That’s why I like oDesk and their new manifesto. Really, to be honest, there’s nothing new in it. It’s the same policies which they’ve always expressed throughout the terms, conditions, and guidelines. However, I’m happy to see that they’re elevating those guidelines to the status of rights. I can be a little paranoid about whether or not I’m going to be paid for a job, whether or not my rating is going to get knocked down for a silly reason, and many other things, but I’m very happy to see that oDesk is taking the stance of a mediator between the two parties to ensure that both are protected in a transaction.

It may not be new news, but it’s good news.

When Bill said discipline, the first thing that came to mind is what another friend said to me, “Put ink to wood. Every day.” I think that’s an important step for any professional. You should write, code, or draw every single day whether you’re being paid to do it or not. Why? Because it’s especially important to use the unpaid, free time you have to improve your skills and build your portfolio. Also, if you don’t practice your skills every day, they will begin to dull. It’s surprisingly fast, too. You could stop writing for a week, come back, and you will feel like you’re lost. It sucks pretty hard.

Ink to wood. Every day. When you get a job on oDesk, you’re being paid to write for someone else. That’s not the time you should be improving your skills–you should be using them to your best ability to produce the product your client wants as quickly as you can. However, when you’re off the clock, you’re free to play and try new things. Explore different solutions to common errors you encounter. Make yourself worth more money to future clients who want to hire you.

That’s why Bill says discipline is so important. You have to have discipline to sit down every day and work at it. You can’t stop and wonder if you’re doing a good job. You can’t second-guess yourself. You just have to put ink to wood like nobody’s business, and charge at it full force.

If you don’t believe us, try it. You’ll see for yourself.

Well, here it goes. Like chum to the hungry sharks you are, I offer up that one thing which will turn you from an aspiring freelancer into a competent professional.

Are you ready?

Determination.

lol wut?

It’s becoming a throw-away word anymore, its meaning lost in a sea of motivational posters depicting various animals in precarious situations. However, true determination is the key to being successful in any pursuit.

I’ve said it many ways, but it still doesn’t seem to sink in. I’m asked to babysit people while they apply for jobs or let them look over my shoulder while I work. I don’t have time for that.

Here’s what I do

I follow the advice in this blog, I sharpen my skills every day by reading and practicing, and I apply to jobs. The only difference between me and someone who doesn’t get work is that I do it ten times more. I firebomb the market with my resume, inquiries, and everything else I think may help me find work. I do it for hours on end.

A lot of people think they should succeed because they really WANT to succeed. However, it doesn’t work that way. Just because you really want something doesn’t mean you’re going to get it. You can actively work towards your goal and still not reach it. Many beginning fiction writers give up because they wrote a story they think is awesome yet never is published. They don’t edit that story, they don’t read omnivorously to improve their skills, and they don’t write new stories. To be a successful fiction writer, you have to work. It’s not a hobby.

The way to guarantee success is to work harder than everyone else on every application on oDesk and make sacrifices. Instead of going out with your friends, work on your oDesk profile and portfolio samples. Instead of watching another movie, spend two hours working on your career. Instead of (insert mindless activity here), work on finding work.

You don’t have to drive yourself insane by becoming a workaholic. However, you should definitely “feel the burn” when you’re flexing your freelancer muscle. Otherwise, it’s just a casual hobby, and buyers will treat you like a hobbyist.

That’s the one thing you need to find success. It’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the factor that changes everything.

P.S. Feel free (and please do) throw out any topics you’re interested in us covering by posting a comment here or on any post. We’ll be glad to give our opinion, and we’d love to hear yours on whatever topic.

Lately, a lot of my friends have seen what I’ve been doing, and they want “in on the action.” Of course, I’m perfectly willing to oblige by pointing them in the right direction. I say, “Well, actually, I work on a blog which explains the ropes of oDesk, and there’s a great book about freelancing on oDesk there. Check that out, sign up for an account, and just go for it.”

When I first started out, everything was so new to me, and I was excited about every aspect of freelance writing. I have friends who are writers, so I was excited to show them what is possible. However, I found that it’s a huge mistake to hold another’s hand while they’re getting started. It goes from simply helping them navigate around the website (which is fine) to bleeding off your own work to them to doing work that they’ve found even though they’re the one who gets paid.

