acting to them. For example: I'm an actor There's all sorts of emerging streaming things, like that IRL twitch section someone mentioned some time ago I also have an interest in... whatever Use the combination of the 3 to your advantage, you may get some practice and some money out of that. Maybe you can work on your humor to the point you can do some stand-up. Maybe you're a gamer you can even use that to your advantage with a skill in acting. Think it through with a little freedom, and start laying down some steps to get started. Also don't think you can't move to acting after studying something else. Rowan Atkinson - electrical engineer Dolph Lundgren - chemical engineer Also many others.

Detachment from outcome This for me is by far the hardest thing to get over. I've been working for over an year now to grow and turn my life around. I visualize every day and ofcourse things don't always go as i plan or hope. I made a decision when I started to risk everything for something I consider worth it and the idea that it may not work out is crippling. This is particularly powerful because my first project is just the start of a very large plan which I may never get another chance to go through with if this fails. I think through it, meditate and contemplate and yet it's not enough. It's really quite a struggle. I can get passed it for some moments, but it creeps back up again. I can even feel it physically like a claw raking my stomach. In my case at least this is by far the most difficult holding me back. Thing that worries me the most is, the closer I get to the day the line is drawn the more powerful it is and it affects everything. I can barely stay still for a moment, when I meditate I can clearly see the quality go down rather than up and so on. I know this is a huge part of being a hero/warrior but I really don't see how to achieve it.

Thanks for noticing, that's why I go through with it. I hope it can provide some value for others.

Have some other posts covering some of the history, anyway I took the course, prepared to quit my job, took many other courses to prepare and here's what happened afterwards. The Goal: I got this idea that felt like it was whispered from my intuition around the lines of: I'm a machine designer this entire industry revolves around making things for big industry. With the way the world seems to be changing this doesn't seem like it will go much further with it. Even if you just look at the policies states are building to encourage micro-factories and micro-businesses there's a pattern emerging that huge industry is slowly becoming limited to garbage products or materials for higher value adding small businesses. The small business seems to suffer from having inadequate tools, because of this the default position is if you want to make something small, you have to make an app or be a marketer and so on. Many people push through this even in present conditions, but there's no need for it to be this hard. So why not start building tools for these guys to really get productive. Maybe I can take it even further than that. Design tools you can build yourself, offer you all the documentation and instructions necessary to get them up and running, give you even a clear business plan of how it could work. In three words "Open Source Business". The first gatekeeper: With this in mind I began cooking up plans for the first project. I had one huge challenge to overcome first, and that was gathering a team. There's no way you can get this done without a multidisciplinary approach. If you're familiar with the concept of resistance, it's hard enough on your own, breaking through it for other people also is quite daunting. I needed help though, so I tried to gather support from everyone I knew, friends family etc. All I really got at first though was a bunch of stares and groundless skepticism. Through many tries in many different ways eventually I noticed I could break through if I took them out of the ordinary. At first I was really afraid to tell the story of what happened to me in the steel plant some time ago, but eventually I got the courage to tell people about it, and I could actually see on their faces how they begun to be receptive to my idea. They could see it was coming from the soul and that made them willing to listen. After a couple of months I already had my team, had the support of my family and even the blessing of my old boss. The first step: Now we were ready to get work, however after all these crazy events the project we were thinking about didn't really seem right anymore. Eventually the kind muse gave me another idea, what if the first thing everyone has to do to get working on their projects is actually assemble their team. It's highly unlikely I'm such a unique flower so let's see how we can get to making this achievable for everyone. So we decided to go way out of our comfort zone, hopefully in the zone of genius, and design an experience that could help people get their ideas through to others, I don't mean powerpoint presentations, but a way they can really be genuine for a moment. This is a life purpose all 3 of us share and it will feed into the grander one some day. It took over a year of work and we're still not done, but it has been the most beautiful experience any of us have ever had, even though it's full of amazing ups and seriously painful downs. I'm writing this in the hopes that maybe seeing how it went down for someone actually trying this thing, will help others in their quest.

Hey, I have no idea what advice to offer you, but maybe I can help you with something. Send me your resume, I'll ask a friend to review it and give you some feedback. Should help at least in finding a job.

Not everyone experiences passion in the same way. Try some Cal Newport books my guess is he will have some things for you. I for one found my passion while working a job I took without having any expectations. It wasn't anything as specific as swimming though. It was more about solving the most difficult situations I could find, be it product design, dealing with clients or supervising constructions. In the end it was more about adventure than anything else.

For me, it was hitting "rock bottom". Some things went wrong, I decided to take a long hard look at the self-destructive lifestyle I addopted and decided to do something. I would say adopting a mission wholeheartedly and sticking to it can cause epic change. The practices themselves were the things Leo talks about. I think they are greatly reinforced by a vision & mission + some beginners luck. Without this component i think things happen somewhat slower.

From my personal experience the call is not something that's always there. All your meditation mindfulness etc. Is sort of training your ear for it. At some point it shows up. For me it was like a sort of recurring thought that seemed out of the usual monkey mind repertoire. Maybe an intent would be a better word for it. Don't know if that's how it works for everyone though, can't even be sure that's what it was for me. When it did show up it really reinforced all my good habbits tremendousily.

