Doodle

 

Nothing worth doing ever comes easy.
行うに値することは簡単に見つからない。

 

One of my friends referred my daily doodle as “an illustration poem.” I never thought of myself as a poet — but the origin of the word ‘poet’ is the Greek word meaning ‘create.’ I like it.

No matter what my work is called, this daily creative pursuit is worth doing every day. It gives me a new perspective, makes me a bit more self-disciplined, and allows me to explore the things I still don’t know well.

Facing our own ignorance makes us nervous, but that’s one of the effective way to find our room for learning more and further growth.

The key is to do it yourself — if other people pointed out your ignorance, your ego would create millions of reasons to justify yourself and prevent you from taking effective action. Do whatever you can do to avoid being on an ego trip.

 

 

Your chance is infinite.
チャンスは無限にある。

 

No one wants to feel uncomfortable. But getting uncomfortable often leads us to the next level.

My first experiment of this year is to practice coloring my doodle and sketch using Adobe Illustrator. And the second one is — I’m doing these two experiments simultaneously — to participate design contests at cloud sourcing services as a graphic designer.

Am I a graphic designer? I never got that job before. I’m running a tiny business consulting firm now. People who see my CV would never hire me as a graphic designer.

Working as a graphic designer often makes me feel weird. But I give it a try anyway. At this exact moment, it’s just a short-term experiment – although I’m working on it very seriously – that will give me new perspective, knowledge and experience.

I still don’t know yet what I can become during the rest of my life. And the same applies to you. There is no reason to stay within our comfort zone.

 

 

Try until it resonates.
共感を生むまで試してみよう。

 

I see many people giving up on their idea without executing it. They often say, “Well, I think people wouldn’t like it.” I also see some people who make a huge bet on their idea without validating it. They would say, “Well, I think people will definitely like it.”

What both of them misunderstand is that, there are certainties even before they start something new — they think they have something right or wrong.

We are unable to know what people really like until we deliver our work to them. Or share our work with them. If someone says we always can, probably that person is trying to sell dubious marketing tactics to you. Even when we follow an effective marketing strategy, we need to observe how people react to what we deliver, and have to make adjustments to the strategy so as to make it work.

If you start or create something new, don’t even try to find the “right” answer from the beginning. Unlike school exams, there is no right answer when we start or create something new. It is we who will create the answer through careful observation and countless adjustments.

Keep trying until your idea starts changing people — and this world.

 

 

Your action tells us everything.
あなたの行動が全てを物語る。

 

I don’t know the recipe for big success, but I know the recipe for disaster: not taking action.

We often see people who complain about others or their situation. In fact, I did the same until several years ago. These people are also good at creating plausible reasons why they are so miserable. And at the bottom of their heart, they think they are right — they believe others or their situation need to change. The fact is, they are just trying to justify for their inaction.

When we truly believe we need to change, we neither complain nor talk; we just take action. Then take another action based upon the result of the previous action. We keep taking action until we think we become what we want to be. Or until we believe we change our situation as we wanted.

We’ll never be ready for the next step if we don’t take action. Other people or our situation won’t make us ready either. Only our action will make us ready and take us to the next opportunity.

Complaining is a sign of being passive. Stop complaining what happens to you — just make things happen by taking action.

 

 

Outshine your former self.
以前の自分より強く輝こう。

 

When your brain tells you that you’ve reached your limits, you actually have NOT — you still have a room for doing a bit more.

You can use that tiny room for anything. You can just complain how hard it is, think about quitting, or actually quit and do another thing. Or you can have your brain shut up and keep focusing on what you are doing.

Improvement often comes from doing a bit more. From going an extra mile. From challenging your former self. The outcome may not always be successful, but you will almost always get something meaningful from the experience. At least, you become a bit stronger than yesterday.