We all have days where all we feel like doing is flopping on the couch and relaxing. (Or in my case, going out to eat and relaxing.)
There are things that we know we should be doing in order to be successful, but we just don’t feel like doing them. And that’s normal. No one is gung-ho 100% of the time. It’s ok to give yourself a break, especially a scheduled break. It’s even a good idea.
The problem occurs when “I don’t feel like it” or “Oh I’ll do it later” becomes a way of life.
Think about these two questions:
1. What is the most important thing that you want to accomplish?
2. How much time did you spend working toward that thing yesterday, and over the past week?
Now, how do those amounts of time compare to the amounts of time you spent hanging out or doing things that aren’t all that important in the long-term? (Like folding laundry, doing yard work, or getting a new high score on your favorite game.)
Laundry and yard work will always be there. But your goal? It’ll be successfully DONE once you get there.
Spend your time on what is actually important to you.
If you want to be successful at something, then do things that will get you to where you want to be. I know, I know, it seems completely obvious — and it is, until success seems like too much work.
The thing is, there’s probably a reason that it seems like too much work. For one thing, it does take work to successfully reach a goal. But if you’re constantly putting off the things that will get you to where you want to be, think about why you’re doing that.
Face your fears
Take our goal of wanting to became debt-free, house and everything. A fear I’ve had to face regarding that is, what if we pay off our house and some disaster happens and it’s completely worthless and now we have nothing and that money is gone?
Once you discover what you’re afraid of (because fear is usually the reason people put things off) imagine the absolute worst-case possible ending to your fear.
In my case, that would go like this. If a disaster happens in this relatively low-risk-of-disaster area, I think we’ll have worse things to worry about than a financial setback. Besides, disasters can strike bank and investment accounts too.
Now do the reverse. What’s the BEST case? Shortly after we pay off our house, it nearly triples in value within a few months (that actually happened for a brief period during the real estate run-up — too bad it didn’t stay that way), we sell it, and we pay cash for a nicer place or take a trip around the world with the excess. Paying off the house is sounding pretty good right about now.
Once you get past the fears, “too much work” will often turn into “oh I can’t wait til I have a few more minutes to work on it”. Even on the days when you really are just wiped out and in the mood for a movie, you’ll still feel committed to the idea. And because you’re committed to the idea, you’ll find it easier to stick to doing what you need to do despite it being work.
Posted in Success on 01.26.10 with 4 comments.
Fear was something that kept me saving as much as should have or could have. I feared not have immediate access to my funds in the even that an emergency came up or an unexpected expense came my way. Now that I pay everything automatically and on time there are none of those unexpected bills popping up.
So, I can definitely say having a goal and getting it DONE is a lot of work, but well worth it in the long run.
That’s great that you were able to get past that fear
I think its called “maintaing the passion” and to me, if a little time off is needed to do this, I think its fine. Not too much time, though. And if you’re truly passionate, you won’t have a problem returning to it with the same amount of zeal.
David, I think we all have days where things just seem like too much work. For very large projects, sometimes it’s hard to maintain the passion throughout. But, it’s not necessary to feel super excited 100% of the time about something in order to do it.