If there ever was one, this is the proverbial “slippery slope.” Chances are, the person you’re introducing oDesk to is your friend. You want this person to succeed. However, the irony is that by using your skills and reputation to help this person succeed, you’re setting them up for ultimate failure. You’re also hurting yourself in the process. After I’ve pointed someone to resources, I tell them that’s as far as I’ll go.

When you’re helping them to succeed, you’re taking time away from your own career building. When you’ve finally given all you have and need some time to recover, that person will be unable to cope with the rough life of freelancing. Their success depends on you holding their hand the entire way. You let go, they flop.

That’s the cold, hard truth of freelancing. For people who are serious about it, it’s not about sitting on your porch with a cup of coffee and pecking at the keyboard with leisure. It’s a business, and if you’re not breaking a sweat by thinking hard, you’re not trying hard enough.

In a way, freelancers can be seen in the same light as movie stars. They see the money, the people you know, the freedom, the fact that your schedule is flexible. They see the product of your work. However, very few have seen the hours upon hours of work behind the scenes: applying for jobs, being rejected from jobs, cutting deals with clients, working until your eyes feel like they’re bleeding just to finish a project on time. There’s a lot we do which never sees the light of day, and for a lot of that work, we don’t get paid for it. It’s all about putting ourselves into a position where we can have those things people envy.

This type of career is a very solitary pursuit. Some people are simply not cut out for it. If you’re hanging on to someone else, or if someone else is hanging on to you, (politely) cut them loose. It will be better for both of you now and in the long run. There’s no other way you’ll know whether or not this career choice is right for you.

If you’re still trying to get your first job, don’t worry. It will come if you work for it. Take more tests, get better scores, and add pieces to your portfolio. It makes a huge difference.

It’s not quite like hitting a brick wall

It was very gradual. I didn’t know I was burned out until it was far too late to do anything about it. In addition, knowing that I was made me even worse. If it had been sudden, it would have been much easier to cope with, but that wasn’t the case.

It all started with having a ton of work. In a professional/career sense, I was doing great. However, I kept piling up more and more work. Then, life interfered with my working schedule. That’s okay because there’s no way to avoid that. The result, though, was that I wasn’t constantly working. I enjoyed having some time off, but I took that time off too far. I never had any time on.

It wasn’t a sudden dropoff, though. I kept working on the projects I had open, finished them up. The bad part was that I stopped applying for new jobs. As a result, I ran out of work. Should that have been a wakeup call? Yes. Did I wake up? No.

Kept going on my merry way. Tried to force the thought of work completely out of my head. I had been under the gun for a long time, and I suppose I was subconsciously trying to keep myself from getting back into that situation.

Pace yourself

I’m recovering now. Taking baby steps. Trying to dispel my irrational fear for all things writing-related. Just seeing an ink pen makes me want to curl up in a ball and wet myself.

How do you keep yourself from crashing like I did? At the risk of sounding like every self-help book to ever hit a shelf, I’ll say this: schedule yourself some “you time.” As corny as it sounds, it actually helps. Treat it like you would treat any project you do on oDesk. If you tell a buyer you’re going to work two hours on something today, it wouldn’t be very smart to go back on that.

Pick a couple hours and stick to them. Turn off the computer. Turn off the phone. Don’t check your E-Mail every 15 minutes. Instead, read a book or watch a movie. Do something you enjoy which has nothing to do with work. The world isn’t suddenly going to crash to the ground if you don’t check your messages. You’ll crash to the ground if you get stuck in work-eat-sleep mode.

Give it a shot. It probably won’t be like you flipped a magic switch which makes life better, but it’s one of many ways to keep you from going crazy.

I mean you should always try to make yourself look more appealing to buyers. Don’t make it seem like you are better than you really are, though. The key is to actually make yourself better and allow that improvement to show through when you’re interacting with people and working with them.

People in the States are especially bad about this. People of the younger generations are even worse about it. There’s this nasty misconception that people should like you for who you are. That you’re unique, special, and anyone who doesn’t appreciate you is just jealous.

Your Mother Was Lying to You

If you’re a blithering idiot with absolutely no ability in your chosen field, people won’t like you. You’re not special, you’re hardly unique, and the reason people don’t appreciate you is because you’re rubbing them the wrong way in ways you can’t even imagine.

The good news is that you can change that. It won’t be easy, but you should do it.

Being a buyer is a lot like holding the gun in a hostage situation (and we’ve all been there, haven’t we?). That last thing you want is for your hostages to start telling you their name and about their kids. It makes it much more difficult to off them when you’re trying to make the point that you have no intentions of playing around with the law enforcement officials.

