There are odds for everything. I mean everything. In fact, without those odds, it wouldn’t be fun doing it anyway. The first step to beating the odds against you is to “try” to beat it. That means doing something that you want to do.

I have long followed a rule that has worked very well over the last two decades and that is:

“You can’t lose what you don’t have”

When you are going after something that you don’t have, first thing to remember is that you don’t have it – that’s the reason you are going after it. So in case you don’t get it, you don’t lose anything. So there is no “loss” per se for trying to get it. Well, the intellectuals out there will talk about “opportunity cost” etc. but really, we can say that whatever you do now, the fact remains that there is an opportunity cost for that too – meaning you could always be doing something else at all times. So the opportunity cost argument won’t hold good.

Then again, you all know that but why don’t you do it?

The answer is Resistance. I won’t go into the details of resistance but if you want to know what it is and how to overcome it, I suggest you read this ULTRA-BRILLIANT book by Steven Pressfield (special thanks to Callie Oettinger) called “The War of Art” ( creativity even in the title ). This is one book that I am going read again and again until the concepts get locked in my head.

Lastly, remember that if you are trying something truly worthy, you have already won with the journey of what it will make of you – rather than what you get as a prize. The prize is a bonus.

As I was writing this post, the daily newsletter from Hugh McLeod arrives with the tile “At least.” The artwork for that is here.

Thanks Hugh!

You can download (cc license) for your own use on Hugh’s site here:

Download “At least” by gapingvoid.