In my past, I've had many days where I sat in front of my computer and stared at that blinking cursor. I wanted to write a new video script and just didn't manage to write down a single word. After a few more minutes of staring at my screen in hopes of the cursor writing the script itself, I started to come up with all sorts of excuses.
I'm not feeling inspired today, maybe I'm just too tired, it's not the right time to do this, tomorrow I can still get it done. I decided to drop it for the day and look for another activity which wouldn't take me any effort. I would find myself scrolling through my phone, watching another series on Netflix, or napping at the side of my bed.
No matter if you have to study for an exam, prepare a business presentation or write a letter for that job application, we all know those times in which our motivation is nowhere to be found. I think, in general, our lives can be separated into two different parts: the life we currently live, and the life we want to live. Or in other words, our current situation and our dreams and aspirations.
And in order to get from one side to the other, we have to put in a lot of work along the way and, in my case, this work was writing a lot of good video scripts and realizing great videos in order to achieve my dream of being a YouTuber. But as you might now, it is never that easy to do the work because there is something called resistance in between those two sides. As Steven Pressfield says in his book "The war of art", "Resistance is a universal force that has one solo mission: to keep things as they are.
It is the force that will stop an individual's creative activity through any means necessary, whether it be rationalising, inspiring fear and anxiety, emphasising other distractions that require attention, raising the voice of an inner critic, and much more. " So when I was coming up with those stupid excuses back then not to write that script, it was a resistance telling my brain to do it another day, even though I knew that finishing this task would help me achieve my goals. But.
. . Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem which is called.
. . Self-discipline.
As Samuel Thomas Davies says, "Self-discipline is about leaning into resistance. Taking action in spite of how you feel. Living a life by design, not by default.
But most importantly, it's acting in accordance with your thoughts - not your feelings. " Over the last 5 years, I really learned how to push through that resistance and build different systems in order to fight that voice in my head. And today, I want to share the 4 most important tips which helped me overcome procrastination, build self-discipline and actually get things done.
So, let's get started. So, if you truly want to create something great, all of your attention has to be at one specific task, for long periods of time. But, as our attention became the new currency in this modern world, there are now more distractions than ever before, screaming for our attention.
There are cell phones, the Internet, social media, emails, or annoying co-workers dropping by your desk. Hey! What are you up to, man?
In order to fix this, you have to remove all kinds of toxic temptations which could possibly distract you from your work. Because if you don't even have the option to indulge in these distracting activities, you will require a lot less willpower to withstand procrastination. What really worked for me was to just set aside specific amounts of uninterrupted time to work on a project or task.
So, for me, that would be two different work blocks throughout the day, so. . .
It would be from 8 until 12 a. m. , and from 1:30 until 7 p.
m. , and in these time frames I just get rid of all of these temptations in order to focus on one single task. If you want to know more about my daily routine, you can find a full video about it, up here.
So, what can you do to drown out all of this noise? Fortunately, I don't have this problem because I don't work in an office, but if you do, then just close the door. This will hold chatty colleagues back from popping their head in and distracting you, and overall, it will just lower the amount of noise.
Alternatively, you can also just use noise-cancelling headphones, which eliminate any noise around you, and also, it just shows other people that you're doing some focused work and you just don't wanna talk right now. Switch your phone into flight mode and put it in a place that you can't immediately reach. Turn off notifications that don't require immediate attention, so especially social media and emails.
And also, if you think that my notifications of my YouTube channel are distracting you from what you're doing, then feel free to turn them off. Also, when you are at your PC or laptop, try to cut out all sorts of distractions. No matter what it is for you, it might be WhatsApp or other messengers.
For me, it is emails. I just close my email program and let these emails accumulate over time, and then I have a specific time where I just get back to all of these emails and I reply to them in a batch, which is a lot more time-efficient and doesn't impact my focus on other tasks. Also, a good way to see what it's like to live without these temptations is to do a dopamine detox for 7 days.
That's what I did a couple of weeks ago, where I didn't use any social media, any digital entertainment or music, and also some other things which are holding us back from achieving our goals. And yeah, I saw a huge impact on my life, I can recommend it to everybody else, and you can find the video up here if you haven't watched it yet. But now, let's get to the next point.
"Amateurs wait for inspiration to strike while the pros get up and get to work. " I really like this quote because it is just so true. Not feeling inspired is, like, one of the most common excuses that everybody uses in terms of creative work, and I've used it a hundred times back in the days.
But action should not be the result of inspiration or motivation, because inspiration often comes from taking action. So it's not really a linear process, but more of a loop of those 3 things, of inspiration, motivation and action, and each of these parts just reinforces the other one. So you should just focus on getting that loop started instead of waiting for inspiration to strike.
It's all about overcoming that very first resistance, because almost all of the time, as soon as you get started, afer like 5 minutes, you will be in a good flow of work and you will actually enjoy it. So for example, in my case, writing the scripts of these videos is like one of the most challenging parts of my work. I'm just sitting in front of a blank page and I have to come up with a compelling story.
And so many times, I've just looked for different excuses not to do it, but over time I just learned to detach my emotions from my actions. Even if I wasn't motivated, I just showed up for work and I just got started, and that was a massive game changer when it comes to my productivity and creativity. As soon as you write down the first sentence of the script, your thoughts will start to form and you will make progress.
And then you will enjoy it, you will be motivated to write down another sentence, and slowly, you will find the inspiration and motivation to get the ball rolling. And this applies to everything in life, not only creative work, but also fitness or talking to strangers, basically anything. Like, if you just approach a stranger, obviously at the beginning there's some resistance holding you back from talking to them, because probably you're scared or you think something weird might happen.
