Improve Every Day

I bet you have many goals in life. I know I do.

It's good to have them.

But when you focus on your goals too much, you can actually decrease your chances of achieving them.

In this video I'll explain why that happens and why instead of focusing your goals, you should focus on creating a system.

The articles that inspired the video:

https://www.scottadamssays.com/2013/1...

https://jamesclear.com/goals-systems

You might have noticed that sometimes when the afternoon rolls around you become less productive. From roughly 1pm to 4pm, to be more precise.

During that time, you're not as motivated to do the work, you have a harder time focusing, and even the work that you do, is of lower quality.

A lot of people around the globe experience this exact phenomenon every single day.

And it has a name: the afternoon slump.

Want to learn more about this topic?

Check out Dan Pink's book which is all about the science of timing:

EU: https://amzn.to/2UtI18w

US: https://amzn.to/39wieku

Video references:

Hospital: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

Hospital: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/rel...

Danish students: https://www.pnas.org/content/113/10/2621

Walks: https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/arti...

Power naps: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/f...

There's this one financial mistake I see people making all the time.

Anyone can make it, and often, they don't even realise they're making it before it's too late.

And it doesn't matter if they're earning 10 thousand or 10 million dollars per year.

This mistake can keep people poor forever. And even if they're wealthy, it has the power to make them broke.

So what is that mistake?

You probably don't have a problem playing video games or browsing social media on your phone. In fact I have no doubt you could sit in front of a screen and do both of those activities for 2 hours, or even longer without breaking your concentration.

But what about half an hour of studying? That might be too hard.

How about working on your side business for another hour? Doesn't sound too appealing.

Even though you logically know that studying, exercising, building a business or something equally productive, will bring you more benefits in the long run, you still prefer watching TV, playing video games and scrolling through social media.

One might argue that it's obvious why.

One activity is easy and doesn't require much effort, while the other activity is difficult and it requires you to apply yourself.

But some people seem to have no problem studying, exercising, or working on their side projects, regularly.

Which begs the question: Why are some people more motivated to tackle difficult things?

And is there a way to make doing difficult things, easy?

References:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/00...

https://www.centersite.net/poc/view_d...

Get the book "Elastic Habits" here:

US: https://amzn.to/37ZHqju

EU: https://amzn.to/2vbTyPB

Let me ask you this:

Why do most people fail at creating habits that stick?

Well, there could be plenty of factors, but one major reason is they are not consistent with them.

They might achieve their habit goal one day, but then the next day something comes up, and they skip doing the habit altogether.

But the point of any habit, is to make it a habit in the first place.

This means doing it every single day without fail.

So how can we do that?

How can we become consistent with our habits so they actually stick?

The solution is to make our habits elastic.

Have you ever come across contradicting advice?

You might have read a book by someone you admire and they say that if you want similar results, you should do X.

However some time later, you come across another piece of advice by someone else in a similar position. But the advice is completely opposite to the previous advice you received. They say that you should avoid X and do Y instead.

So now you have two different people, both at a level you want to achieve, telling you different things.

Let's take a look at why that is and see whose advice you should listen to.

Get the book:

US: https://amzn.to/2MZHYx3

UK: https://amzn.to/35yl7PX

In today's world, being busy is the new norm.

We have a ton of projects we would like to do, and whenever something new comes up, we try to fit it in our already overflowing schedules.

We believe that if we just work more and work harder, we can do it all.

However, being busy doesn't mean we're actually doing things that are important.

The truth is that most things that we do, aren't important at all, but instead are completely trivial.

The antidote to this overwhelming busyness is essentialism.

Has this ever happened to you?

One day, life seems to be going great and everything seems to be progressing well.

But the next day, you wake up with no motivation whatsoever and you suddenly feel stuck.

Just going through your daily routine is a struggle and it feels like a chore. And to make matters worse, you beat yourself up for not being as productive as you'd like to be.

What happened is you've entered a mental rut.

It's basically a state of mind where you feel stuck, purposeless and you're unable to motivate yourself.

And doing anything that day can be difficult.

Days like these will come unexpectedly, seemingly out of nowhere, and can last for days or even weeks.

You most likely already know what's good for you and what's not.

You know that eating fried, fast food, is not good for you.

You understand that laying on the couch, watching TV and browsing social media is also bad.

And you're fully aware that smoking is horrible for your health.

Now the question is: why do you do the things that you know are not good for you?

If you logically understand which habits are bad, why don't you avoid them?

In this video I'll explain why you keep on performing those bad habits and I'll give you a solution for the problem.

Most of us want to improve our lives. But for that to happen, we need to adopt certain positive habits.

Fundamentally speaking, habits play a key role in our day to day lives.

But not all habits are created equal. Some can have a much bigger impact than others.

This is why it's important that we learn to identify these habits and develop them.

Charles Duhigg, author of the book "The Power of Habit," calls them "keystone habits."

So what is a keystone habit?