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I'm a big fan of Mr. Tony Robbins.
I re-listened to some of his audiotapes recently, dawning the realization that my ideas on productivity stemmed directly from something I'd listened to well over a year ago.
Like most guys in our industry I am competitive by nature... I want to reach the next level.
We're usually Type-A personalities.
This is why what CC said about keeping your sanity is so important. In this post I just want to expand a little with some of my own thoughts that I'd like to share.
I digress though, being competitive doesn't change the fact we're all susceptible to general human problems. We can have dips in our motivation that kill our productivity, maybe you feel guilty for that and it just makes it worse?
I know those feelings because I always struggled with that kind of dichotomy... One week I'd be killing it, then for three weeks I'd be in free-fall. Maybe some of us get that worse, I don't know.
Our creative and competitive natures can be affected by so many different factors that are out of our control. I'd get ideas flying through my bizarre mind-factory and I'd stutter at this because I'd feel bad that I didn't have the resources to follow it through.
I shouldn't have even of been thinking about those things. I had other projects, but rather than just taking a note and carrying on it became a nightmarish pattern of disruption.
Self-sabotage...
When this stuff went down it was always as my momentum was dipping and sure enough my productivity followed. You see they're intertwined, and you may have figured this out already...
Momentum isn't cyclical, but linear.
You can build on it and as with all Newton's grand insights the common-sense knowledge we know is that it's harder to gain momentum when there is none in the first place.
Keeping momentum is of the UTMOST importance for anyone with serious ambitions and goals. If we don't reach those goals, or progress at the rate we expect then we beat ourselves down and in most cases this kills off the momentum/productivity even more.
So it became obvious to me when I listened to Tony's sage advice for a second time that designing activities to accelerate and build that momentum were critical.
- Doing the dishes & not leaving them.
- Beginning that exercise program you've been wanting to do.
Basically do the small tasks first & don't put off activities that are critical to achieving your goals... Even if you start off doing something small that you've been putting off it'll make you feel good and help you get more done the next day.
What's just as important is keeping out those negative influences that kill momentum.
What can affect momentum?
Music e.g. What we imbibe. Food, TV, Conversations.
Apply that to your own reality and trim away the fat that's causing you issues. I really enjoy certain music, but it'll over a few tracks get me in a melancholic mood. I don't have that in the day, what works for me is 'Chillstep'.
Pretty much everything we do in life is to avoid pain, or gain pleasure.
We're highly motivated by fear & avoiding pain. Neuro-associations tend to be crafted in highly emotional states and this is how we end up having our experiences translate to problems, often these become habits...
When I left college 5 years ago I was broke as hell and had debt coming out my eyes after losing the first job I got after just 6 months... I used to fear opening letters coming through the door and for years after, even when I had the money to pay my debts I would still obey this awful habit out of the associations my brain had made. Fear made me it's bitch.
A lack of momentum can cause lacking in the following qualities;
- Productivity
- Success
- Happiness
- Confidence/Faith In Your Abilities.
When we lose productivity or momentum we're probably procrastinating about something. Guys like us call that laziness...
Laziness/Procrastination is usually spawned from fear. Spawned from lacking in the above qualities which are spawned from a lack of momentum.
Laziness/Procrastination is primarily a habit and they're totally affected by our life paradigm, our life map if you will... Now look... Our paradigm that we operate in is extremely IMPORTANT because IF (and this isn't really a question) our primary motivators are to either avoid pain or gain pleasure... Then our habits are a simple circumstance of the way our life paradigm thinks about pain and pleasure. So laziness is a way of avoiding pain. It stems from a fundamental fear of whatever it is you're avoiding in life!
Momentum primarily slows when we attach pain to doing simple tasks that we know we need to do!
We all need to change the way we look at pain points. The best way to do this is face them head on, and reward yourself for doing that. I beat my frankly strange fear of opening the mail by rewarding myself with a bit of extra free time, which resulted in me feeling way happier over time because that fear used to nag me and kill my momentum every time I got a letter through the door.
Some times even now I screw up and don't do something I should... I put it off, which is negative, but I don't add to that by beating myself up about it. That's something that really kills off momentum quickly because you obsess over it. Putting stuff off does negatively effect your mood, but it's not the end of the world and don't look at it that way because that makes it more potent.
Beating yourself up over something is a waste of energy, energy you can put into shifting things up a gear... There is a silver-lining to every situation if you can frame it right.
Momentum is all about making the small consonant decisions that add up over time to larger changes that create more momentum, more productivity and more happiness.
Our most valuable commodity in life is our time, we can make a better use of it when we eliminate the negatives; we build our lives around making effective decisions and there's no such thing as failure until you stop trying, everything else is just a learning opportunity.
You may hit an all-time low one day, but momentum can be built and that's the silver-lining because productivity is addictive, the more you do, the more you succeed; the more you succeed, the more success you want.
Once you get a good basic routine that becomes a habit for you then you'll be on auto-pilot flying high with a base of momentum that's not reset at the beginning of each new day. Those consonant decisions help here, but you want to progress and secure that momentum.
When you feel like you've reached this point it's time to implement the MIT 'Most Important Task' tactic.
You do your MIT at the start of your day and it's the one task that allows your entire day to be a success if nothing else gets done that day.
It requires a bit of planning, all of this does...
