Comfort Challenges

I'm writing from Macau, where the weather is getting worse by the minute. It's now heavy rain outside. No photo today.

Comfort Challenges is a termed used (coined?) by Tim Ferriss for challenges that get you outside your comfort zone. One of the ones he suggests is to lie on the floor in a public space and if someone ask if anything is wrong, just answer you need to lie down.

The purpose of them is to breakout of your self imposed limits. Most of us have dreams but they tend to be outside our comfort zone and therefore we need to do things that we find uncomfortable to get them.

Some of mine 'comfort zone' issues include calling myself a photographer (in a serious sense), a travel writer, contacting editors and selling myself (I mean my skills). When I talk to an editor about an article I tend to be a bit defensive and unconfident. I want to change this and I've decided to do a number of 'comfort challenges' to celebrate my 40th birthday.

I'm please to say that I did my biggest comfort challenge yesterday. I was very nervous as you'll see in the video, when I put it up. I did it in Macau to give you a clue but I won't reveal just yet what I did.

Completed Comfort Challenges

Celebrating with everyone in a Sake Bar my 40th. I said that 'I'm 40'. I bought everyone a beer to celebrate with me.
Watching Avatar from 1:30 - 4:30 in the morning and working the next day.
What I did yesterday.

Ones coming up

Getting my hair shaved off - Tuesday

Arranging a video shoot (taking the lead) - theme 'Easy English --- Easy Chinese'. - by the end of Feb

Arranging a photo shoot with some friends (also taking the lead)- the idea is to have fun with photography and to get some model shots for microstock use that my friends would be comfortable with.

Chinese week - I'll go out onto the streets with a dictaphone or video camera. I'll record the written Chinese in my area that I see everyday and more important start conversations with strangers. After the end of Chinese New Year.

Contact 10 editors by the end of February

Those are my 'comfort challenges'. I've done well so far and I feel they are all achievable. I want this to lead on to a 'Can Do Attitude.' That's what I was saying yesterday after I completed yesterday's mystery task.

2010 Goals

Speak Chinese Fluently

By this, I mean I can start a conversation with anyone and extra some useful information. I want to use my Chinese to do mini-interviews and gain permission for photography.

My current level is some way off this. My most successful conversations are with taxi drivers and sometimes when I start a conversation with someone, they just don’t understand. My listening ability has increased a lot over the last year but is still some way off understanding all the answers in a mini-interview.

I want to achieve this by the end of March but will be doing it throughout March.
At the moment

• Listen to 2-3 hours per day.
• Language exchange for an hour per week.
• Other stuff, 30 minutes a day.

From February (when I won’t be working)
• Listen to 4 hours per day
• Two language exchange for week
• Start recording people in the street, about the street

Probably in April, I’ll be travelling a little and eventually I’ll end up in Holland. When I move, I’ll want to maintain my level of Chinese, probably through online activity and audio downloads.

Later in the year, I’ll want to do a personal project, where I use the principles of Doctor Brown to learn Dutch. More on this later in the year.

Be a Writer

Get published in top travel magazines by the end of the year. To earn an income from writing whilst I’m not working.

To work influential blogs on Health and Language Learning.

At the moment

I’m writing my health blog.

• That’s probably it at the moment.

From February

• Brainstorm for stories in Taiwan and places where I plan to travel to.
• To start writing for 30 minutes a day and to set daily goals in relation to writing.

From March to increase, writing to 2 hours per day.

Start a new blog on language learning, with videos on YouTube for English and Chinese.

Learn to Dive

Get my diving licence and dive in some exotic places. Ultimately I would like to visit a shipwreck.

March
• Get licence in Taiwan. Write about it

April and May

• Do some dives in Southeast Asia.
• Write about them

Photography

To earn enough money from Photography, videoing and Writing to cover the costs of not working from February to probably June. I expect this to be achieve by the end of the year.

At the moment

I earn $50 per month from microstocks and very occasionally get an additional $30 for an article.

The Plan

Microstocks

I plan to increase my stock portfolio in the agencies I’m already in. I think I should be able to increase them dramatically as I’ll have a lot of free time during the first half of the year. Also I have a new lens that has produced excellent results.


Dreamstime Shutterstock Fotolia 123RF
2010 429 155 203 395
Jan 460 185 215 420
Feb 500 220 230 465
Mar 600 310 280 570
Jun 800 500 400 800
Sep 1100 800 600 1100
Dec 1400 1100 750 1400



Targets are for the end of the months.

• I also want to join istockphoto this year
• Use photography for travel articles and language articles
• Be opportunistic and use photography as a trading tool to get bargains, discounts and special offers whilst travelling.
• Do two personal projections
• Offer my services as a photographer to friends, family and potential business associates.