How to Break Undisciplined Route – Compound interest

Feeling like you’re nothing?

You procrastinate all the time and you make no progress whatsoever?

Start by doing something.

Start Small

You play video games all the time and you want to cut off a little bit?

Maybe you are playing 3 hours per day and you feel like you waste your time and not doing productive things. You fall off your path. You do not execute your tasks, your duties.

Start small.

Can you play only 2 hours and 30 minutes? If not then maybe 2h 30 mins for 3 days out of 7? How about that? Cut it down until you feel confident you’re able to do it.

You can do it with all your behaviors.

Watching YT videos all the time. Laying in bed.

But also you can do it with productive things in the opposite way.

Can’t you do paperwork? How about looking at it for 10 minutes? You will do something. And something is better than nothing. You just move forward.

Can you go to the gym 3 times per week? No. 2 times? No. How about once per week for 30 minutes? Yes, anyone can do it.

Maybe you want to improve your CV but you’re scared to do that. Start by just looking at your CV, and if you cannot do it, just find your CV and place it into a new folder.

Negotiate with yourself until you feel comfortable about your commitment.

Power Curve

Not all processes run as linear. In fact, most of them go like the power curve. There’s a Pareto Principle which was established in the 19th Century. It says that 80% of effects are made by 20% of factors.

However, this rule existed the whole time in nature.

There are many processes in our environment that manifest this rule, for example in flowers.

However, people know this for longer than that. There’s a quote from the Bible:

“For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

As long as you have a vision and move forward towards that goal you will grow like a power curve, not linear. So you’ll grow in no time.

You will hit some setbacks. Be sure of that.

You will go like this:

Progressing 1% each day makes you 3678% better in a year. That makes you 37 times better!

You can see that it’s worth it. You might be angry that every time you try to rise you fall down.

But you will be still higher than when you started and higher than a few days/weeks before. And you’ll finally succeed.

Why Should You Even Bother?

A lot of people would like to become the next Elon Musk overnight. It doesn’t work that way. You got a lot to change and gaining knowledge won’t be enough. There’s a lot of work in front of you and a lot of patience.

You need to fix your habits. You’re imperfect. As everybody else, including me.

Tomorrow is coming. And even if you’re enough for today doesn’t mean you’re enough for tomorrow. So, if you’re not growing, you’re in trouble. To change it, we need to change our habits – something in our behavior to be precise. However, it’s not that easy.

There are thousands of actions you take daily and you need to change it one by one. It takes a lot of time.

Why do bad habits need to be changed?

For example, a bad habit of watching TV can drain your energy and time so you won’t do your important projects. Your procrastinating mind will try to steal your attention and move towards Youtube or playing video games when you will be working.

Another example, eating junk food in the morning can make you feel bad and as a result, you’ll be less productive. Or if you don’t eat your meal when you need it, you might be angry and say something you’ll regret later.

There are many examples of how small actions can destroy your day. And if they are done daily, then they might destroy your life as well.

How to change your habitual behavior then?

And each of that habit takes a long time. And when you do too much at once, it won’t work, you will come back to old behaviors.

Our willpower is weak so we need to move slowly without feeling that we are failing.

And to achieve that we need to:

  1. Monitor our behavior
  2. Define what we are trying to improve
  3. Move towards our goal – slightly and systematically
  4. Create a habit
  5. Feel empowered by our accomplishments

How To Monitor Our Behavior

To move from Point A to point B you need to know what Point A and B means exactly.

It’s crucial because how are we going to change if we don’t know where we’re at now?

We think we know where we’re at but it might differ a lot. To discover the reality you need to measure it. You can use an app like RescueTime or you can set a timer and then write down you much time you actually spent. Then put it in a spreadsheet so you have access to it for a long time.

The same with words if your goal is to write more or number of repetition and weight if you want to progress on the gym.

And we also need to know the Point B – what we are trying to improve. Probably the things we know we should improve. But also, in reality, we might have problems where we least expect them.