In terms of freelancing, if you make yourself more human to the buyer, it will increase your chances of being noticed. That’s the whole reason you’re supposed to write custom cover letters for each job. It’s much easier to deny an application which appears to be submitted by a robot. If you submit a letter to a job which appears to be a cut-and-paste letter sent to everyone else, the buyer will move on to someone else. Working with a robot is a pain because they can’t make intelligent decisions, so you never want the buyer to view you in that manner. And believe me, they will view you that way if they see 30 other applicants with cut-and-paste cover letters.

Once you’ve made yourself appear to be an intelligent person on the other end of the text, you’ll be noticed. However, being noticed doesn’t mean that you’ll get the job. You need to always work on self-improvement. One of the major, cross-discipline skills you need to master is communication. If you’re a native English speaker, you should be able to write with correct grammar even if it’s simplistic. If English is a secondary language for you, the same applies if you’re working in an English-speaking market. It will impress any buyer if you can communicate with them effectively as it’s such a rare skill.

Take time to speak intelligently, professionally, and with great care. Don’t say the first thing that comes to mind when you’re speaking to them. Filter everything you say before you say it. These seem like obvious things to do, but it’s still very rare to actually see these principles in practice.

The same applies for your profile and everything else the buyer will see about you. Your portfolio, profiles on other freelancing sites, and anything else they can find with a quick web-search can affect your standing with a buyer. Run it through the filter and edit it until it is, as far as you know, perfect.

Now, you’re looking as good as you can. Time to improve yourself. By improving your skills in communication as well as your field, you are also giving yourself a chance to improve your profile. Research new technology, read trade journals, and practice your craft tirelessly to give yourself an edge.

Eventually, you will find that you are unique, you are special, and you will stand far above your competition as a leader. If you don’t put in more work than everyone else is willing to, you won’t get there, and your application will get sent to the slush-pile along with all of the others who can’t cut it.

Truth be told, it’s a little from column A, a little from B. Seriousness aside, I want to discuss one of the most neglected topics in the Freelancing World. Your butt (I said what, what?). If you’ve been at this a while, it’s probably getting bigger. For some, a lot bigger. As I said, I’m very busy, but there is always time to improve your health no matter how busy you are. Read the rest to see how you can improve your fitness quickly and make massive gains for both your health and your career.

Why You Should

Drawing your income primarily through the internet guarantees one thing: you’ll spend quite a bit of time in front of a computer. Probably more than you would in a regular job. Along with that sedentary time comes a whole host of problems. One of which is rapid weight gain. With rapid weight gain, there’s diabetes, depression, heart disease, and more subsequent issues that arise.

Programmers are notoriously stereotyped as asthmatic, overweight nerds teetering on the verge of either dying from a massive coronary failure or going on a shooting spree after never finding that last critical bug. Okay, maybe that’s going a little too far, but it speaks of a problem that exists for all outsourced and freelance workers. Chances are, you don’t get enough exercise.

Aside from death preventing you from pulling a check, poor health can impact your career in other ways. Poor health will make you depressed and lethargic, so you won’t be as motivated to work as you would if you were healthier. Also, you can take all that money you made as a motivated, healthy person and use it to go out and participate in activities you couldn’t before. Go rock climbing, canoeing, or run in a marathon.

A marathon? That may sound pretty far-fetched depending upon your condition, but it’s entirely possible. People have gone from very poor health to running marathons before. It’s a matter of conditioning your body every day with just a bit of work.

When You Should

There’s a million and three-point-five excuses why you don’t go out and get a little exercise right now. One of the most common excuses is that you can always do it tomorrow. You’re busy right now, and you’ll get to it once this project is done. That’s not a very good excuse. Some of the people I’ve spoken to say that their version of taking a break is essentially going somewhere else to sit for 15 to 30 minutes. You could take that time and convert it to exercise time.

Another excuse is that you’re old/too far out of shape/a devoted Mac user/etc. You can still do it. It’s no excuse. If you are able to sit up in a chair under your own power and use a computer, you are very likely able to do some sort of exercise–possibly sitting up in a chair, laying down, and sitting up again.

How You Can

Push-ups. You heard me. Drop and give me twenty.

