Life should be easy.
One of the things I focus on is to create systems so that I do not need to consciously remind myself to do things or be a certain way. In many ways this is the equivalent of creating long-term permanent change.
I'll explain.
How you act now is how you are naturally. If you find playing computer games fun and have everything set up so you can easily play them then that is part of who you are and will be unless you change it.
Creating a life system is changing your beliefs and environment so that you naturally do things differently and you do not have to think really hard to do them. For example, if you want to earn a living from blogging, then it will be easier for you if you have beliefs that mean you really love blogging. It will also help you if you have all the facilities available to you.
What I try to do is create changes that make results happen for me naturally. For example, when I wanted to get fitter I tried to change my beliefs permanently so that I enjoyed getting fitter and ensured that I had all the equipment and plans for doing so. More specifically, now I have all the running equipment I could want and I focus on the things I enjoy about running. As a result I run almost daily and really enjoy it.
This is one of my examples of creating a "system for living".
What I am trying to get at is that achieving goals should not involve forcing yourself to get up every morning and pressuring yourself to do things every day (not to be confused with not having any pressure to follow through). The ideal way of achieving goals is to have a system that means you don't need to think consciously about it in order to do it. This will allow you to fully embrace the moment or as some people describe being in the "zone" or the "flow state" while still achieving your goals.
Showing posts with label Productivity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Productivity. Show all posts
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
The Illusionary Epiphany
The illusion of the perfect answer.
This is a state I used to live in almost every day of my life. I remember when I was younger and wanted to "get good with the ladies" I used to come to a question I could not quite answer. For example, it might be something like "what should my outcome be when talking to women?" I would spend hours thinking about it. I would walk around in a state that told me that when I answered this question all my problems would be solved and I would instantly have what I wanted.
As you could guess my problems were never instantly solved. My strong desire for answers did lead to several epiphanies, but not the solution to the bigger problem.
The reason I talk about this is because I still find myself in this highly addictive state. When I am in the frame of mind it is very hard to spot. I probably have some form of it at the moment as I seek my true purpose. My search for it seems to fit all the symptoms. Even now I have convinced myself that this time is different to all those other times. Maybe I will have to relearn the lesson I am trying to teach?
My real point is this...
Don't use waiting for the great epiphany, or answer to all your problems as an excuse not to carry on with your life as it is. Keep challenging yourself to be better. Keep exploring new belief systems. Keep searching for more efficient ways of looking at life and of doing things. Keep working towards the goals you have set at the moment. Keep loving unconditionally. Keep contributing.
Don't let waiting for the illusionary epiphany stop you from living life.
This illusion manifests itself in so many forms, like "I have to create the perfect business plan" or "after I have read this book I will do this" or "after I xxxxx I will achieve this easily".
Don't ask yourself IF you're going through this. Ask yourself WHERE in your life you are experiencing this. When you have done this, ask yourself if it is giving you an excuse to procrastinate on anything. That excuse is no longer valid.
This is a state I used to live in almost every day of my life. I remember when I was younger and wanted to "get good with the ladies" I used to come to a question I could not quite answer. For example, it might be something like "what should my outcome be when talking to women?" I would spend hours thinking about it. I would walk around in a state that told me that when I answered this question all my problems would be solved and I would instantly have what I wanted.
As you could guess my problems were never instantly solved. My strong desire for answers did lead to several epiphanies, but not the solution to the bigger problem.
The reason I talk about this is because I still find myself in this highly addictive state. When I am in the frame of mind it is very hard to spot. I probably have some form of it at the moment as I seek my true purpose. My search for it seems to fit all the symptoms. Even now I have convinced myself that this time is different to all those other times. Maybe I will have to relearn the lesson I am trying to teach?
My real point is this...
Don't use waiting for the great epiphany, or answer to all your problems as an excuse not to carry on with your life as it is. Keep challenging yourself to be better. Keep exploring new belief systems. Keep searching for more efficient ways of looking at life and of doing things. Keep working towards the goals you have set at the moment. Keep loving unconditionally. Keep contributing.
Don't let waiting for the illusionary epiphany stop you from living life.
This illusion manifests itself in so many forms, like "I have to create the perfect business plan" or "after I have read this book I will do this" or "after I xxxxx I will achieve this easily".
