Gavin Perkins
Bio
Young photographer and blogger
Stories (3/0)
Waking up at 5 AM
Hello, for the next 5 days I am going to be waking up at 5 AM. I want to learn why it's important to wake up at 5. Why is it important? I have no idea; that's why I'm going to get my sources from two different articles. Then, I will see if that data corresponds with experience. The first reason is that you will have an open window in the morning to connect with yourself or your faith. By getting up early for uninterupted and non-rushed time, you'll have time for personal development and time to work towards your aspirations. Another common point I found was that you will reach your peak state or build that discipline for everything else. Increased motivation and confidence is brought to the table. You will become a more respectable person with integrity. I don't know how some of this is necessarily correlated with waking up at 5 AM, regardless, I am up for the challenge. I will be tracking my progress each day. By writing a short little summary of how I feel, what I did, and how waking up has affected me.
By Gavin Perkins4 years ago in Motivation
The road to Success
Oxford languages defines success as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. More often than not, when people think about success. They think of fame or money. That view on success isn't always everyone's first thought. What is your idea of success? I am going to be transparent with you. Everyone starts from somewhere and along the way you WILL face challenges. Don't let those adversities stop you though. How Gavin? Why shouldn't I just give up? I'm going to fail, why even try? The answer is experience. You learn from the inevitable mistakes and gain experience. That experience is a key factor in accomplishing your goals. Plus, reaching your goals wouldn't be as satisfying if you didn't have failures. I feel as if another reason as to why you need to fail to succeed is that there would be no room for improvement. At least to a certain extent. Without failure, you would have no knowledge on how to improve. Therefor, resulting in a constant peak. Yes, you are going to fail, but trying anyways is a better choice. Not pursuing whatever you want to will leave a feeling of shame and guilt. Failure is a good thing, not a bad thing. Gavin, what does it take to reach success? To be successful. You need to be able to have resiliency, persistence, and the ability to do hard things. Let's face it. The most successful people have faced adversities. Elon Musk's First PayPal product was voted one of the worst business ideas in 1999. Oprah used to be regularly beaten throughout her childhood. J. K Rolling's original Harry Potter was rejected 12 times. Those failures faced by these extraordinary people have shaped them. Persistence is key. Think about where J. K rolling would be if she wasn't persistent with her work. Another step to take when traveling the road to success is habits. Habits, are so prominent. Once those habits are formed they become automatic. You won't need to put in the effort to do these habits anymore. They will naturally flow with your day. Some of my favorite habits include. Waking up early, reading every day, making exercise a priority, avoiding time wasters and getting enough sleep. Why are these concepts important to be successful? Emails. Everyone wastes time checking their emails in the morning. Getting up early gives you more than enough time to have to yourself to check those emails. Starting the day early also improves your concentration which means you can carry out those goals and tasks that you set out the night before. It also means that by the time you get to work, you are fully awake and properly acclimatized to the day meaning you will be more alert during those peak hours. Why is reading everyday important? Well, reading stimulates the brain. This action strengthens and speeds up neural pathways allowing you to be more creative, think more clearly and critically, ask better questions and make faster mental connections. In turn, this keeps your brain healthy. Everyone knows why exercising is important. Exercise builds endurance and strength, increases energy and reduces stress. Avoiding time wasters is one of the hardest things to stop doing. Almost everyone has a smartphone nowadays. I know how hard it can be to not waste time on social media or watching TV. I suggest limiting the access to that distraction and having a plan for how much time you want to spend. Getting enough sleep. Sleep is important for many reasons. Did you know if you don't sleep for 8 hours your immune system is weakened. Your heart suffers. Your cancer risk increases and you gain weight. Those are only some negatives of getting less sleep than you should. I would conform a routine and stick with that. It will take a while to used to. Yet again, building and forming habits is a step on the road to success. My ideal version of success is doing something that makes you happy. Do something that makes you happy. People tend to gravitate towards crafts they're good at. Pursue a talent of yours or do something that you want to be good at. Keep in mind that you need to find something you're good at and passionate about. Remember, you will face failure. As I mentioned before, persistence is a characteristic of a successful person. You need to practice persistence! This next step is hard for everyone. As humans, ASK FOR HELP. The most successful people have one thing in common. They recognize where their strength lies and where it doesn't. Don't be afraid to ask for help and that leads to the next step. Have a mentor. Having a mentor will help guide you through your journey. This will be the person that you can ask for help. Plus, you can have someone to celebrate your wins with. The next and final step to the journey of success is having motivators. Make sure these motivators are genuine. You need motivators you're passionate about in order to succeed. Thank you for reading! You can email me at [email protected] for any questions.
By Gavin Perkins4 years ago in Motivation
3 men that inspire me
Everyone has at least one person that inspires them to a certain extent. I have chosen 3 people that truly inspire me. The first person is my father. He is a compassionate, hard-working, intelligent and driven man. He is an entrepreneur, owning a successful business doing IT work for the common people and car dealerships. There are truly a plethora of reasons as to why he is inspiring. I think, one of the most inspiring things is how he can leave his work at work. He comes home even when he hasn't had an ideal day and loves his wife and kids.Treats them with respect, and spends time with them. Another attribute that is inspirational, is his faith. He has gone through dark times and come out a better man due to his faith. He has a strong relationship with God. I aspire to have such a deep connection with God one day. As I mentioned before, his business. His reasoning behind the business, is he is called to help people. My father, has found two concepts that he is passionate about. IT. Which is always changing. And helping people. He then found a way to implement those two into a business. The second person I find to be inspiring is Jon Acuff. Jon Acuff is New York Times Bestselling author of six books and runs StuffChristiansLike.net, which has over 3 million readers. I find him inspiring for numerous reasons. He has the ability to input humor into serious topics. In this interview with Jon, he mentions that he uses humor and pairs it with unfunny topics. Jon Acuff: "It’s research-based, but it’s really really funny. I mean, there’s a reason comedians like Jim Gaffigan endorse my books. It’s because they’re humorous. My niche is to write with humor on a fairly unfunny topic." Humor is a value of mine. His words inspire me. Putting humor with topics that I can learn from. Put's his words in a whole different perspective. His book, Start, was one of the most influencing books I've read. At the time, I was going through a dark time. I was feeling hopeless. That book is what guided me how to start a new chapter. Fear is what held me back. I learned that from his book. His connections with Dave Ramsey are inspiring too. Jon was a small blogger at one point. Just like me. His career took off, and he started working with Dave Ramsey. It's remarkable to think that a blogger, who didn't have a fan base at one point. Used to work with Dave Ramsey. A world renowned speaker and author. I grew up listening to Dave Ramsey. It's incredible how connections . The third person I find to be inspiring is Tony Dungy. He is the author of a book called uncommon. Along with my dad, that book has shaped my beliefs. Tony has a powerful faith with God too. In uncommon, Tony mentions his ideal ways of living and how to live them. In correlation to his faith, of course. Tony shares the same beliefs with parenting, loving your children, having integrity, etc. Which, has been instilled into me by my parents. His accomplishments as an ex-pro football star and coach are also admirable. All these people hold a common ground. They share the same beliefs and hold them to a high standard. My dad doesn't come home and love his family when he wants to. Jon doesn't just have faith in God when he wants to. He holds his standards with integrity, which creates a value. These three men are uncommon, as Tony would say. They love their families and haven't been absent fathers. They are doing what they love and making sure they do it well. They help people that need help, sometimes without realizing it. These men are my inspirations. That is why.
By Gavin Perkins4 years ago in Motivation