But as soon as you talk to the person, you actually figure out it's not that bad, it's really easy. And it's the same for fitness, it's the same for your creative work, it's the same for basically anything. I used to be a massive overthinker and never really got started with things I wanted to do.
But applying this mindset really made me a man of action, if you wanna say that. And I don't really need any motivation in order to get started. So yeah, this is a really helpful tip: just get started.
Just do it! Do it! Just.
. . do it!
Don't let your dreams be dreams. I'm feeling like Shia LaBeouf here. Alright, let's take a minute to talk about the sponsor of today's video, which is NordVPN.
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I've talked about this before, and I still think that "I don't have any time" is no excuse, because time is all about setting priorities. And if you actually want to achieve your goals, you have to make them a priority and pass on other activities. And one thing that's really great for prioritizing your time, and also scheduling your time throughout the day, is to write to-do lists.
I myself make a to-do list every single morning, where I just sit down and where I write down the most important tasks that I want to get done today. And when you make your to-do list, you should really try to break down your tasks into concrete and achievable steps that lead to a bigger goal. So, for example, instead of saying "write video script", you should say "finish intro of video script".
Or instead of saying "apply for job applications", you should just write down "apply for 3 jobs". Just try to create very concrete to-do's that you can actually achieve and take off. And also, try to keep them realistic, because taking off these different to-do's will get you more sparks of motivation to keep you going, and it will just boost your motivation instead of draining it if you don't finish that task.
And besides those to-do lists, I also schedule specific time blocks for these tasks in my calendar. I basically have 4 different calendars: business, private, release and vacation. "Business" is just business-related stuff, "private" is like meeting friends, going for dinner.
In "release", I just keep track of all of the publishing days for my Instagram posts and YouTube videos, and in "vacation", there's basically nothing. So, these different calendar groups really help me to separate my tasks that I need to get done, and I define specific timings for things like appointments, or calls, or meetings which need to happen at one specific time. But for other things which need a longer time, like shooting a video or editing a video, I just define time frames of days or half days in order to just have an overview of how much time I want to devote to that one task.
And in my release calendar, I actually set myself deadlines for the different things I have to do. So, if there's a sponsored video, or if I work for a client, obviously I have real deadlines that I just add in there. But also for my own projects, like non-sponsored videos, my online shop releases or also my newsletter, which you should actually subscribe to, I just set myself artificial deadlines, because I think that deadlines really help you push your focus and your motivation to get something done.
Obviously, you have to keep it realistic, or else you're going to get stressed out. But I think that deadlines can actually be your friend. So, I really think that this combination of a daily to-do list and an overall calendar, to schedule your time blocks is the way to go, at least for me.
I don't write down every specific timing for everything that I do, because I think that this is just overkill. But having this overall structure and this to-do list that you can follow really helps you reinforce the second point we talked about, which is to just get started, because you know when to get started with it. It's basically like, you never go for a run because you don't feel like it, but as soon as you sign up for a marathon, and you hear that starting shot, you know what to do and you're just going to start running.
That was a pretty good analogy, huh? Let's get to the next tip. Focus on what you are in control of.
In my opinion, this is the most important mindset when it comes to building self-discipline, and to living an overall happy life. I truly believe in this, I could probably create a whole video about it, I probably will, but for now, I'm just going to keep things simple. So, every person has something which is called their "locus of control".
"The locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they, as opposed to external factors, have control over the outcome of events in their lives. " You can either have an external or an internal locus of control. If you have an external locus of control, you believe that the events of your life are a result of external forces, while if you have an internal locus of control, you believe that the events of your life are a result of your own actions.
So, for example, if you're sitting in class and the teacher just hands you back the results of your exam, and you're just sitting there, like "damn, I fucked it up again", then the person with an external locus of control will say "yeah, the teacher just doesn't like me, the exam was too difficult", while the person with an internal one would say "maybe I just didn't study enough, probably I should put in more effort the next time". And when it comes to self-discipline, you want to have an internal locus of control, because as soon as you have that, 90% of the excuses you come up with when feeling demotivated will just disappear, because you realize that it is completely up to you, and not to external factors. See, if there's something holding you back from doing a specific task, just ask yourself the question "can I change something about it?
" If the answer is yes, then find a solution to the problem, and if the answer is no, then stop draining all of your attention and energy on this one thing, and just get along with it, because there's nothing you can change about it, right? The more internal your locus of control becomes, the more solutions you will find to the problems you face. So, I have a lot of people reaching out to me and saying they would love to start a YouTube channel and it is their absolute dream, but they just can't do it because they don't have a camera, or they don't have the right equipment.
And people who say that have an external locus of control, because the ones with an internal one would just look for a solution, they would save up money, they would get another job and work really hard in order to make it happen, if the camera is needed to achieve their goals. So yeah, I think that this mindset applies to all areas in your life, and I think that it is actually the number 1 reason for any success that I had in my life. As soon as you become independent from external factors and you just focus on what you're in control of, you can do so much more and you will become really really disciplined.
Alright, so, that's it for this video. I hope that these four tips will help you build more self-discipline and achieve your goals. Obviously, being passionate about your work is also one of the greatest catalysts in order to stay motivated and to get things done, because as soon an you love your work, it just becomes a lot easier to do.
I just didn't really want to go in depth into that topic of passion in this video, as I wanted to keep it applicable to everybody. But if you want to know more on how to find your passion, you can check out my full video about that here. And besides that, you can also sign up to my monthly newsletter by hitting the link in the description, and you can also subscribe to my channel and turn on notifications, only if you want to.
And yeah, I'm going to see you guys in the next one. Peace out, bye bye.