How To Define What We Are Trying To Improve

You need to have priorities. If everything is equally important to you, then nothing really is.

So, determine where some goal is in your hierarchy of values. Maybe take care of something that steals from you most of the time.

Ask yourself a question: Which one of these, if done, would render all the rest either easier or completely irrelevant? I got that from Tim Ferriss.

If you’re not sure what to pick, then choose the one that cries to be improved.

How To Move Towards Our Goal?

If you want to do it slightly and systematically you need to:

1) Control how much you progress

To do that, simply monitor your behavior. If your goal is to limit watching YouTube, you need to measure it. Set yourself a timer as soon as you start it or use an app like RescueTime. Then put it in a spreadsheet so you have access to it for a long time.

2) Make sure you do it daily.

And you do it by making it as easy as you can so you feel no resistance towards it. Consistency is the key.

Do you want to go to the gym in the morning? Prepare your gym clothes a day before.

Do you want to read every day? Clean up your desk and place your book there.

Do you want to reduce the time spent on video games? Uninstall games from your computer.

Building Habit

Daily actions create a habit. Period. It doesn’t matter how big they are. The only thing that matters is the frequency.

When we repeatedly do the same thing, our brain creates a habit. The reason for that is to simplify our behavior so that we don’t have to think too much. It’s a good thing to take control of that mechanism and create good habits. And change the bad ones.

We cannot remove our habit completely. We need to replace it. How to do that?

To find the solution we need to first define how habit works.

Habit consists of 4 stages: cue, craving, response, reward.

It start with a cue.

It’s some kind of activity that triggers another step: craving. It might be coming back from work. It could be a place, time.

Then comes craving: Let’s say you feel tired after work and the only thing you desire is to rest. And you find yourself relaxing while playing video games. So, you automatically turn on the computer and open the video game. Coming back from work (a cue) triggers a craving of relax

Then, you actually doing the thing. You are playing video games for 3 hours. That’s the response. It’s the way you respond to that craving.

And finally here comes the last step which is a reward. You feel relaxed hopefully. Sometimes you feel guilty. And then you should consider changing your response to the craving.

Eating cookies to feel better, playing many hours of video games or smoking are examples of bad responses. You should find out what you crave and change the replacement of your current response to that craving.

Feeling Of Accomplishment

You need to be something. Without strength, you won’t survive. You’ll be feeling like a little bug,

What’s the solution? Do little things around you. That way you will be satisfied you accomplished your small goal for the day and you’re able to progress effortlessly.

What’s the opposite scenario? What happens when you aim too high?

When you aim too high, you’ll likely fail which will lower your self-confidence and Self-Esteem.

Then you come back to your old habits. And you don’t move at all.

However, if you start small you’ll feel empowered and good about yourself.

How To Use It in Daily Life?

You can use this guide to fix your areas where you feel like a bottomless pit and you can’t find the way out.

Start small and you’ll see how big you grow.

First, identify areas where you got a problem. It might be something where you spend too much time on and it hurts your responsibilities.

Playing video games 4 hours per day may not be bad alone. But doing that it means you might neglect other responsibilities. Maybe you don’t have time to do your homework or project.

Then come up with the solution. But don’t be too hard on yourself when making the strategy of implementation.

Diffpath vs Normal Path

Diffpath:

  • Small improvements
  • Steady grow
  • Sense of accomplishment
  • Feeling strong

Other Paths:

  • Failed attempts at big improvement
  • Staying in the same place
  • Frustration
  • Feeling weak – you cannot even accomplish one mere goal

What Can You Do Right Now?

First, determine where you’re at. Track how many hours you spend on playing video games or watching YT and slowly move forward.

Second, define where you got problems. Make a list of tasks you do each day and declare which of them hurts your goals.

And last, pick one of them and come up with an improvement plan. Declare some small steps you might do to fix it a little bit. And create a good trajectory. You’ll finally make it. You just need to be consistent and patient.

Start small, progress steady and you’ll end up far from being small.

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