Don't ask yourself IF you're going through this. Ask yourself WHERE in your life you are experiencing this. When you have done this, ask yourself if it is giving you an excuse to procrastinate on anything. That excuse is no longer valid.
Monday, 19 November 2007
Purpose and Passion ... and Why I Have Been Away
Where have I been?
Tomorrow it will 2 months since my last blog post. What have I been up to?
To say it in as short as possible, I have had a rather large change of lifestyle. I have started studying for a degree at university.
The reason I have not been posting is a combination of reasons. One is that I have been up trying lots of different things out. Another is that I almost forgot about blogging for a while when I was so caught up in the first few weeks just making sure I was registered for everything. Another part of me forgot the joy I receive from blogging and began viewing it as something I "needed" to do, but would never do just for the fun of it.
So why did I start blogging again?
I consider myself at one of the biggest turning points of my life at the moment. I am currently building the foundation for my future career. I have some vague goals set and plan to make them more specific. My biggest hurdle at the moment is finding my true purpose. My key focus at the moment is to find my purpose.
While journalling about what my purpose could be I also explored what some of my passions were. One of these I reminded myself was sharing my beliefs and developments with others, which reignited my passion for blogging again.
So here I am.
So what information can I provide that might be useful for you?
Here are my speculations as it stands.
To achieve fulfilment you must experience a life of overcoming challenge, contribution, love, growth and enjoying how you do it.
Carrying out these different factors come from doing different things.
-Overcoming challenge, growth and contribution comes from setting and achieving goals
-Love comes from aligning with your purpose and developing your beliefs
-Enjoying how you do it comes from completing your goals using an approach that you enjoy
Setting and achieving goals lies very much at the route of this. The key to setting and achieving goals is motivation. This means we need a reason to achieve our goals. There must be a fundamental reason from which all our goals develop. I believe this is comes from our purpose. You can tell when people have this because of the extraordinary things they achieve, such as Tony Robbins. My current aim is to discover a purpose that is so in line with who I am that all my goals seem obvious. My challenge after that is to find the most passionate and enjoyable ways of achieving these goals.
Then I speculate, I will be fulfilled.
Tomorrow it will 2 months since my last blog post. What have I been up to?
To say it in as short as possible, I have had a rather large change of lifestyle. I have started studying for a degree at university.
The reason I have not been posting is a combination of reasons. One is that I have been up trying lots of different things out. Another is that I almost forgot about blogging for a while when I was so caught up in the first few weeks just making sure I was registered for everything. Another part of me forgot the joy I receive from blogging and began viewing it as something I "needed" to do, but would never do just for the fun of it.
So why did I start blogging again?
I consider myself at one of the biggest turning points of my life at the moment. I am currently building the foundation for my future career. I have some vague goals set and plan to make them more specific. My biggest hurdle at the moment is finding my true purpose. My key focus at the moment is to find my purpose.
While journalling about what my purpose could be I also explored what some of my passions were. One of these I reminded myself was sharing my beliefs and developments with others, which reignited my passion for blogging again.
So here I am.
So what information can I provide that might be useful for you?
Here are my speculations as it stands.
To achieve fulfilment you must experience a life of overcoming challenge, contribution, love, growth and enjoying how you do it.
Carrying out these different factors come from doing different things.
-Overcoming challenge, growth and contribution comes from setting and achieving goals
-Love comes from aligning with your purpose and developing your beliefs
-Enjoying how you do it comes from completing your goals using an approach that you enjoy
Setting and achieving goals lies very much at the route of this. The key to setting and achieving goals is motivation. This means we need a reason to achieve our goals. There must be a fundamental reason from which all our goals develop. I believe this is comes from our purpose. You can tell when people have this because of the extraordinary things they achieve, such as Tony Robbins. My current aim is to discover a purpose that is so in line with who I am that all my goals seem obvious. My challenge after that is to find the most passionate and enjoyable ways of achieving these goals.
Then I speculate, I will be fulfilled.
Friday, 7 September 2007
One Day Trial to Beat Procrastination
If you find that you are good at following through on some challenges you set yourself, but consistently procrastinate in other areas of your life then the following "one day trial" strategy may be very helpful for you.
This simple strategy helps overcome the following challenges.
