Last year was an interesting year. In addition to full time job at Markit, I participated in Startup weekend. Our startup Parley got acquired by Uppercut and being developed as Confab. I also started volunterring for Chic geek as mentor. I wanted to be more involved with developing other projects and contributing in open source software but I had to move to a new place and with tight rental market in Calgary, it took me longer than expected to find a place. But now I am settled and hope to have more time to be able to be involved in projects outside of work.

Becoming a creator and mentor

Participating in startup weekend and becoming a mentor made me realize that I really enjoy creating something new and teaching others. Even though for startup weekend we were required to work for 54 hours during the weekend, the energy of creating something new and our awesome team kept me going. Similarly I really enjoy teaching others. It gives me motivation to do better and energy.

Putting yourself out there

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think. — Brené Brown

What will people think about this is probably my biggest fear that kept me back so far. Procrastination combined with this fear isn’t helpful when you want to do startups or become a creator. You may have a different method for overcoming this fear but once you start living each day as last, this fear slowly starts to fade away.

If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right. — Anonymous

Getting this blog out took me quite a bit of time. Every time I would start, my fear about getting it right would hold me back. English isn’t my first language, there probably are some grammatical mistakes in this post but without practicing and writing more, you can’t improve. Do not let your vulnerability get in your way, try stepping out of your comfort zone. You have limited time to live. Make the best of it!

How to get started

Once you know you wanted to become a creator, the next you need to identify what you want to create or do to get started. If you are looking to do startups interested in software development, marketing etc, you can start attending local meet-ups, find things to teach, and see if there are on-line course available. This may not give an answer right away but certainly going to be helpful in gaining a deeper understanding of problems and help you in coming up with ideas.

Keep going

There are thousands of posts about how to find your passion or keep yourself motivated. You probably have read quite a few of those. Did those work for you? It didn’t certainly work for me. These motivation ideas may pump you for a day or a week but soon it starts to tarnish and you start loosing interest. The problem is not you but is much deeper and connected to human behavior. Tiny habits are much better to help you keep going. I will be posting more about that in future (Subscribe to my newsletter if you are interested).

Finally

I don’t have a set list of things that I’ll be posting but it is going to be related to technology, lifestyle, motivation, habits, startups etc. About a month already in 2014, this post marks the start of a new journey.