The Truth Behind Success: The Choice To Practice The Boring Parts

I did not want to write today.

I did not want to workout and trying at work today sounded awful. Despite my desires, here I am writing, my muscles are sore and I had a surprisingly productive day. Pro Tip: Working out while waking up helps you fight off the negative nillies.

By practicing the art of not snoozing I got myself into gear early.

I constantly battle my inner lazy demons. I spoke to the owner of a budding success yesterday and he told me burnout doesn’t exist for him. Working at an insane pace is what he does because the dreams are his to work for.

Despite any exhausted feelings, if I want to achieve my goals I have to put the work in. 

The feeling of burnout can be managed with habits

Chances are if you are burning out you are doing too much at once. 

The workaholic life I’ve chosen has me throwing myself into new projects all the time. I create unsustainable habits that stretch all my available time. At first everything runs smoothly and I feel like a superhuman cracking the cheat code.  

Then the cards dealt end up with fiascos like an unexpected flat tire. 

Some obstacles take significant time to solve. Recently I discovered the time sink that is managing the death of a loved one. The point is when your plan covers all 168 hours of your week with no leniency, you will discover how meaningless plans are, which may leave you discouraged. 

It’s tough to face neverending deadlines you miss. The work gets sloppier and a sense of failure overcasts everything. Since you can’t live up to what you promised, the doubt creeps in. Then comes the stress and sleeping becomes the difficult dance of your brain fighting with your body. Soon you’re tired all the time and lose all PRSPCTVS. 

Most of the time those deadlines are self imposed. Even when there is money involved and it’s someone else’s timeline, you’ll often find leniency through honesty. All humans go through the same humble pie dance you are in that moment. 

When you communicate your struggle and plan better the next time you get more peace. 

The more I measure success towards my goals the more I build momentum

Okay but changing deadlines doesn’t always change the volume of work.

As I slowly make progress towards clearing my debt (it’s down 2000$ since I started writing about it), I feel this fire light under me. I focus on where I will be in 6 months. I visualize what life will be like when my credit card minimums are a fraction of what they are today. 

There are so many life circumstances that keep a hustler from slowing down. 

This may appear to make the last section moot. Except that section is about planning properly to feel less overwhelmed. That plan can still have you doing 2-3 things that eat up all your time. This is where goals come into the picture. 

If you are in a life where vacations don’t exist then progress is all you have (ironically I’m on vacation in July, but that’s far). 

I work two jobs to pay my bills. On top of that I have the projects I maintain to keep my skills sharp across multiple domains. Even when everything goes perfectly, there’s still too much going on in my life. Shoutout my workaholics out there. The only way to maintain is to take some time to reflect on where you used to be.

When you can measure your success empirically, you can’t argue with your wins. 

In every moment you practice the habits you want to develop

When I chose to stay in bed and sleep earlier this week, I was practicing the art of snoozing.

It’s a lovely art, one that many of us indulge in. Snoozing is a seductive mistress that battles productivity and gets you to spend more time in bed. Often when I start snoozing I remember I need better cardio or I can’t be a good stage performer. I need to practice having my heart race to be able to rap while I’m jumping around. Instead of snoozing, practicing the art of healthier mornings is more on line with my goals. 

I’m not judging those who snooze, but for a lot of us our evening selves end up wildly disappointed by our morning priorities. 

Today I chose to practice my writing. This came with having no idea what I was going to write about. I had to structure this article with the title and headers first because I didn’t even know if I could flush it out.

It was a good opportunity to test how “professional writers” do it. 

Turns out they have a point. This article took way less time to write than I was expecting. There are time saving techniques I want to try like planning out hundreds of article iterations ahead of time. While I feel motivated by my willpower to be disciplined today, making my life easier is important for future blunders. I have many months of tedious grind ahead before I will see the greener pastures. 

That is unless God will laugh at my plans making it take another 2 years. If it does, so be it. I’m a very grit filled person and I will succeed. We all can just by practicing to be our best selves. 

Live Long and Prosper Everyone