"The start is the most difficult part"
That's a statement I stumble upon in the description of numerous situations through life and it seems to be applied in my current state too. I keep saying to myself that I don't have time, that other things have higher priority and I have to finish them first. Finish your exams and then you can start, finish that project, finish the other project, do this, do that and the list goes on and on. Excuses never end, you just have to overcome them. Which is what I was not doing for the last 93 days (from the day I sign in steemit for the first time).
But how could I overcome them if I didn't know that I am making excuses? Because that was exactly my problem until I started writing this introduction post! Only after I wrote the title and started thinking about the content it flashed on me!
Andreas, you think you have an excuse, but in the end you are just too afraid to start!
That's it, that's the problem and the only thing I can do is focus and start writing. Focus on the current task, align my priorities and keep writing until this post is finally over.
You can even understand my previous state of mind from the title of this post (which I will leave untouched), I thought that I had an excuse, I thought that because of my workload it was acceptable to not start posting immediately. But here I am, facing my September's university exams and thinking of letting this go once again.
NOT this time. My introduction post will be out today!
My name is Andreas and I am 22 years old.
At the moment I’m in the third year of my studies as an Electrical and Computer Engineering student at the National Technical University of Athens. For the past years, my main thought was that I wanted to become a programmer, a developer of somehow that will write code, solve problems and create amazing things. But at the same time, those secondary thoughts were there, telling me not to limit myself in that specific field from so early in life. That’s why I aimed for that course, a 5 years technological university course that will provide me for the first 3 years with a lot of knowledge in different fields to hopefully find my passion and choose by the end of the third year a more specific study path. That’s a decision I don’t regret because upon my arrival in Athens my thoughts changed a little bit. Athens has no similarities with my hometown in Cyprus, big and noisy was the first thing I noticed but soon after that, I understood that I couldn’t find a better place (among Cyprus and Greece) to plan for my future. Athens is a place full of opportunities in every area I searched for. But that’s the critical part, you have to search for them, no one will knock your door and offer you opportunities if you don’t first smash a few doors on your own. So I started a journey to smash, or even knock for now, as many doors as I can.
With this in mind, I believe that I have managed to accomplish a few things and my efforts are increasingly paying off. However, being self-aware, I recently came to the conclusion that the things I am doing, may not align with my goals.
I know that I want to be successful, but how does someone defines success? Success has a different definition for each one of us, you may consider yourself successful at the moment your bank account reach the million, or when you score your dream job or accomplish whatever target you want to, but that's not what I aiming for. I actually can't define what success means for me at the moment. I want for sure to be economically comfortable and do professionally something that I'll love but I don't see those as a milestone to success.
The very first time I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my life was upon the end of my second and final year at the Army (yes compulsory military service exists in Cyprus) when I had to decide my university path and that forced me to make long term thoughts for my future. At that moment the best scenario that I could think of was the one I explained above, I had to follow the opportunities. That brought me to Athens and from there I just took advantage of every shot I had, with the belief that by doing as much as I can, I will have more shots to success.
I recently stumbled upon a speech by Denzel Washington, from which I quote:
Remember just because you're doing a lot more, doesn't mean you're getting a lot more done. Don't confuse movement with progress.
Which is exactly my current state. By saying "yes" to every opportunity, I ended up moving around without actually doing any progress. I ended up being busy when in fact, I had to be productive. That's what I want to change from now on and that's the reason I am super pumped for the upcoming year! I am confident that from now on I will align my priorities and focus my efforts to what is actually important, to what will actually put me in the right path.
For the past couple of months I have been massively influenced by Gary Vaynerchuk's content. I will not take time to explain his thesis, I will only stand to one piece of content that I believe to be a life changer. In the following video, this guy is providing so much value but I will try to sum up how I got inspired from it so you don't have to watch the entire video. Although I highly suggest you do.
With the minimum of words he managed to give the solution to my questions. I don't have to define success prior to the journey, I don't have to define my goals before I start. I can do it while I am going there, Ι just have to understand who I am along the way.
Document, Don't create.
That phrase is the thrust for my journey's takeoff. I am inspired to talk about the journey of the climb and that's what I will try to accomplish with those blog posts. I am hopping that by sharing my thoughts and my experiences I will not only define myself but inspire others to do the same.
By reading up to this point you are one of the first people that broke into my thoughts and I really appreciate it. I know that I didn't give enough context for what I'm up to at the moment but with my upcoming posts I will explain everything. I just couldn't fit it in.
Upon the process of writing down my thoughts it became clear to me that the fear for this very first post was directly related to the fear of the journey. I subconsciously knew that this post would mark the beginning and it seems that I was just too afraid to get out of my comfort zone. If by any chance you are in the same position as I was, I hope that you will find the willpower to mark the beginning of your own journey. Thank you all for your attention, I will not let you down.
