The Wonder Years – this clip just took me somewhere…

I lose touch with who I wanted to be when I was a kid sometimes and a stiff dose of kevin arnold and co swiftly reminds me of when i had it all out before me, what i longed for and who i wanted to become...dont you just love this song too? The clip comes from the season when Winnie has been ignoring him for several episodes because she's part of the cool crowd and he's not...

Its February – have you already given up on 2008? Dont….

Since its February and its easy to have blown your new years resolutions already, sometimes you feel like saying “I didnt start off the year perfect, I may as well forget about doing anything worthwhile”…

Well, I read a load of books about goal setting and disappointments and recorded a podcast for MySpace back when I was a myspace addict and someone got something out of it and transcribed it for herself so I asked her to send it to me. I thought now would be a good time to put it up online. I think it could be helpful.

“Hey this is Josh Doyle, this is my second podcast, welcome to my profile.

Some cool stuff on here thats going to entertain you and in a couple of minutes the big payoff are three huge secrets that are going to save you reading the dozens of books i’ve had to read to get them, secrets that successful people have had that seperated them from other people. and then also about how to keep from being depressed if things dont go your way. So, really worth checking out….

I’m only going to do a few of these podcasts because thats not what im about but its great to share this stuff with cool folks who appreciate my music and what im doing. My motivation for getting this kind of stuff out is just how sick I am of the world and how we live our lives by our default settings y’know we grow up, we get the job expected of us, get the education expected of us, get wasted at the weekend and we just live that life on a loop and I just see a world full of regrets y’know and it works all over the world – leaders of nations manipulate that, they program kids for war, make them anti other countries or whatever its just the path of least resistance and we never question these things. I just want to be a different voice out there i just want to make some kind of tiny difference you know, thats what ive always been about…

Okay so those secrets are coming up.

Before that, though, the thing I get most excited about is when i get a message in my inbox that says “my friend turned me on to your music and i really love it” and thats happen a little bit lately and its terrific because when you tell a real friend about my stuff then they’ll listen – if i say “hey look at me i dont entirely suck, im a myspace musician” then chances are im just another myspace musician with crappy music so basically so if you dont think im just another myspace musician with crappy music help me out…People have been telling me where they want me to play – - that would be helpful too so i can get it together for when my tour starts.

Now for the three secrets - I had to read 16 books to ascertain these secrets and you get them for free just by listening to this – okay the first secret this is the great leveller – you can be rich or needy in all these books ive read this always appears. 3% of people have specific written goals and are heading directly toward them. Another 10 percent are equally as well educated and equally think about their goals but they dont have them written down.

Now the people in the first group outperform the people in the second group anywhere from 10 to 1 to 100 to 1 just because they have the specific things in their life they want to do written down….. a written goal keeps you on track, serves as a checkpoint and protects you from being overwhelmed by outside distractions. Again this doesnt matter how rich or needy you are or how young you are how old you are you level the playing field to a certain extent by writing down your goals thats the first one.

The second one. So many people have faulty goals and they get depressed because they never reach them now this is how to differentiate between what you can achieve and what is going to disappoint you. Say my goal is to go out with the head college cheerleader or the hottest girl in my office – ok thats a faulty goal i cant brainwash her to go out with me – its a desire for me that she will go out with me but there are too many variables in the way a goal would be to ask her out – thats flipping hard enough right – but once ive done that its out of my hands and ive achieved my goal and i cant be disappointed because ive achieved it we get disappointed when we put our desires as our goals because our desires often mean we’re at the mercy of someone else.

Heres another example – if youre in a band you may think your goal is to get signed to a major label but once you’ve made your record its out there to be rejected or accepted – its out of your hands so you shouldnt set yourself up to be disappointed. Your desire is to be signed to a big label or whatever but your goal should be to write a killer album and to get it into the hands of a big label because that can be done – you cant control if they’ll like you or not…

And this is the third secret. So many people are depressed because they’re “not there” yet. Something that im kind of learning is this – you are going to make it i am going to make it but theres a process and its a frustrating process but it has to happen – dont think “when I’m famous I’ll enjoy it when ive got some money I’ll enjoy it – just like Ferris Bueller says – “life moves pretty fast, stop and look around or youll miss it”…

Heres the audio by the way of the original podcast…

http://users.bandzoogle.com/joshdoyle/media/mp3/Podcast2.mp3

Continuing thoughts on “How To Be Happy”

So I thought about it a bit more, about being happy, getting to a place of fulfillment. I do know that I, we, need to learn,  if we dont want this year to be like last year. Its funny because I felt hope tonight, out of nowhere, (thats how I keep going sometimes, flashes of clarity that it is all leading somewhere) that this year could actually be the beginning of something good. I still dont want to get my hopes up particularly. But I think life makes you learn before you can move on.

I can say with confidence that if we want 2008 to be different for any of us, we cant repeat the same behaviour as last year. You know exactly what i’m talking about…

We’re writing our own stories and we’re contributing paragraphs to other people’s stories too. Maybe its dark for you right now? Dont fret, its just the second act, its “The Empire Strikes Back”, Han in carbonite, Luke getting his hand chopped off,  its “Behind The Music” when Aerosmith descend into drug hell, before their biggest albums. You just keep going. Pink Floyd after losing Syd Barratt, before their greatest records. Bon Jovi during Keep the faith…

Is this a pep talk? Maybe I have been in the USA too long…  when we start seeing that its just life and there are supposed to be heaps of steaming faeces to crawl through before we get somewhere, perhaps we’ll learn to take the knocks a bit better.  Enjoy it now though cause when your life takes off, you’ll miss the intimate club gigs….