Some people can’t do a single push-up. That’s okay, you can still do push-ups (what?). Visit HundredPushups.com and read the information on that site. They have alternative exercises for people of all strength levels. If you follow the program, you should be able to do 100 consecutive pushups at the end of six weeks. Maybe a few more if you’re really out of shape, but the point is that you now have a plan to get into great shape quickly with comparatively little effort, no cost, and you can do it in your own home.

That takes care of the upper body. What about the lower body? Start walking. When you’ve done a bit of walking, start jogging. After that, start running. It’s difficult to get started, but it’s easy to set aside X minutes a day to run.

Here’s a tip: don’t worry about the distance. Just set a timer for X amount of time and run/walk for that amount of time at a pace you can handle. Like with the push-up program, you will notice quick gains in strength, and your speed and endurance will increase as well!

Even better, combine the two! On three days in the week, do the push-up program like it suggests. On those other days, walk or run. You will be amazed at what these simple activities will do for you. Try it out and ask questions in the comments here if you have any, and I’ll do my best to encourage you and provide you with any other information I can.

Other Considerations

Aside from shedding fat and adding muscle, you should also consider what you put into your body. If you’re anything like me, you drink coffee by the pot, not the cup. I’ll go through three pots in a few hours some times. Other times, I’ll go through an equal amount of soda. That’s even worse when you mix in the sugar.

Watch when you’re eating. It’s very tempting to buy a bunch of instant food or snack food that’s high in calories. It’s also very tempting to keep it within arms reach while you’re working and mindlessly graze all day long. Separate your work and eating, and it will help you immensely.

Watch what you’re eating. It’s like mommy always told you: fruits, vegetables, bread, meat, etc etc food pyramid can-I-have-some-candy-now? Follow the iconic food pyramid, and you won’t go wrong. Also, by cooking your own meals, you will save a lot of money and enjoy your meals since they don’t taste like microwaved cardboard.

Fit body, fit mind, better life, better career. It’s a chain reaction.

The Gist of It

It starts out with what appears to be a legitimate job. You apply to it and get an interview. They say that you are obviously talented, you have a great record, and they’re impressed with your work. However, they (or someone they have to convince) is still on the fence and needs more before you can be hired. Then, they ask for you to produce a tailor-fit sample to their needs. For example, if it’s a job writing press releases, they ask you to write a press release they need written right now–for free. It’s under the impression that if you do this press release well, you’ll get a long-term job. The reality of it is that you just did the work for them, and they had no intention of paying you in the first place.

Not all people requesting an on-demand sample are trying to scam you, though. There’s just a few who keep cropping up and posting bunk jobs every time they need some work done. The worst part about it is that they’re not just scamming you. Chances are, they are scamming every other provider that contacted them as well. They can take all of the work from the providers and either choose the best or mix-and-match them with a little cut-paste job.

If the scammer is really smart, they will assign different parts of the work to the qualified providers. That way, it arouses less suspicion. You may ask, “Why would someone go through all of that trouble instead of just paying for the work to be done?” You go through the same amount of trouble interviewing people, so really, this is a winning strategy for the scammer. Same amount of work, less money paid. You may ask, “Wouldn’t that ruin their reputation?” There’s no way for their reputation to be ruined through the current oDesk system as: 1) No one was hired in the process, so no ratings are left 2) oDesk providers are still unable to see the buyer’s profile to track whether or not they are a scammer or a buyer you’ve worked with previously.

How to Prevent Being Scammed

If the buyer’s profile was accessible (even in a very limited form), providers could keep track of who they have worked with before, buyers who have a solid reputation, and buyers who are known scammers. Someone can still create another account to try to cheat people, but at least it offers some level of protection with no loss to the buyer. Just list the username of the buyer on the job listing, and it would be a huge benefit to both the provider and the buyer.

Even better, allow buyers to say a little bit about themselves in their profile like a provider profile allows you to! When I was having work done through oDesk, I thought it would be great if I could have a buyer profile which would tell people more about my company. Also, by displaying my buyer name on my jobs, it would attract the talented providers. They know I’m honest, I give solid directions, etc.

Since we can’t change that part of it, let’s look at some ways to avoid and disarm scammers. One of the things I’ve noticed with these scammers is that when you take the time to send them a non-canned cover letter, they will just spit back a canned response at you demanding the same thing as in the job listing. If you give them what they want, they will spit back another canned message that demands more work before they can hire you. I’ve fallen for it a few times because I thought things would be different this time. They weren’t.