It has to be I think. It's a hard balance to strike, but i see it as a necessity. You need to get some of the basic needs taken care of, and like it or not money is necessary for this. Money and business go hand in hand. There's a discussion in autobiography of a Yogi where Yogananda's mentor tells him only people who have had money could walk away from it. People who never had it to beginwith were abandoned by money not the other way around. There's this sort of shortcut people hope for which is somewhat related to the path of renounciation, in my opinion is not possible to renounce something without first obtaining it. So yes, even if you assume you can't do both at the same time, they are still compatible in the sense that there's a sequence between the 2 that should be followed.

Poor "marketing" is a likely culprit. Does he network enough with people relevant to his job? Is he likeable in social settings for people who don't already know him. Is he good at negotiating? This is a pretty big one. I suffer from it myself. In my experience it's this type of stuff that really holds good people back.

@Prabhaker I second that, ever since I started to meditate I have less and less apetite for meat and dairy. I have no real explanation for it, and never made a decision to give up on it. My tastes simply changed slowly but surely.

You know, the bitter pill train of thought has merit. It also sounds like in your case you have now a choice between bitter pills. If you think the storm that you're about to unleash is less troublesome than continuing your major, it's pretty clear what you need to do. As @Michael569 was saying there's stuff to figure out, if you really feel you know the right decision to make, figure out as much of the details as you can, make peace with yourself for not picking the other one and get to work. Remember though the devil is in the details, and it's only you that can figure out all these things.

Think it over yourself. I mean your life one life blabla, that's not an excuse to make decisions which will actually damage you for the wrong reasons. Examine your reason for wanting to stop, I mean,really, examine it. You may find it's not that good of a reason. Are you actually sure such a move will contribute to wherever you aim to end up, or is it actually just a way to slack off a bit. Look within, give it some serious thought, and if you are sure that a,b,c,d, is what has to be, accept the consequences and move forward. If your decision is well thought out, you'll likely get support from your parents also. Resistance from others, at least in my experience, flourishes on your ambiguity in decisions, if everything you plan out can be made crystal clear, others will listen.

Words of the wise.

Hey guys, Since we're all here, I'm assuming most people here have either went through, are going through, or are preparing for, some changes in your lives. I thought, it would be nice to share the way you went about pushing your life towards your LP. For example: 1. What challenges lay on the way ? 2. Did you think through things carefully or were you rash ? 3. Ever had second thoughts ? 4. Were the results so far satisfying ?

@Nahm@Nahm @Bodhi123 @Bodhi123 Well we all have fears keeping us from this or that. I just thought sharing some accounts of how it actually goes down in real life may be interesting. In my experience it almost physically felt like a forcefield. Maybe for someone else it takes another form. Would be nice to have some examples beforehand i think.

Just think about it for a while clearly, if it's authentic it will just feel right. If you come to the conclusion that it's just a sort of reaction to things you don't like...

@Paradigm Depends what you understand by fun I suppose. For example, I have a lot of fun drinking beer with my friends, I wouldn't consider it important enough to link to my LP though.

Guess I'll go first. Eventually I realized that being free to pick the work I choose to do is a great part of my LP. To create a solid base for this I had to get out of my job at the time, and move towards a small venture of my own. It's a dream I kind of always had. Now i finally had the strength to do it. 1. Biggest challenge was actually quitting even when the reasons are multiple. It's really hard to walk away from a way of life that for others seems highly desirable even if for you it's not. I mean it sounds like a no brainer, but it really is hard, especially when emotional bonds exist between coworkers. And that's not all, for me at least it got harder the closer I was to it, I mean this literary, it was sort of like 2 magnets repelling. I walked up to the HR person, she was on the phone, "It's a sign" I ran off. I walked up to her the second time, I asked her how she's doing and walked away again. Only on the third attempt did I manage to tell her my plans. 2. Regarding the choice to go through with it, I really struggled for a few months, it was hellish. I had to defeat a lot of fears to get to the point where I could go through with it. 3. I have had a ton of second thoughts, especially when money is a problem. On a sort of higher level I'm sure I went about it correctly though and overall I'm satisfied with my choice. 4. Results so far have been pretty good, I got a team of friends working on the most insane project I could think of. It's been a blast, we learned a lot of things from this, which I can definitely see being a huge bonus in my career in the future regardless of how my gamble plays off. I managed to get a sort of handle on myself, higher self-control, leadership, creativity, when I look back at how I was before embarking on the journey it's pretty laughable.

I struggle with this also sometimes. In my personal opinion fun shouldn't really factor in, I mean work that you are passionate about and fun are not really the same thing. Maybe you're confusing a passion you have for fun and a good cause for a LP. Maybe you need to find a way to reconcile these 2 into a sort of mix which will lead to something more suitable to you. Usually when you have a choice between a and b and none seems to quite fit, there's something you have to look for in the middle. Anyway only you have the real answer, all anyone else can do is throw some questions and ideas at you.

@ShadowWalker I've asked her to post her stuff here already, hopefully she'll do it soon.

Friend of mine is trying to get into painting for a living, she made this for me.

Find something to make a speech about and practice it in the mirror, or film yourself, it does wonders at making you more comfortable with this action.

I'd say look at it this way, maybe it was given to you at birth. It's still something you manage to understand only after you go through life and a lot of emotional labor. Take into consideration also that an LP can be something more abstract than fields of study. E.g. physics + maths + IT => enigineering + medicine + chemistry => bioengineering , and even that is just a medium for an LP not really the LP itself.