Hello Team Jey friends,

Today we are going to talk about a topic that we feel might be of particular interest to artists and writers. We know that artists go through a block now and then. Their creative juices seem to be at their worst, and they would feel like there's nothing left for them to come up with. Most writers call this writer’s block, and artists call this a creative block. Today we are going to talk about how to deal with this block and come up with strategies to beat this block out of the way.

What's the real reason?

It's always better to understand what's going on in the conscious mind to really understand the reasons for the block. For most of us, it can be either a directionless day, a week without motivation, or probably a month without real goals. When one is directionless, there is less motivation for you to work and come up with your best work. So it's better to understand if the motivation is lacking to come up with solutions. There could be other reasons as well: A perfectionist attitude or a fear of failure. Though these reasons could be much more complex, it is necessary to understand what is really happening within you to come up with the next steps.

Change your goals

Most artists have some goal set for them every day. Like writers could say 5 to 10 pages every day, and musicians could say that they come up with a melody or beat every single day. When you are blocked, it is better to come up with a goal that triggers the win for the day but may be without the high quality that you expect to be done. Like write a few pages, or come up with a set of beats without the expectation of high quality that you usually expect from yourself. But it is okay to be with this because crossing the target is much more important than being stuck without any progress. You can always mark these pages or song sections and come back and change it later.

Changing your physical environment

Sometimes instead of going through the same environment, a change of scene could do the trick. Like, write from a new place. Go to a coffee shop, wear your headphones, and come up with a new beat. This works most of the time because your brain synapses connect differently in a new environment, and this would give a new boost to your creativity and ensure that you produce something.

New collabs

Always have a backup buddy with whom you can collaborate during your down times so that somebody else helps you come back to your usual creative routine. A new person in your creative process could also come up with new ideas, and they might just push you to new limits as well. This is the most important reason that you need a collab buddy.

Get into an online community

Always build your support systems so that when you are on the down low, there are people who will help you come back up. That's exactly one of the reasons we have built The Room. If you are reading this, we encourage you to join us and build your own support system.

Conclusion

Remember, the blocks are always temporary. It is part of the process, and every artist goes through the down times. Understand that this frame of mind will change, and it is better to embrace it than resist it. Also, doing the above techniques will help you get out of the block as quickly as possible. Cheers to your creativity!

Most of us hate the word "failure". But there's no better word than failure because "failures help us to understand more about success", as Jey used to say. Many of the successful people in this world have had failures, many times. More than they could count. But that's what makes them successful because every time they fail, they learn why they failed and try to do things better.

Here are some of the key things we have learnt from failure:

Failure is part of the process

As part of Team Jey, we have failed more than we could think. We have always failed when we tried to do something new and it didn't work. We have had spectacular failures. Be it in marketing, sales, or even support. But that's just part of the process. We learn from each failure and we keep track of notes why certain things failed so that others could read and learn from them. Of course, those notes are internal as of now. But we may publish them to the world to see!

Failure Muscle

Since failure is part of life, we try to build a resistance to feeling sad when we fail. That feeling of sadness is often replaced with an intellectual process where we try to ascertain why certain efforts failed. Thus we create a habit out of failure so that we don't feel sad or frightened of failure. Creating this failure muscle is super important. But that said, we don't romanticize failure either.

Successes from failures

We also keep track of our successes that arose from failures. That way, we know if we are on the right track. Even small wins are important for us so that we know that we are getting some positive feedback from the process. Remember it is a long process and we need to carry our failures before we see some successes.

Hopefully this post was as useful to you as it was to us. Leave a comment to share your thoughts!

Everybody wants to have a wonderful life. But most of the people settle for the mediocre things in life, thus creating a mediocre life. It's not easy for everyone to achieve their dreams in their lives, but it is in fact easier to get closer to your dreams step by step. Imagine that your dream is 100 steps of stairs, and you are standing at the bottom. Imagine if your favorite movie is playing on a big screen at the stop of the stairs, and from the bottom, you can see a small-sized picture. And you want to get to the top before the movie ends so that you can watch your favorite movie on a very big screen. This analogy is exactly what Jey Geethan told us the other day about dreams. While we are walking up the stairs, there is a real threat that the movie could end before we ever reach the top. That said, the most important strategy for our lives should be to optimize how soon we can walk the steps, and it’s not about reaching the topmost step, but about getting to a comfortable altitude so that the movie is bigger, and you get to watch the majority of the movie on a big screen. Even if you don't reach the topmost step before the movie ends, it is okay as long as you climb faster to reach a comfortable viewing location. Hope this analogy is helpful to model your mind.

