Here’s a simple idea:
Plan a life you would like to have.
If you love your life now, stick to what is working. If you don’t love your life right now, change something.
Use your Imagination first
Are you aiming at the right thing (or at any thing)?
Start by describing in detail the life you would like to have. How is your health? How is your social life? How are your relationships with family, friends, mentors, colleagues? How are you contributing to the universe? How much are you earning? How are you finding meaning for your life?
I’m not everything I could be and I know it. There is a better way that I could be and act in this world. I can imagine a better way. It is best to be inspired by living in your imagination for a while before you decide to give the next 20 to 30 years of your life to pursuing the goals.
Nobody reaches the top of Everest by surprise
Nobody who climbs Everest reaches the summit by accident. It has been a plan in their life for years. They have worked on their fitness, their skills, their finances for years to reach this moment on the summit of the mountain.
It takes disciplined effort to succeed in life. It is hard to find the motivation to maintain disciplined effort (especially when I have netflix, facebook, twitter, newspapers etc to compete for my attention).
Where can I find the motivation to maintain this disciplined effort?
Write your goals down.
That is it.
If you are not excited by these written goals, then they are not your goals. You have written them down in the hope that someone else might be impressed by your goals. There are not your goals and you are a moron to try to live your life in the hope that someone else pays attention and is impressed by what you say you would like to achieve. You will fail.
If you are happy to show your goals to everyone on the internet, they are not your goals. They are written to impress.
If you are embarrassed about your goals, but deeply excited by the tiniest idea that you could actually achieve them – now we are moving towards goals that come from inside of you.
How to begin Writing down your Goals
Who is it that I want to be in 3 years? If you can define this and you really want to be this person, then you are going to find quite a bit of the motivation to maintain disciplined effort.
If you keep your objectives all vague and foggy you can guarantee not to fail in a specific way. A lot of people do not write down specific future goals in a clear way because they are scared of having to actually do the work or face the possibility of clearly failing.
If a game is not fun, do you keep playing? Are your goals and the process by which you pursue these goals fun? If yes, keep playing. If no, change the goals or change the process… but write down the aims and the rules by which you decide to play.
Start with the Small Things
Start with little things that you can fix.
If your desk isn’t tidy and it is slightly irritating, tidy your desk. If your computer is dirty and the screen is covered in guck, clean it. If the room that you are in is a mess, throw out the rubbish. These little things constitute 50% of your life. The objects and rooms you interact with every day are important. Get the rubbish out of the way.
Tell your head: “I’m going to make this place better for 5 minutes”. Go.
Continue with this line of ideas with Meaningful Contribution or Start with the End in Mind or What do you want?
PS Thanks for sticking with my rant today… it was a reflection for myself after spending a day spinning my wheels and avoiding difficult tasks 😉