1. It gets you to follow through on the things you usually procrastinate on.
2. It gets you to try a lot harder at the tasks you usually try half-heartedly because you are tired or don't feel like doing them, etc.
The Strategy
1. Make a list of everything you would like to do tomorrow that will help you create a great future and enjoy the process, e.g. exercise, review goals, research and eat healthy foods, research investment opportunities, etc.
2. Decide how long you want to spend on each task. Set a time that will demand high efficiency to complete it in the alloted time.
3. Order your tasks so that you have to do your least favourite and most likely to procrastinate tasks on first. Doing these tasks first will not only make sure you do them, but will also make the other tasks for the day seem a lot easier and give you great momentum for the day.
4. Add up the hours and check you have set a realistic amount of time for the day, not forgetting you might need to eat.
This plan should only be designed for one day. This has a very important affect on your psychology. If you look at it this way you don't have to worry about spending too much energy or worry about trying and failing, because it's only one day. If at the end of the day you don't like that you followed through on all your challenges then you can scrap having one day plans and at least you know not to spend any time feeling bad about not following through because you don't enjoy it anyway.
And that's only assuming that you do not enjoy following through. Imagine if you do enjoy following through on all those things you normally procrastinate on. Think how much a discovery like that could change your life.
I will leave you with the motivational text I had at the top of my one day plan to help me follow through when I first did it.
"Try it for a day 100% and see how it goes – if it changes your life keep it, if it is rubbish, then don’t, but you will only know if you try 100%. This could massively change how you feel about yourself and your ability to produce results, just DO IT."
This simple strategy helps overcome the following challenges.
1. It gets you to follow through on the things you usually procrastinate on.
2. It gets you to try a lot harder at the tasks you usually try half-heartedly because you are tired or don't feel like doing them, etc.
The Strategy
1. Make a list of everything you would like to do tomorrow that will help you create a great future and enjoy the process, e.g. exercise, review goals, research and eat healthy foods, research investment opportunities, etc.
2. Decide how long you want to spend on each task. Set a time that will demand high efficiency to complete it in the alloted time.
3. Order your tasks so that you have to do your least favourite and most likely to procrastinate tasks on first. Doing these tasks first will not only make sure you do them, but will also make the other tasks for the day seem a lot easier and give you great momentum for the day.
4. Add up the hours and check you have set a realistic amount of time for the day, not forgetting you might need to eat.
This plan should only be designed for one day. This has a very important affect on your psychology. If you look at it this way you don't have to worry about spending too much energy or worry about trying and failing, because it's only one day. If at the end of the day you don't like that you followed through on all your challenges then you can scrap having one day plans and at least you know not to spend any time feeling bad about not following through because you don't enjoy it anyway.
And that's only assuming that you do not enjoy following through. Imagine if you do enjoy following through on all those things you normally procrastinate on. Think how much a discovery like that could change your life.
I will leave you with the motivational text I had at the top of my one day plan to help me follow through when I first did it.
"Try it for a day 100% and see how it goes – if it changes your life keep it, if it is rubbish, then don’t, but you will only know if you try 100%. This could massively change how you feel about yourself and your ability to produce results, just DO IT."
Thursday, 23 August 2007
How to Beat Procrastination 2
What follows is a technique that I have found very effective for overcoming procrastination. I have already discussed one technique that I apply in this post, however, I believe that goals should be attacked from all angles and therefore the more techniques there are to use the better.
Procrastination arises when you feel doing something will cause you more pain than not doing it. Eventhough you logically know you should do it, you will not follow through with it if you feel like it will cause you pain or struggle.
What you therefore need to do is start seeing the pleasure in that thing that you "have" to do to achieve your goals. This could apply to doing exercise, speed reading practise, making a difficult phone call, etc.
For example, when thinking about exercise most people see the pain of exerting themselves and getting out of the house. The people that enjoy exercising see it as an opportunity to challenge themselves, experience some endorphins, get some fresh air and give themselves more energy for the rest of the day.
It really does come down to how you look at it and believe you will experience it. The actual activity of "going for a run" is not what differs from person to person greatly. It is the perception of it that differs so much.
So how do you change how you look at a certain activity?
