I will continue my daily challenge but a week later from the previous post. I was journaling about understanding reality first and then determining how to deal with it previously. I guess the reality is that I’m not as consistent as I want to be because I allow other activities to be prioritized over my goals (some more than others). Therefore, while it is possible that this journalizing may end up being weekly rather than daily, I initially set a goal to journal daily so I will start again to continue with that goal. I know that if I continue to be persistent and commit to my goal I will achieve it and develop a habit where it doesn’t take so much effort to focus.
Fortunately the topic today has aspects that focus on my current challenge I mentioned above. Ray talks about a five step process to get what you want out of your life and my goal is to listen to each section and journal about how I can apply this to my life. The journaling will probably not be proofread and be a stream of consciousness. So, if you read this and if it helps you great, if not that is ok too
I started a different process for this introspective activity. Previously I would listen to the whole section and journal about that. Now I see it more effective to chunk my journaling activity per each audio clip. Since I tend to focus my thinking to around 5 minute increments it seems fitting that each audio clip is around three to five minutes. Therefore, after listening to each clip I will journal for five minutes about that section.
Five Step Process to get what you want out of life
I listened to a five-step iterative process that described setting clear goals, identify and don’t tolerate obstacles to your goals, and create plans to get around the obstacles. So, how can I apply this to my life? Well, I set a goal. This seems the easy part or at least easy to say I want something. However, sometimes those goals are not achievable, specific, and timebound. But other times they are and I just don’t prioritize the short term activity that leads to long term fulfillment. Therefore, my conclusion is that I must be better at saying no to goals that are not as important to me or prioritizing other’s goals or reacting to other people’s fires.
For example I have a goal set to work on my business project for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon. The general problem that I’ve identified is that I don’t always follow through with my plan. My hope with the goal that I mentioned was that I would be able to achieve my long term goal because I was decreasing the daily time commitment and focus on a specifically defined activity. However, other tasks got prioritized in their place. So, I think I’ve identified a problem in my goal achievement – I let other tasks (my and other’s) be prioritized over the necessary tasks to achieve my long term goals. In addition, the the other problem I’ve identified is my energy. Sometimes I’m too tired to achieve all the goals that I’ve outlined for myself and when I skip one day on my activity plan it usually means that I skip several days which means that I need to rework the whole plan which delays it further.
So, what is the plan to get around these two problems? Since I have a problem where activity gets prioritized over other goals during the day (sometimes as a necessity because there are immediate issues related to a going concern), I will focus on a specific long term goal as the first task in the morning. If that means I need to wake up at 4:30 am before I start work at 5 am to spend 30 minutes working on my side business project then that is what I must do. That being said, this means I must go to sleep at 8 pm or 8:30 pm consistently every day because I also have a challenge with energy. When I don’t get enough sleep I don’t consistently achieve my action plan. I feel comfortable pushing back on any meetings set before 5 am and I feel like I can concentrate at that time. Generally as well I won’t work completely through the night – although sometimes I do this is not the norm. Therefore, I should also work on my side business project as the first activity after I stop working. This next point will be harder because I am tired at the end of my work day and I don’t want to work anymore than that most of the time, I shouldn’t end my work day until I have spent at least 30 minutes on my side business in the end of the day. If I ensure that I create a routine around these two blocks of time I will for sure achieve my goals. My current challenge is not anything other than a failure to focus consistently on my action plan.
Set Clear Goals
set stretch goals but don’t over do it. I focus now on setting goals that I can achieve more consistently on a daily basis. If I am not completing them daily then it is either a prioritization problem or a energy/focus problem. I’m pretty good at comprehensively completing tasks but sometimes I focus too much on one thing which puts me behind on my other goals. This indicates to me that I’m trying to do too much.
I also listened to Ray talk about go achievement as a function of flexibility to listen to other believable people’s opinions and/or accept reality and self accountability to do what it takes to achieve your goal.
Goals are generally long term while desires are usually a first order consequence that take me off the path to my goals. Weight loss is usually the best example of this. My desire may be to eat a large pizza or cheeseburger now which takes me off the path to lose weight consistently over time. While it would be best to cut out those activities completely I also know that if I deprive myself of my desires completely my short term desire will put weight my need to fulfill my long term goal. Therefore if I want to continue consistent progress I must allocate an acceptable regression with a short term desire that doesn’t completely throw me off my path. Practically that means eating a personal rather than a small pizza, drinking two to three beers maybe three times a week rather than five, and just incrementally scaling back rather than trying to go from zero to one hundred all at once.
