“It” can always be better. “It” can always be improved. But it won’t magically improve…it only gets better if you make it better. The world isn’t out to get you, but it’s not out there trying to make your dreams come true either. If you want your dreams to come true, you need to do something about it. Ask yourself, first, what are the most important goals in my life (short-term and long-term). Then figure out where you need to be and what you need to get done within the next 10 years, 5 years, 1 year, 90 days, 7 days, and by the end of the day. Take an action step. What do you want? How will you get there? Go out and “do.” Because without doing, you’ll be at the same place tomorrow as you were today. And then 30 years will pass in the blink of an eye and you’ll have achieved nothing of great meaning (or, at the very least, achieved very little in comparison to if you had a goal and an action plan to achieve that goal in place).
Tag: taking action
What to do when you’re feeling sad
When you feel sad, go do something. Do something that usually makes you happy. Take your mind off of whatever is bothering you, not to completely distract you from pain, but to let you come back to it later with a different perspective. Go work out, hang out with friends, watch a movie, read, be productive… Movement is key. Don’t sit and wallow in your sorrow. You’re likely not going to come up with a solution to your problem if you only focus on the bad and feel sorry for yourself.
Smile. Laugh. Move. It’s hard to be sad and laugh at the same time. When your body feels good (like during/after a workout), it can trick your mind into feeling good. Get going and you will begin to feel better. And realize, all things pass with time. The sadness you’re currently feeling will eventually go away on its own, but it will go away even quicker if you help the process.
Do you have a warrior’s mindset?
Do you have a Warrior’s mindset? When things get tough, will you fight or will you lay down? Can you adapt and overcome? Will you persist through failure, getting up after you’ve been knocked down?
Make no excuses. Do not complain. Embrace the “suck.”
Things will get better if you consistently take the right actions – making logical “bets” with asymmetric risk/rewards (that is, finding actions that do not carry much risk, but have outsized rewards). The more you string together good days the more success you set yourself up for. It’s like a flywheel…at first it can be hard to get started, but once you get momentum going, it’s hard to stop. Work hard to build momentum and then it’s much easier to keep it going.
Being a positive realist
Not everything that happens in life is positive. Yes, you can try to find the silver lining in everything (and you should), but that doesn’t mean that you should ignore the negative.
When you feel pain, suffering, or annoyance, it’s for a reason. Pay attention to that and do something about it. If you can’t do anything about it, there’s no need to get angry or stressed about it. There’s no need to beat yourself up over it or to make yourself feel bad. And there is never a need to have self-pity.
Things happen that we don’t want to happen all the time. We can’t change the past. But we can learn from it and use those experiences to shape our future. Whether we decide to focus on the negative or positive is up to us, but the best choice is to see the whole picture, realize it is what it is, and get to work.
It’s just like the Serenity Prayer says…”God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.”
Today, and from now on, work on being a positive realist. You’re realistic about the situation at hand, but you can find the light in everything.
Impactful hours
The Wealthy Gardener discusses the idea of how the most productive people take advantage of maximizing their time by adding impact hours and minimizing the amount of hollow hours throughout their day.
We all have the same amount of time in the day, but clearly some people have more impact than others. Clearly some can accomplish more in the same amount of time than others.
Why is this so?
It is because they use their hours more effectively to create better results. Even though they have the same 24 hours as everyone else, they have fewer hollow (aka “wasted”) hours. What would an example of a hollow hour be? Watching Netflix, scrolling through social media, doing nothing to move you forward or achieve your goals.
Your goal should be to fill your day up with more impactful hours. What actions do you need to take to move the needle in getting you closer to your goals?