To avoid them, avoid situations like the one I described. If they start demanding things right off the bat, you should proceed warily if at all. In the case that you decide to move forward, never produce something which the buyer can actually use. In the case of the press releases, offer to produce a sample which depicts their company and some meglocorportation merging. If they say it’s no-go unless you write a press release over a specific topic, they’re trying to rip you off.

The best course of action is to just not deal with these people at all because they will waste your time.

1) A way to make money while you’re trying to hit it big. That’s the way a lot of people choose to see it whether it’s commercial writing, commercial art, or doing tedious copypasta database programming for Meglocorp Inc. Usually, people get into freelance fields because they have entertained the idea of being the next Hemingway, the next Rembrandt, or publishing the next World of Warcraft. It’s an admirable dream, and it’s not as far away from coming true as you feel deep down. It’s also not as close as you keep telling yourself it is every day.

A bit of encouragement is in order though. You can do what you want and get paid without Goin’ Out West. My friend just sold off his third screenplay and made six figures off of it. He’s just a delta-accented punk who put his nose to the grindstone and kept working at it for years. He doesn’t even see himself as anything special. The key, though, is that he put his head down and hands up–kept fighting. It worked for him in just a few short years.

2) The Valley of Broken Dreams (TM) (C) (XYZZY). This is where a startling majority of freelancers end up. I sometimes like to think of the commercial art fields as the place where dreams go to die. You always wanted to be a novelist or a painter, but you get caught up in the money and “just surviving”. Let me tell you: the years can go by very fast when you’ll start on that novel tomorrow.

I settled for survival until I had a wake-up call which told me that I don’t want to be limited. I’ve got something to say, and I’m going to make sure it gets crammed down the throat of as many English-speakers as possible whether they like it or not.

So, here’s some extracurricular activities which will both boost your freelance career as well as your dream career:

Start Small and Build Up

It’s possible to become a card-punching drone as a freelancer as well. It’s where you give up your dream and your freedom in exchange for a sum of money. It’s a desk job you don’t have to drive to. However, you’re still chained to that desk. The following is what I do to break away from those chains. I’m taking risks, moving forward, grabbing at the prize.

When I’m not writing for this blog, numerous other blogs, and other writing “jobs” I’ve accumulated, I’m writing short stories and sending them off for publication. That’s the key for any writer. I think Dave and Bill do something like that to move their career forward. Then again, I also believe that they spend a good portion of their time wearing onions on their belt (because it was the fashion of the time) and telling me to get a haircut, get a job, and get off their respective lawns. Anyway, $50 an hour for 40 hours a week is decent money, but it’s chump change compared to the revenue generated by a good novel or screenplay. How do you get from here to there? Start small.

You’ll find that writing a publishable short story is a far cry from starting small, but at least it’s smaller than a publishable novel. The fact is that you can pump out a 2000 word short story, edit it, and send it off to publishers much faster than a novel. Also, getting published in even a small journal is nothing to sneeze at. It’s called a publishing credit. You get one, and you can apply it to the next story you send out. The good thing is that you never lose the credit. You can publish your second story on the back of the first you published–the third on the first and second. It keeps building up into a successful career just like getting jobs on oDesk builds up your commercial career. After you have 15, you’ve probably won an award and have some considerable weight. You could easily publish a book of short stories. That’s one book credit. See where it’s going?

These journals also accept artwork and photography, so if you’re not a writer, there’s still a place for you to publish your work. If you’re a programmer, well… check out 2600 Magazine. I think that’d be an interesting choice for your field.

By submitting your work to extra journals, you are also boosting your commercial career. You can use these credits as currency when applying to jobs on oDesk. All you have to say is “Hey, you need me because I’ve been published in (insert prestigious magazines here).” Savvy?

Open Source Projects

This is the part where Dave and I have a conversation like this video. Yes, I’m like the guy with glasses and the backpack.

There’s a lot of opportunities in Open Source projects. You’ll work for free (or cheap), but you will gain massive exposure if you play it right. You will be able to point to a piece of software, graphics in software, or a manual and say that you either had a hand in its creation or created it yourself while thousands of people use it every day. That’s impressive on a resume.

One great place to check for Open Source projects you can work on is SourceForge. It’s a website dedicated to Open Source projects, and you can contact the developers of those projects to offer your services. Keep in mind that most of the people on this website are developing software in their free time to be released at no cost to the user, so you won’t find too many who are willing to pay for art, writing, or programming. That’s just the way it is. However, you can use this opportunity to build your resume with some on-topic examples.

