The "Just do it" Mentality
The iconic motto of Nike "Just Do It" is a simple phrase but it has such a robust and insightful lesson behind it. Most of you will be thinking about Michael Jordan and the NBA as it was advertised with this in mind.
However, the motto means certainly so much more. The motto is a key component on how to experience and grow in life. Just as the movie "Yesman" portrays this quote so well where Jim Carrey's character goes from a narrow life to experiencing the possibilities of just doing it.
This is the same for anything. A lot of people in life get trapped in analysis paralysis which is essentially wondering whether they'd be good or not. Let me let you in with a little secret. If you ever want to be good at anything, the cost is embarassment.
The above example is one of my first streams in 2018. There are no many mistakes to do with lighting, no webcam frame, I type in my dontations and quotes of the day etc. So many things wrong but I learnt over time with the importance of lighting, audio, video and so much more.
However, by taking the initial embarassment. I've been able to improve my stream so much more.
A more recent example is my writing, did you know my first article was the Recap Episode 1? Did you know that I barely passed English in Year 12 with a 52% mark? I didn't even study Journalism or anything like that. I just learnt by doing and listening to feedback from people who have experience in the areas.
The first recap article I wrote had so many suggestions and corrections that I felt incredibly discouraged. I reached roughly triple digits in suggestions/corrections.
There were a lot of key lessons such as adding references for the teams named, providing sources for where things were said, making sure there is no repetition in pharases.
For example, if you ever heard me talk. I say the phrases, "ok", "basically", "just if you're wondering" so much. I also write the term, "however" so much as well when introducing an opposing counterpoint. You'll hear this quite often.
How did I find this Mantra?
Mav from Dfrag was looking a person to write a weekly recap of the ANZ CS2 Scene. I just put my hand up and said let's do it. I saw a few people fumbling and thinking that they were not suited for it. It is ok, I did that when I was younger too.
You can only learn to be a better writer or whatever by just giving it a shot. And it is easier more than ever as you can go to any old site whether it is Ghost, Medium or any other blog site and just yap about anything. You're not going to magically attain an audience overnight.
I definitely didn't think I was suited for it but given my casting career was at a standstill. I felt like that I needed to evolve by doing something else hence I went into writing and conducting interviews. My first thoughts was that I'd suck at both.
Interviewing was tough because I had no idea how to set one up. I had done some via Discord but they weren't as great and I wanted to up the production quality. Discord is also really awful to put as a pop-up window into as well.
So I remembered that Mattse had used VDO Ninja so he could put my Webcam in my settings so I thought I'd use Discord in combination with VDO Ninja to make it work. I was basically worried about the technical side of the interview.
I was like what happens if the things don't sync up and what not. There was so many questions in my head as well as hoping that the technical side held up. And it just worked, I was so utterly shocked because I made it seem a lot harder than it actually was.
It was also someone that is well respected within the Australian Scene such Tucks that I don't regularly talk to. However, I am happy that he was my first guest because I was more confident with everyone else after that.
A lot of the players that I've interviewed can vouch that I expressed self-doubt and didn't think I did a good job after the interview.
How do I start living by the Just Do It mentality?
The "Just Do It" mentality is like the quote, "you miss 100% of shots you don't take".
You can only grow and live from trying new things or shooting your shot as how the zoomers call it.
Whether it is from growing your own herb garden (which I've tried!) to setting up your own decking. Asking a person out on a date or asking someone if they want to go to the game on the weekend.
It always starts from giving it a go by either doing it, reading about how to do it or even planning how to obtain the means to do it.