But as Benjamin Franklin said; 'Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.'
I re-listened to some of his audiotapes recently, dawning the realization that my ideas on productivity stemmed directly from something I'd listened to well over a year ago.
Like most guys in our industry I am competitive by nature... I want to reach the next level.
We're usually Type-A personalities.
This is why what CC said about keeping your sanity is so important. In this post I just want to expand a little with some of my own thoughts that I'd like to share.
I digress though, being competitive doesn't change the fact we're all susceptible to general human problems. We can have dips in our motivation that kill our productivity, maybe you feel guilty for that and it just makes it worse?
I know those feelings because I always struggled with that kind of dichotomy... One week I'd be killing it, then for three weeks I'd be in free-fall. Maybe some of us get that worse, I don't know.
Our creative and competitive natures can be affected by so many different factors that are out of our control. I'd get ideas flying through my bizarre mind-factory and I'd stutter at this because I'd feel bad that I didn't have the resources to follow it through.
I shouldn't have even of been thinking about those things. I had other projects, but rather than just taking a note and carrying on it became a nightmarish pattern of disruption.
Self-sabotage...
When this stuff went down it was always as my momentum was dipping and sure enough my productivity followed. You see they're intertwined, and you may have figured this out already...
Momentum isn't cyclical, but linear.
You can build on it and as with all Newton's grand insights the common-sense knowledge we know is that it's harder to gain momentum when there is none in the first place.
Keeping momentum is of the UTMOST importance for anyone with serious ambitions and goals. If we don't reach those goals, or progress at the rate we expect then we beat ourselves down and in most cases this kills off the momentum/productivity even more.
So it became obvious to me when I listened to Tony's sage advice for a second time that designing activities to accelerate and build that momentum were critical.
- Doing the dishes & not leaving them.
- Beginning that exercise program you've been wanting to do.
Basically do the small tasks first & don't put off activities that are critical to achieving your goals... Even if you start off doing something small that you've been putting off it'll make you feel good and help you get more done the next day.
What's just as important is keeping out those negative influences that kill momentum.
What can affect momentum?
Music e.g. What we imbibe. Food, TV, Conversations.
Apply that to your own reality and trim away the fat that's causing you issues. I really enjoy certain music, but it'll over a few tracks get me in a melancholic mood. I don't have that in the day, what works for me is 'Chillstep'.
Pretty much everything we do in life is to avoid pain, or gain pleasure.
We're highly motivated by fear & avoiding pain. Neuro-associations tend to be crafted in highly emotional states and this is how we end up having our experiences translate to problems, often these become habits...
When I left college 5 years ago I was broke as hell and had debt coming out my eyes after losing the first job I got after just 6 months... I used to fear opening letters coming through the door and for years after, even when I had the money to pay my debts I would still obey this awful habit out of the associations my brain had made. Fear made me it's bitch.
A lack of momentum can cause lacking in the following qualities;
- Productivity
- Success
- Happiness
- Confidence/Faith In Your Abilities.
When we lose productivity or momentum we're probably procrastinating about something. Guys like us call that laziness...
Laziness/Procrastination is usually spawned from fear. Spawned from lacking in the above qualities which are spawned from a lack of momentum.
Laziness/Procrastination is primarily a habit and they're totally affected by our life paradigm, our life map if you will... Now look... Our paradigm that we operate in is extremely IMPORTANT because IF (and this isn't really a question) our primary motivators are to either avoid pain or gain pleasure... Then our habits are a simple circumstance of the way our life paradigm thinks about pain and pleasure. So laziness is a way of avoiding pain. It stems from a fundamental fear of whatever it is you're avoiding in life!
Momentum primarily slows when we attach pain to doing simple tasks that we know we need to do!
We all need to change the way we look at pain points. The best way to do this is face them head on, and reward yourself for doing that. I beat my frankly strange fear of opening the mail by rewarding myself with a bit of extra free time, which resulted in me feeling way happier over time because that fear used to nag me and kill my momentum every time I got a letter through the door.
Some times even now I screw up and don't do something I should... I put it off, which is negative, but I don't add to that by beating myself up about it. That's something that really kills off momentum quickly because you obsess over it. Putting stuff off does negatively effect your mood, but it's not the end of the world and don't look at it that way because that makes it more potent.
Beating yourself up over something is a waste of energy, energy you can put into shifting things up a gear... There is a silver-lining to every situation if you can frame it right.
Momentum is all about making the small consonant decisions that add up over time to larger changes that create more momentum, more productivity and more happiness.
Our most valuable commodity in life is our time, we can make a better use of it when we eliminate the negatives; we build our lives around making effective decisions and there's no such thing as failure until you stop trying, everything else is just a learning opportunity.
You may hit an all-time low one day, but momentum can be built and that's the silver-lining because productivity is addictive, the more you do, the more you succeed; the more you succeed, the more success you want.
Once you get a good basic routine that becomes a habit for you then you'll be on auto-pilot flying high with a base of momentum that's not reset at the beginning of each new day. Those consonant decisions help here, but you want to progress and secure that momentum.
When you feel like you've reached this point it's time to implement the MIT 'Most Important Task' tactic.
You do your MIT at the start of your day and it's the one task that allows your entire day to be a success if nothing else gets done that day.
It requires a bit of planning, all of this does...
But as Benjamin Franklin said; 'Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.'