Fin

That’s the idea of it. Instead of saying you’ll do this tomorrow, check it out now and get involved. If you’re a writer, sit down right now and write a short story. Find an Open Source project to get involved in. Develop yourself.

Or say you’ll do it tomorrow/the day after/next week/when you’re 80. That actually makes it easier for more motivated people to succeed.

My colleagues and I have started a writing movement called Musclemalism, and the philosophies of Bruce Lee resonate with the core concepts of Musclemalism. It’s starting to spread throughout the fiction world, and others are picking up the movement as well. We encourage people to do so because we believe that Musclemalism is a way of writing, a way of working, a way of fighting, and a way of life.

What is Musclemalism? For writing, it’s neither minimalism or maximalism. It is Jeet Kune Do of the written word. It takes the shortest path to the desired outcome. It cuts the fat away from your writing and leaves muscle. It defies the rigid standards of the old guard. One thing it is not, though, is a style.

Bruce Lee did the same things for martial arts. He saw where all of the forms and styles of martial arts were successful and where they failed, so he developed ideas and guidelines to fight better. Jeet Kune Do isn’t supposed to be a martial art in the traditional sense. It’s supposed to be a collection of ideas that help you adjust to your specific situation and react in a logical manner which utilizes your strengths.

The following is a taste of Musclemalism and how it can change your life:

Cutting Away the Fat

“Jeet Kune Do is simply the direct expression of one’s feelings with the minimum of movements and energy.” — Bruce Lee

Absolute minimalism fails in that it can not express every given moment. Some texts need more words, some programs need more functions, and some pictures need more of a flair. While the minimalist approach appears to be the most direct route, it often sacrifices substance to stay within the style. Think of it as a weak punch against an opponent: you used the minimum amount of energy to get your fist to their face, but you had no effect when you got there.

From a standpoint of developing applications, a minimalist program will have no “frills.” It will do the one job which is required. That is good for a certain set of problems, but if you offer no expandability in your software, then it is less valuable to your customer.

“Some martial arts are very popular, real crowd pleasers, because they look good, have smooth techniques. But beware. They are like wine that has been watered.” — Bruce Lee

That is a warning against maximalism. When you engage in maximalism, you are trying too hard. You will miss your target for saying everything except for what you need to say, doing everything except for what you should be doing. An artist who has drawn a logo should not add a thousand unnecessary symbols surrounding the company’s symbol. It just distracts from the focus of the piece and makes it unattractive. The artist would have added all of those symbols just to find out that it is no longer feasible to print. A programmer who adds too many unneeded features to their application will find the interface is cluttered and difficult to use. A writer will bury their meaning in flamboyance.

The Musclemalist Way

“Be formless, shapeless like water. Now you put that water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can either flow, or it can crash! Be like water, my friend.” — Bruce Lee

The idea is to analyze each situation and work for that solution with no style in mind. Do not follow any convention just because it is a convention. Do not be afraid to break the “rules” and do something no one has seen before. When you do something a certain way every time, you fill fail when the situation does not call for that type of action.

When writing, clear your mind of all of the previous styles you’ve done. Forget your “voice” and just start writing in the best way for that situation. Once you have developed a distinct voice in which people can see something you have done and say, “Oh! I know who did that!” you are in a rut. You have become predictable, and you will be pigeon-holed as “the person who does that thing like this.” A better thing for them to say is, “Oh! That is done very well! I recognize the name attached to it, and he/she always does good work.”

Applying Musclemalism to Your Life

“Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on ones back.” — Bruce Lee

That is a lesson of Musclemalism as well. It is a vehicle of thought to give way to new ideas. It’s not a style–it’s a way to develop yourself.

It’s all about cutting away the fat, taking that which works from others, and throwing away the things which don’t work. If you’ve driven the same way to the grocery store for the past five years, you may find a better way to go. A new road may have opened up, or traffic might have increased on that street.

You can apply the concepts of Musclemalism to everything. Find the most logical, most effective way to do the thing you want to do. Every time you sit down to do freelance work, see it as a fresh opportunity. Writing for the same blog, doing database programming, or creating logos for a specific business sector can become tedious after a while. Shake things up and do things differently, and you will find that you will be more motivated to work every day. It’s not, “Oh no! Another boring blog post is due!” It becomes, “Ah ha! Another opportunity to stretch myself a different way!”

Look at everything with fresh, new eyes. It’s difficult, but it will change your life.