These are some steps that you could use to step your life:

1. Define what a dream life exactly means to you
2. Break it down and create tangible goal posts
3. Trust that you can build up your skills and potential to reach those goals
4. Take action every day
5. Adapt based on feedback

We are sharing what we had learned with our session with Jey Geethan the other day. Share and comment your thoughts!

I have been following Mr. Jey Geethan for a long time on social media and now I was trying to write a book. I was always hesitant and never picked up my laptop to write. But reading some articles and podcasts from Jey helped to overcome the initial block and now I wrote my first TEN PAGES!!!!!

I am so excited and I just wanted to share!!!!1

Everybody loves success, but I hate it. Crazy, huh? But that's true. Jey Geethan has taught us one thing really well—never get complacent when you are successful because times change, and whatever worked for you to be successful can become obsolete in the next few years.

Also, success makes people overconfident. They let the success become more important than what it is. Success means that your strategy worked and you are reaping its benefits. But that doesn't mean the success will stay with you forever.

Success can cause people to lose their guard and thus blind them to any failures that could come their way. Most successful people believe their past success is a shield against future failures, but that's not the case. We know too many successful people who have gone bankrupt.

Failures, now there's a teacher. Life's game isn't about avoiding them but learning from them. They're the ones that show you the ropes, that guide you towards success. But success? It's a different story. It can lull you into a false sense of security, leaving you unprepared for the next challenge. 

So, should we glorify failures and dampen successes? Absolutely not. Let us be accurate and celebrate success—for 15 minutes. And we will keep learning from failures.

A famous and old Japanese proverb goes like this: "Fall seven times, stand up eight."  This powerful phrase, even in ancient times, was meant to empower and inspire, urging us to never give up. In today's world, the stigma around self-help books may make you feel self-conscious. But remember, these books are a testament to our resilience and our ability to rise above challenges. They are a source of empowerment, not embarrassment.

Nowadays, giving up on life's struggles has become easier. If a thing fails, forget it and move on to the next one. Or become complacent and do not do anything. Life is easier when nothing is taken seriously.

But we at Team Jey have a different philosophy. This philosophy derives from the Live4Awesomeness manifesto: "Living an awesome life that leaves a legacy for others to follow." We have goals and ambitions for our teams and would like to accomplish them. But the first question before beginning on our ambitions is simple: Why? 

"Why" defines most of our actions. We like to rationalize (use our analytical brains) why we do certain things. This forms the basis for our goals and thus gives us a purpose. We have accomplished some of our goals because we had a definite reason. 

This also leads to another factor in our actions: Why defines the real reason, but the "how" constantly changes. This means that how we accomplish our whys is flexible and changes as we learn more.

Now that you understand how we operate let's return to the original question: How many times should you try before giving up?

The actual answer is - as long it takes to accomplish the "why" without making the same mistake twice. This means that we keep learning, we keep listening to our own internal feedback mechanism, and we keep adapting our actions. It's not about giving up, it's about evolving. If our actions are not yielding the desired results, we change our approach, always striving to accomplish the why - while not repeating the same mistakes. This is the essence of perseverance and adaptation.

This has helped us learn, collaborate, educate, and accomplish our goals effectively over a decade. We are hopeful that this will help you accomplish your ambitions as well.

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When we are working towards our goals, there will be many naysayers around us who will drive us mad. Even though they are good friends, most of them will point out the flaws in our plans and actions. How do we deal with them, you ask?

Here's the first step:

Segregate the naysayers into two categories. The first category includes those who are just jealous that you are growing, and you should totally ignore these people.

The second category of people cares about you, but they may not know your exact ambitions and, therefore, don't know what advice to give you. They instead give you generic advice and think that they are trying to help you. 

Listen to the second category of people, but take their advice with a pinch of salt. Recognize them for the love they shower and keep them close.

Next, the second step:

Write down the naysayers' `you cannot do this` list of items and keep track of them. This is your journal, where you can go back and tell them that `you did it` when you have finally achieved your dreams.

Finally, the last step

Be grateful for the naysayers. They are one of the forces that push you upwards and onwards. So thank them and silently keep working on your dreams.