What I do first is consciously ask myself the question "where is the fun in this activity?" I ask myself this question in different ways until I come up with the answer. Once I have come up with this answer I make the picture of the fun part of the activity big and bright and really feel the experience. With enough practise this becomes very easy and now I no longer find myself struggling to follow through with these activities, because I want to do them anyway.
If having read this you are thinking "well that sounds like a great exercise, but I really can't be bothered" then ask yourself that question now about following through with this very exercise. Once you enjoy carrying out this exercise you can use it to begin finding the fun in everything else you "should" be doing, but do not really want to do.
If there were a set of key challenges to overcome on the road to success, beating procrastination would be one of them. Enjoy this exercise :)
Procrastination arises when you feel doing something will cause you more pain than not doing it. Eventhough you logically know you should do it, you will not follow through with it if you feel like it will cause you pain or struggle.
What you therefore need to do is start seeing the pleasure in that thing that you "have" to do to achieve your goals. This could apply to doing exercise, speed reading practise, making a difficult phone call, etc.
For example, when thinking about exercise most people see the pain of exerting themselves and getting out of the house. The people that enjoy exercising see it as an opportunity to challenge themselves, experience some endorphins, get some fresh air and give themselves more energy for the rest of the day.
It really does come down to how you look at it and believe you will experience it. The actual activity of "going for a run" is not what differs from person to person greatly. It is the perception of it that differs so much.
So how do you change how you look at a certain activity?
What I do first is consciously ask myself the question "where is the fun in this activity?" I ask myself this question in different ways until I come up with the answer. Once I have come up with this answer I make the picture of the fun part of the activity big and bright and really feel the experience. With enough practise this becomes very easy and now I no longer find myself struggling to follow through with these activities, because I want to do them anyway.
If having read this you are thinking "well that sounds like a great exercise, but I really can't be bothered" then ask yourself that question now about following through with this very exercise. Once you enjoy carrying out this exercise you can use it to begin finding the fun in everything else you "should" be doing, but do not really want to do.
If there were a set of key challenges to overcome on the road to success, beating procrastination would be one of them. Enjoy this exercise :)
Friday, 3 August 2007
How to Beat Procrastination
This is such a simple way of beating procrastination it's laughable.
The other day I wrote a comprehensive plan of things I wanted to do daily. The following day I found myself resisting wanting to follow through with what I had planned. I found this emotion amazing as another part of me knew that I loved to do all the things in my plan. After questioning myself I discovered that I was looking at the plan the wrong way.
Having made the plan I set myself up to feel "I HAVE to do this... and after this I HAVE to do that, etc." This subtle shift in attitude caused me to resist doing the very things I loved. Once I became aware of this it only took a second before I reminded myself that I in fact enjoyed doing these things and began following through with my plan straight away.
My point is that procrastination is caused by a sequence of thoughts. So all you need to do to beat procrastination is to change your thought patterns.
In my case procrastination comes when I feel I NEED to do something. I'm now very aware of this emotion and when I sense it arise I instantly shake myself out of the thought pattern and find genuine reasons why I enjoy what I WANT to do.
Try and recognise your strategy for inducing procrastination and make a real effort to break the habit. Become acutely aware as to when this emotion arises, then instantly destroy it. This is one of the biggies that could change you life.
The other day I wrote a comprehensive plan of things I wanted to do daily. The following day I found myself resisting wanting to follow through with what I had planned. I found this emotion amazing as another part of me knew that I loved to do all the things in my plan. After questioning myself I discovered that I was looking at the plan the wrong way.
Having made the plan I set myself up to feel "I HAVE to do this... and after this I HAVE to do that, etc." This subtle shift in attitude caused me to resist doing the very things I loved. Once I became aware of this it only took a second before I reminded myself that I in fact enjoyed doing these things and began following through with my plan straight away.
My point is that procrastination is caused by a sequence of thoughts. So all you need to do to beat procrastination is to change your thought patterns.
In my case procrastination comes when I feel I NEED to do something. I'm now very aware of this emotion and when I sense it arise I instantly shake myself out of the thought pattern and find genuine reasons why I enjoy what I WANT to do.
Try and recognise your strategy for inducing procrastination and make a real effort to break the habit. Become acutely aware as to when this emotion arises, then instantly destroy it. This is one of the biggies that could change you life.
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