Two reasons YOU and ME ain’t successful yet.

Two reasons YOU and ME ain’t successful yet.

I know the statement carries a strongly negative connotation.

But, hey you gotta embrace some tough love to unstuck yourself.

Before we dive, head straight in to the topic. Let’s just concur — what it means to be successful?

Most measures success in terms of money. That’s true. But, however, that’s not the ONLY metric of success. For a few, freedom to work on their terms could mean success. While others could find success in being happy and spending fulfilling time with the family.

That’s how I define success.

You could USE any of those metrics as an acid test to gauge if you’re successful or not (yet).

If you’ve failed the acid test…

Your bro got some tough love for you (and himself. As he too. Flunked.)

Two primary reasons that YOU and ME haven’t tasted success yet.

a) lack of focus

b) inaction

And I’m not writing THIS to sh*t on you.

It innit always about you.

Smarty pants.

I’m selfish.

I’m writing this for myself.

Jokes apart.

I’m writing this to reflect on my thoughts, find a solution on how to become focused and take action to become successful in life. And this writing might help my fellow mates — become focused and take actions to build their dream life.

Let’s get started WITH the juicy stuff.

If you aren’t focused in life, you could never be successful.

WAIT.

You weren’t expecting a lecture full of plain (vanilla) platitudes.

This was supposed to be informative and actionable right off the bat, right?

Touche.

But on a serious note…

I had to pull these bad jokes to keep you invested in reading. Otherwise, you’d find this article BORING and monotonous.

The biggest reason — why we can’t FOCUS.

We’re bored.

We are always looking for fun stuff.

Mundane routines just fry our brains.

Not progressing/moving forward makes us unhappy.

Lose focus from our goals.

But the fundamental question is — what’s focus and why is it so important to succeed in life?

Focus is nothing but giving undivided attention to ONE thing, person, or task without getting distracted with other thoughts and actions.

Being focused helps us completely immerse in the present.

And complete immersion is necessary to become proficient at skills, control our behavior/actions, learn new things, and drive our goals home.

How to focus and get shit done:

a) Complete or Kill (elimination)

Get rid of excess waste and clutter from your life.

Minimalism and simplicity is the key to a successful life. But how the ‘F’ you SIMPLIFY. Here’s a strategy, I stole from the OG Billionaire (Warren Buffett):

- Write down 25 goals.

- Now circle the 5 most burning goals you wanna achieve.

- Focus only on those 5 goals.

- Forget about the rest of the 20 until you haven’t achieved YOUR Primary 5

That’s how you ROLL baby.

b) Boredom and consistency

Embrace boredom. Be willing to eat sh*t. Restrain from giving YOUR brain those cheap dopamine rush (you know what I’m talking about).

Delayed Gratification>>>>Instant Pleasures

c) Measure results

Even micro results should be measured and analyzed. Would keep track of your progress.

Define a few key parameters that you want to track. And consistently track your results. This would give you an idea of things you need to double down on or when to pivot your strategies.

d) Detach from result

Put your focus on the process.

The point is not to worry about hitting the target. The point is to fall in love with the boredom of doing the work and embrace each piece of the process. It is not the target that matters.

It is not the finish line that matters. It is the way we approach the goal that matters.

Once you’ve nailed how to focus, you’d have overcome the problem of being consistent and embracing boredom.

Let’s settle the next BIG elephant in the house.

Inaction.

No matter how motivated you’re to reach your goals,

No matter how focused you’re to reach your goals.

The biggest stepping stone (between you and your goals is) inaction or execution.

You could keep on daydreaming about your goals and can remain focused on your goal. However, if you’re not taking any steps forward, you would never taste success.

Because action creates momentum.

And momentum helps you sail through all the difficulties.

First law of motion?

An object remains in motion until an external force is applied.

This is the most simple definition of the fundamental law of physics.

But I’ll try to make you understand its TRUE underlying meaning.

Envision this…

You’ve a giant ball (symbolically, which represents you). And your task is to get the ball to a place which is down a hill (aka your goals.)

Initially, it’d be really difficult to get the ball rolling. But once you’ve set it in motion, it’d roll over obstacles like pebbles or stones with ease (which represents your day-to-day failures, emotions, and breakdowns).

Even if the ball hits the wall (representing a BIG failure), it won’t immediately come to a halt. It would lose some energy.

(YOU science nerds stop bugging me with your stupid question was the collision elastic or inelastic collision. I’m serious. I’m trying to make things easy for you. Apologize some random dudes were trying to distract us😅).

So, even if the ball hits a giant wall, it won’t stop altogether, rather it’d lose some energy, but would pivot or change its direction.

You get it right?

Hmm…I get it.

But how to take actions and build momentum?

Do you have any framework or process?

Yes, here’s what I’ve been experimenting with and pretty much on the right track.

a) Routine

You’re much likely to take actions if you’ve a routine.

Routine helps you minimize distractions.

Routine builds the habit.

Scheduling some time to knock your needle movers out of the park is the best practice you could follow.

Find out your peak productive hours.

And schedule all your needle moving tasks during your most productive hours.

For example, I’m an early to rise guy.

I find my flow during the morning hours.

First 4 hours of my day are devoted to needle movers such as writing this, client work, and outreach. Those 4 hours are my deep work sessions.

Deep work simply means knocking one task out of the park WITHOUT any distraction.

No mobile.

No email.

No hundreds of tabs.

Just focus on completing one task.

b) Plan your day a night before

Humans don’t like uncertainty.

You’re likely to procrastinate if you don’t have a clear path or line of action.

Create a to-do-list and stick it to the top left corner of your laptop/PC screen before hitting the sack.

c) Embrace fear

Fear is the biggest enemy standing between you and your dream life.

We’re likely to not take any action if we fear.

The most common fears are:

Fear of getting judged. Reality: Nobody gives f**k. People are selfish. They care for themselves.

Fear of failure. Reality: No one’s perfect. You’re bound to make mistakes and fail.

Fear of rejection. Reality: Without rejections, you’d never build a thick skin and would never succeed.

d) Sprinkle some fun

Reward yourself for completing your tasks.

If a task feels boring.

Find a way to make it interesting.

There’s a lot on your plate?

Start small.

Divide the big project in to smaller chunks.

And attack it piece by piece.

That’s a wrap.

That’s a lot for you to process.

Re-read this article once more.

TL;DR:

Be focused and build the habit of taking actions.