When you open youtube, and if you can't find anything interesting to watch, you close it within a minute.
When you read an article, and if you can't find anything interesting in the first few sentences, you close it immediately.
You don't read it till the end to find out if something interesting is written in the end.
When you open a website, and if it doesn't load in the first 10 sec, you go back to google.
You don't wait for 10 minutes to see if it will load.
If you want to order something on Amazon, and it says the product will reach you in one month, you won't order it.
The world around you is not a fan of practising patience. Yet, patience will give you the best results in any field.
The mentality starts from an early age.
You had to choose a career when you were a kid. The career you will spend the next 30-40 years of your life. You don't get 10% of the time, i.e. three years, to wait and find out what interests you. You had to choose; otherwise, you would be left behind.
In life, you have all these goals and ambitions. You are focused on these goals. The more you think about them, the more you want to achieve them.
If you are impatient while making a crucial decision like marriage, you will regret for the rest of your life.
For example, if you choose the wrong person to settle with before 30, you will regret the decision for the next decade or more.
But if you wait for a couple of years and find the right person, you have better chances of having a good life.
Sure, things can go wrong, but you won't regret your choices if you are 100% sure about your decisions.
One factor that makes people impatient is all the hype around them. All the hype on social media, in their friend circle.
If something works for one person, it doesn't mean it will work for you too. Everyone's life and circumstances are different. Everyone has a different level of skill set and intelligence.
A typical example is how most tech millionaires drop out of university to build a multi-million dollar business.
It worked for them, doesn't mean it will work for you.
The sad truth is most people will be somewhere in the middle. Not too rich. Not too poor.
There are a lot of random factors involved in success. It isn't easy to copy. Even if you copy some parts, it is hard to achieve the same results.
Overall, it's just trial and error for everyone. That's why I like to read multiple books about a topic. Suppose different authors talk about similar concepts. It must have some validity.
Focus On Less. Delete All Non-Essential Activities!(So that you keep yourself focused on what's essential)
You look for shortcuts when you try to achieve your goals in the minimum possible time.
I remember getting impatient and throwing away all my hard work.
There were times when I figured out which crypto would increase exponentially in the next bull run. I researched and invested a good amount of money. But then I got impatient and sold it. A month later, the whole market turned around to go 3-4x.
Then, I made all these wrong decisions in my career. Jumping from one thing to another. I was never patient enough to see the result of my efforts.
- You might have a perfect idea about starting a business, but it won't generate thousands of dollars from day one.
- You stop going to the gym because you can't see the improvement in your body from the first day.
- You stop writing because it's hard, and your ideas are too disorganized initially.
You lose patience because you don't see instant results. Building a habit of patience is difficult in a world where everything comes with a promise of hassle-free instant results.
Waiting for results is challenging. But it is always worth it.
You have limited willpower. Adding more things in a limited time will burn out your willpower.
This is the wrong approach. Instead, focus on subtraction. Remove anything that is not adding value. So you have more time and energy to concentrate on things that deliver results.
The first time I read a non-fiction book, I thought I was missing so much on self-development.
I was an introvert and had low self-esteem. So, I wanted to improve quickly. I added reading to my schedule. But it wasn't easy to find time because I was watching tv, listening to music, and playing video games in my free time. I was wasting time and trying to add more activities. It didn't work.
Then I realized that I had to remove things first. I could pick up anything if I let go of all the non-essential activities.
Reward Yourself For the Small wins you had recently(So that you keep yourself focused on the long-term results)
Humans behave in patterns.
Cue → Desire → Action → Reward
When you feel lazy and have loads of pending work, starting and completing a small amount of work is rational.
Instead, you watch a movie. Or play a video game. You let the work pile up.
You chose entertainment instead of work because it is the path of least resistance: low efforts and more rewards in the form of dopamine. It's a subconscious pattern. When you feel lazy, it's a cue to avoid work and find some entertainment material.
It works in the short term. But in the long-term, it develops destructive behaviour.
So, hack the process. Do your work anyway. And when you complete a part of your work, reward yourself. The reward can be watching a series or eating a cookie after you complete your work. In this way, you are building behaviour of working and then enjoying instead of building behaviour of avoiding work.
When you learn these simple self-development tricks, you want to try them every time you see the pattern repeating.
So, whenever I feel lazy, I ask myself, will it work this time?
And it works most of the time.
Find a way to make your work easier. Reward yourself for the small wins you had. And you will be able to repeat this behaviour.
For example, writing in itself is a hard thing to do for most people. But if I write about something interesting to me(like self-improvement), I create a desire to write. And after writing an article, if I reward myself, I will tend to repeat that behaviour in future.
Similarly, I can use this process in other areas of my life to repeat my desired behaviour.
Instead of looking for a band-aid, fix the roots of the problems.
You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. — C.S Lewis.
(I love chronicles of Narnia!)
After leaving the city almost 2 years ago, I have 24hrs a day to call my own. No alarms or bosses to wait for my progress.
Since there's less opportunities, instead of falling into anxiety, I just practice patience too and just use the extra time to rest and enjoy life as it is.
I do have unlimited choices to sleep or do anything, but I keep on reminding myself not to waste my life and regret after. So, in a week, I make sure I learn something new (online courses), do farming, or just brisk walking as an exercise.
Keep writing!