How 2Years in Beijing taught me the lesson that every creator needs to learn.

What was I thinking coming here?!

It’s August.

The sun is beating down on my bedroom window. The air is humid and heavy with the promise of rain.

I’m flat out on the bed, feeling alone, isolated and close to tears. A nobody in a city of millions.

What was I thinking coming here?

That was almost 15 years ago. I moved to Beijing, the capital city of China full of hopes and dreams.

I had a grand vision but suffered from a condition that every beginner encounters. I didn’t have clarity.

The reason you haven’t achieved your dreams yet is that you don’t have clarity on how to start.

The way to get there is to stop thinking and start doing. However, as in my case, just moving to a different country and hoping things will fall into place is not enough.

When you don’t know what to do or how to start it’s easy to get overwhelmed. I remember spending a lot of time in that micro apartment in Beijing too exhausted to do anything.

I had all this pent up energy but didn’t know how to channel it. It was extremely frustrating and so I did what most people do. I tried to distract myself. I binged TV show after TV show in between trying to study Chinese.

After graduating University my grand vision was to learn Chinese and start an import-export business. To call it a grand vision is an over exaggeration. It was a vague idea, I had no clue as to how to start, where to go, who to meet or what to do. As you might have guessed it didn’t work out.

The human mind is chaotic. Without focused energy entropy is inevitable.

You achieve clarity through continual focus on a strong purpose or vision. Most people never get to this stage because it requires alone time.

Alone time can be painful. When there are no external distractions only the negative voice of self doubt and self loathing remains.

It’s uncomfortable at best and debilitating at worst. I remember being close to tears many times in that micro Beijing apartment. But don’t get me wrong. I had some amazing times as well. In fact it was one of the best times of my life.

Through episodes of deep loneliness, helplessness and overwhelm I began to realise how little I knew myself.

This was the beginning of my path to clarity.

Learning to be alone with your thoughts is a habit that can be practiced and improved upon.

• Meditate to bring order to your mind.

• Practice Yoga to bring order to your mind

• Apply Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to bring order to your mind.

Many tools already exist to bring order to the mind - My favourite tool is writing.

If you feel lost, lazy or apathetic it’s not because you are a bad person. It’s because you are human and because you lack clarity.

Indecision and self doubt sap your energy levels dry.

When you have clarity on building your dream there is no hesitation.

So how do you gain clarity?

Step 1. Self awareness.

At the risk of sounding trite self awareness is the key to clarity. Everyone has competing goals, many of which they are not even conscious of.

You might have the goal of achieving your dream but you also have the goal of not looking stupid or making your parents proud or being right. These “unconscious goals” are actually driving your behaviour. They are infinitely more powerful than the one you consciously set yourself.

Moving to a foreign country and learning a new language really puts the goal of “not appearing stupid” to the test.

Imagine what you would do if you didn’t care about looking stupid. Or if your goal was not be right but to learn the right way.

Becoming aware of these unconscious algorithms running in your mind is critically important.

Ask yourself simple questions.

Does the idea of leading a team fill you with excitement or dread?

Does the idea of writing alone at your desk for 4 hours a day seem boring or exhilarating?

Why are you worried what other people will think? What’s the underlying insecurity?

If you haven’t done a lot of journaling, self work or - just lived - you won’t know the answers to these questions yet.

Self awareness is not an intellectual exercise

You need to understand this at an emotional level. You have to put yourself into situations and become aware of how you react to them.

When I got my first job in Germany (yes I’ve been to a few countries) my manager saw something in me which I did not see myself. She saw me as a leader. She invested in me. She promoted me again and again. This was amazing. I felt like I was making huge progress. I felt like I had finally found that thing. I was on the path to success.

However with time I began to feel more and more uneasy in this leadership role. I had not taken the time to think about what was really required to become a leader.

Whatever someone else sees in you it will never translate unless you can see it too. You must get in touch with what you really want. I never felt comfortable as a leader. I thought it was what I wanted because other people wanted it for me.

Step 2. The devil is in the detail.

The next time you sit on the sofa watching TV ask yourself how you feel. Are you fully engaged gripping the seat excited to see what happens next? Or are you not even paying attention? Is your mind elsewhere? Exhausted from work and still obsessing over the way your colleague treated you?

If you have started creating. Stop thinking about how many views or impressions you want to get and start thinking about what you want the reader or audience to feel. Do you want them to click a link, post a comment, do something in the real world?

Become acutely aware of what you want intrinsically. Not what you think you want because of your social conditioning but what actually feels right and good on an intuitive level.

This is the first step to gaining clarity and executing on your vision which we will build in a minute. As a side note, no one has absolute self awareness. This is a daily practice. There is always room for improvement.

Step 3. Forget Discipline. Joy is the essential ingredient for success. Do not confuse joy with pleasure.

• Joy comes from investing attention - Pleasure comes from spending attention.

• Investments are long-term - Purchases are short term.

• Enjoyment is process focused - Pleasure is outcome focused.

“When you do something shameful for pleasure the pleasure passes quickly but the shame endures

When you do something hard for good the effort passes quickly but the good endures.”  

Musoneous Rufus

If you have a full time job then you have to find a way to integrate it into building your dream.

Look at this as a creative problem to solve not a hurdle to stop you starting. It’s not about not having the time. It’s about finding creative ways to execute on your dream.

I have a 9-5 which gives me a sense of community and belonging. But it’s still not quite the dream. That’s why I write, that’s why I do Youtube and why I have another newsletter tailored to my other interests.

I am not a self help guru who will get you making millions of dollars per year. My dream is to build an authentic, sustainable vehicle for learning and growth through writing.

I use my time at work for contemplation and inspiration. There’s always a few quiet minutes where I can think, plan and strategise. Take inspiration from your life. Don’t use it as an excuse not to start.

You must first live your life before you can write about it. You must first solve your own problems before you can solve anyone else’s.

The key for me is that my creative online projects take inspiration from my real life. That might sound obvious but it’s not. Integrating life, work and a creative side hustle sustainably is your first creative problem to solve. The goal here is not to quit your 9-5 as fast as possible.

Your creative side hustle is your vehicle for learning and growth. By having this project it encourages you to learn and go deep on topics which already interest you.

The fastest way to learn is to teach.

If you don’t know how to find joy think back to childhood

Contrary to common advice joy does not come through pain. Pain is not a requirement for progress. This seems so obvious to me and yet we often think that we must torture ourselves in to order to achieve our dreams.

At school there were subjects that you naturally gravitated towards. Some required discipline and grit, others seemed to flow effortlessly. Did you make more progress in the subjects you hated or the ones you enjoyed?

I loved reading and writing. I tore through book after book. I hated maths because I didn’t understand it. I even took extra classes outside of school. All that extra energy and effort got me from a C to a B math student. I was an A student in English without much effort.

If you enjoy something force and coercion are not necessary.

As this letter is getting rather long I have broken it into two parts. In this letter we have explored the importance of clarity and self awareness. In the next edition we will go deep into how to build an interest into a passion through a very repeatable process.

Take care and stay tuned.

All the best Benjamin