Lacking motivation?
Feeling like you have to all the time do something productive?
All demands are on your shoulders. Maybe it’s time to reconsider something?
Many people go through their lives like they have only obligations.
But is it healthy? Of course not.
You feel a tension. You are stressed. You don’t see the sense of doing these things.
You need to be engaged in something and look at the world from the different point of view.
Remember when you were a child? You wanted to overcome obstacles, try new things and improve the skills you were weak at.
I remember my childhood. I tried to be better at freestyle. Even though I was very weak in the beginning. I couldn’t do even a trick called “Around the World” I kept training. I didn’t put any productivity app to use to make myself do it.
I was just driven to train all the time because I wanted to achieve my outcome – being able to do a certain trick so badly.
Take a Look at Your Daily Tasks
Feeling like somebody is telling you what to do? Doing things you hate? It’ll drive you into a grave if you keep doing the things you hate.
Stop doing so much shit you dislike.
Of course, I’m not telling you to immediately quit your current job or stop doing things you don’t like in general.
What I am asking you is to sit down, relax and think about what you do on a daily basis that pisses you off. Then try to come up with the idea of how you can fix it.
Not everything you can fix right now. It will take some time. But don’t worry, time will pass anyway. Just come up with an actionable plan and slowly move towards it.
Start taking control over your life and stop living reactively.
How to transform push into pull then?
My Experience
I will tell you about my case.
I wanted to share my knowledge and experiences with people. But I’ve been always telling myself that I need to find a perfect moment, a perfect topic.
The problem is that you will never find anything perfect. You just need to start somewhere. Start now.
So one day I told myself:
“That’s enough! I need to start my own thing, something people will be looking for, something that may change a little bit not only the lives of others but myself as well.”
I was always telling myself that I need to do this. But this time was different. I looked at benefits and a wonderful journey I’m about to have when I choose this path. So I did it. I’ve created Diffpath.com.
Now, when I feel a lack of motivation to write another blog post, I just tell myself that I chose this path and when I’m on that path I feel some meaning in life. I know that I am doing the right thing.
So how I keep myself going for that? I do not force myself to do anything. I mean I try to write a certain topic for 10 minutes and if it is not going very well, then I am switching to another article that I’ve stated before.
You can’t force your self to do the stuff. I mean, I know it is hard to start some things and if that is the case then, of course, I advise you to force yourself to start the thing but if after many times you still feel like you MUST do some things then it’s a signal you are doing something wrong. You should be thrilled to do things in your daily schedule.
What Do You Want?
Now, how are you gonna apply this to your life?
What drives you? You have something deeper inside if you. I call this instinct. It knows when you are doing something you are supposed to do. Try different things and decide which one are best for you. Sometimes you can’t live off your passion(at least immediately) but you still can work on something demanding and use your talent.
Pick up your hierarchy. Once you have decided what you like to do, find a right hierarchy for you so that you can climb to the top. It is crucial. You grow over time. To be the best you need to focus on the right thing and keep increasing crucial skill. This way you do the best job possible. It has the highest ROI possible.
Redefine your goals. Maybe some of them are not relevant anymore. Ask yourself why you need to do what you think you should and answer truthfully. Maybe there is no sense of going for them or maybe you will discover more reasons to do so.
Come up with a plan
Start taking control over your life and living proactively. That’s why you need a plan. If you don’t have your own plan when you work for somebody’s else plan for their life.
Long-term goals
You need to decide on your long-term goals. It is the best thing to make a clear vision of what you wanna do in the future, including all of your areas in life: family, friends, job, time outside the work, health.
Having a clear vision and reasons behinds which you find what goals worthy of achieving can really improve your discipline. It’s time for investing. You put enough time and energy into some projects and then after many months/years you got the results you wanted.
You can use Dr. Jordan Peterson’s Program to get the best results possible. I’ve used it and I really recommend to do the same.
However, if you don’t want to pay for it you can do something similar: Write down on a paper or in some doc file or Evernote (someplace you access later) how you see your life in 3 years. Come up with the best scenario but realistic. Include your family life, job, time outside the work, health. Then find the answers why you need this and how you will achieve it.
Keep in mind that it is gonna change. You don’t need the perfect plan but you need some. Do it Badly!
System for Knowing What to Do
Long-term goals are not gonna complete themselves. You must take the action. But the vision is too far and you don’t know what to focus on.
You need a system that helps you keep your information and tasks in a safe place and be 100% sure what to do. I’ve used Tiago Forte’s course to create a perfect system for completing as many tasks as possible without feeling overwhelmed. You need 2 apps to be organized and to take the action. I use Evernote and Todoist.
A good system will energize you to do more tasks. Also, you will be satisfied with your output.
Being elastic
You need to know when to stop and when to push forward. There are days when you just can’t get act together and you can hardly sit 30 minutes on a project, where sometimes you can do a lot more – even stay for 5 hours without break and nobody can stop you.
You need to listen to your body to know how to act properly. Meditate a lot so you don’t fall into a trap of doing wrong things and in a wrong manner. Relax, take a deep breath and do the things that have the highest ROI at that moment.
Daily execution
Schedule the day you actually want.
Don’t put all of your days in productive tasks or you are gonna get yourself to the grave and that’s not a good strategy. Schedule your days so that after that day you could tell: I am satisfied with my day.
Steve Jobs said an interesting thing:
If the next days are going to be like this till the end of your life – would you be satisfied? If the answer is “no” too many days in a row – then something is wrong.
Make sure that every step in your routines is as easy as it can be. You will just grab the things you need and start going after your goal.
Make sure you enjoy doing what you do on a daily basis. That is the key to long-term success. You fall in love with the process and future benefits are just a bonus.
There are many ways to keep track of your habits like this spreadsheet or Habitica which I personally use.
Stop for a moment and reflect
Do a yearly review of what you hated this year and what you loved. And try to change your life so that you do less stuff that you hate and more stuff that you love.
Think about what is going to happen if you do this and what is going to happen if you don’t. It’ll drive you.
Think about people you admire. They also needed to come up with a good strategy and execution plan to get to the place where they are right now in their lives. Act the way you think they would behave in particular situations. And one day, who knows… maybe you will even surpass them and they will learn something from you.
And the most important advice that I could give you is:
HAVE FUN!
Yeah, have fun. You really need to start thinking about your challenges the way child do. It’s fun. Start seeing every obstacle in your way as a challenge and an opportunity to improve yourself and take a wonderful journey. Yea, there are gonna be some dark places like in every adventure movie but don’t worry, you can do it. I Believe in You!