Most of us dream of owning mountains of wealth and enjoying our wealth by splurging on luxurious items like cars, yachts, and private jets. These dreams are often seeded in our minds because of the media and how they portray the really wealthy people worldwide. Take, for example, Elon Musk. He has been at the top of the rich list for many years and continues to do so because of his ultra-rich businesses. When the media writes about his antics of manufacturing a flame thrower just because he wishes or when he wanted to buy Twitter, it becomes a massive envy for most people reading the news. For some, it translates into aspiration; for others, it becomes jealousy. 

In today's post, I will touch on the critical topic of creating wealth. I will discuss what is necessary for wealth creation from a personal growth point of view. I will not discuss building a business that helps you get wealthy. Instead, it is about what needs to change from the inside so that you can make that wealth and keep it with you. 

Unlearning

Most of the societal programming we learn from each other (be it friends or family) is intended to keep you where you are forever. It doesn't help you to grow beyond a point. Of course, this societal programming is not intentional. Nobody in their right mind would want you to not succeed. But it is the effect of the law of lowest common denominator. More about this law in another post. Also, one must understand that people grow from where they are put in this world. There will be growth. With the right attitude, there will be some growth. But not a growth that is beyond one's wildest dreams. Most people don't imagine growth for themselves like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. Well, that is also part of the societal programming - not to dream.

So, the first step is to unlearn what you have learned in the past. These were important for reaching where you are currently, but they would not help you go where you want to go.

Personal limits

It is a practical theory that a person can handle only within the limits of his/her capacity. Anything beyond that limit is something that most of the people would need help with. This holds true for wealth as well. A person can reach their wealth thresholds, and even if they try their best, they cannot grow beyond that. It is their limit. That limit is mainly at a lower level for most of the population. They will reach it and stagnate. But for some, that limit keeps going upwards. Those are the people that keep growing no matter what. I will share a story that you have probably heard already. A family man won a million-dollar lotto, got excited, and changed his life. He started spending money and living life to the maximum. Left his wife and family and started enjoying life. But soon, his wealth started draining and diminishing. Ultimately, he was left with nothing and had to return to his wife and family. He then started living a life similar to his earlier life before he won the lotto. That was his limit, and life can put people within their limits. But beware, those limits can be changed with active learning.

Active learning

Learning is not going through a course on Coursera and posting about it on LinkedIn. In reality, learning is very different. Learning is 90% experience and 10% retrospection. One has to go through experiences, emotions, anger, scary feelings, happiness, love, and everything that makes us human, which I call learning. Without the emotions, it's just a theory. Your human mind will behave very differently when thinking about a situation rather than going through it. That's where active learning comes into play. You learn by doing and processing those emotions, logic, and memories. Retrospection becomes essential because one cannot think of alternate responses to a situation without analyzing a similar situation. So, one must keep analyzing his/her mistakes and make the right decisions. Active learning helps you do that.

In this post, I have barely touched the basics of personal growth. Join The Room to keep reading posts that interest you.

I am a writer and have published some of my pieces in multiple publications. I know the pain of sitting down to write and not finding the words. Most writers term it "Writer's Block." I have often heard that writer's block can be solved using some techniques. I have tried all of them and would gladly say none worked. But this post is not about that. It's from my experience of writing, getting blocked, and then getting back into the rhythm. There are a few things that helped me get over writer's block. I am sharing those tips with you, and your mileage may vary.

A different ending

Most of the time, I get blocked when there's a storyline I am trying to follow, and I need to get the right momentum in that direction. At those times, I just abandoned that storyline for the moment and started my imagination process about what would happen in another scenario in the storyline. What if I take the storyline to the extreme? What if the protagonist dies suddenly? What if one of the side characters starts to fall in love with the protagonist? What if an earthquake suddenly occurs, and the characters' lives turn upside-down? 

Usually, I don't follow through with these plots, but they kickstart my imagination process, and suddenly, I have an idea that solves my problem for the day. Trust me, this has worked for me numerous times.

Change the writing tool.

Changing the writing environment is advice given by most writers. But that's a tedious process to do immediately. I need more time to take my laptop, walk to the park, and write there. Also, it's hot where I live, so I don't vent unnecessarily. Instead, I changed the writing tool, which gave me the impression of having completely changed the environment. Suddenly, I am in a different world, and things seem different. I sometimes open Mac's Pages instead of my usual tool, Scrivener, and it has worked wonders.

I also follow other ideas, which I will share in an article someday. Please leave your comments if you found this useful.

Everybody thinks they are brilliant. However, only intelligent people understand that they don't know everything and keep searching for answers. Be that person.