Hey everyone,
Progress threads are back! The last one was in December 2020 and lasted nearly a year. This time, there's gonna be much more action going on, and there's no finish date.
Why?
Context:
Since January 2020, there's been a lot of testing with ideas and routines. While experimenting/learning, there's barely been any progress in my careers. Pretty much everything is the same from the last update I made on the previous thread.
But the only reason it must be now is because of the FTE I had last week.
I consider myself an underachiever because I hardly get motivated by fear/adversity. That's why all this time I've taken a relaxed approach. Maybe you relate: have you ever tried to plan/optimize something before you even started doing it? My biggest mistake was focusing on productivity, and thinking that I'll be successful just by making the right decisions.
So what was the FTE?
- Since February, a guy who fraudulently reported my Amazon listing got it blocked. The only way to fix this was to send the right legal documents with a reinstatement service. I dropped $1000, which was most of my savings
- Since February, I lost one client due to a lack of budget. This summer, the last one is taking a break too
- Last week, I spent most of my time procrastinating (since I wake up until I went to bed), hoping that things got fixed. They didn't, and while I was getting some minimal work, the whole situation was frustrating
- The legal agent sent the right document on March 31st. I waited until last week, and we got no replies. There was one week left to delete my (stranded) inventory
- Another guy who started at the same time I did didn't have that issue and has blown up in sales since January, $10K/mo. My product is equally good/better
So if they don't respond, I would lose my inventory, $6K-$10K wasted, which is like an entire year's work (not the most I can earn, but this was what I earned last year). With no clients, it may take a year to recover.
I prepared for the worst and tried to make sense of it. It turns out, had I been obsessed from the beginning, it would never have ended that way.
From that realization, I made it my priority to reach that state. When obsessed, you don't give an F about productivity. You're gonna work as much as you can, because you have that extreme sense of urgency.
I realized that my whole life was wrong. Because everything I believed about me or my dreams were built under that assumption: "I will somehow succeed one day." The reality is: Without obsession, I'm already set to failure. If I keep false expectations, I'm going to get 'scammed' or trapped. I couldn't make sense of my situation, so I committed to obsession (and learned how to create it). That's when I've felt the most alive (and happy).
It's not easy to research this topic, as almost every source you find will talk about it as something wrong that you should stop doing. Either way, this is what I found after researching for the last 4 days (by priority):
1. Create a strong sense of urgency
Urgency = Hunger (for success) You can create this by:
2. Eliminate apathy
There's some emotion in being obsessed. Positive emotions reinforce actions while the negative ones create rejection (and reflexion). Too many negative events in a row cause frustration and lead to apathy as a defense tactic. I have to:
1. Increase my pain tolerance to prevent that from happening:
3. Activate myself (lower body temperature, work out, eat dark-green vegetables, walk more often, drink more water, among other things)
3. Set bold goals
Daily goals that are 'bold' enough to be worth the effort. Such as:
- Doing something others don't
- Doing something for the first time
- Doing something with a self-imposed limitation for the challenge (skipping sleep, fasting, no phone...)
- Beating a work record
[...]
4. Create micro-events
Whenever there's a close event, I feel motivated to finish work before it happens (even if it's unrelated to work). I want there to always be 3+ close events, and if there aren't, I can invent them:
- Anniversaries
- Group events/calls
- Memorials (stuff I sacrificed or stop doing for work reasons)
[...]
5. Dominate your mind
Domination happens when an idea occupies all your mind. After I described my ideal live, I've placed visible reminders everywhere in my desk to always think about it.
There are other exercises that work, but I won't get into that to keep this thread short.
[...]
The daily update will look as follows:
- The Benchmark is the future-self version I'm using for comparison. Between me and my perfect life, there's multiple versions I need to change to, not just one. The first one is about writing as much as I can and spend 2h in business (see My B.Time & Time Goal), while the last one is spending 100% of my time on Amazon research. Different benchmarks mean different goals.
- The metrics are Dollars Earned Today, Business Time (Amazon stuff), Gig Applications, and Total Balance. Each of these has a goal to compare with.
- CP stands for checkpoint, and there's 5 of them in my day. They show how much I've earned after each time period.
That's that. I have no idea of how well this is going to go. It starts tomorrow, and I'm preparing right now. It's time!
Progress threads are back! The last one was in December 2020 and lasted nearly a year. This time, there's gonna be much more action going on, and there's no finish date.
Why?
Context:
Since January 2020, there's been a lot of testing with ideas and routines. While experimenting/learning, there's barely been any progress in my careers. Pretty much everything is the same from the last update I made on the previous thread.
But the only reason it must be now is because of the FTE I had last week.
I consider myself an underachiever because I hardly get motivated by fear/adversity. That's why all this time I've taken a relaxed approach. Maybe you relate: have you ever tried to plan/optimize something before you even started doing it? My biggest mistake was focusing on productivity, and thinking that I'll be successful just by making the right decisions.
So what was the FTE?
- Since February, a guy who fraudulently reported my Amazon listing got it blocked. The only way to fix this was to send the right legal documents with a reinstatement service. I dropped $1000, which was most of my savings
- Since February, I lost one client due to a lack of budget. This summer, the last one is taking a break too
- Last week, I spent most of my time procrastinating (since I wake up until I went to bed), hoping that things got fixed. They didn't, and while I was getting some minimal work, the whole situation was frustrating
- The legal agent sent the right document on March 31st. I waited until last week, and we got no replies. There was one week left to delete my (stranded) inventory
- Another guy who started at the same time I did didn't have that issue and has blown up in sales since January, $10K/mo. My product is equally good/better
So if they don't respond, I would lose my inventory, $6K-$10K wasted, which is like an entire year's work (not the most I can earn, but this was what I earned last year). With no clients, it may take a year to recover.
I prepared for the worst and tried to make sense of it. It turns out, had I been obsessed from the beginning, it would never have ended that way.
From that realization, I made it my priority to reach that state. When obsessed, you don't give an F about productivity. You're gonna work as much as you can, because you have that extreme sense of urgency.
I realized that my whole life was wrong. Because everything I believed about me or my dreams were built under that assumption: "I will somehow succeed one day." The reality is: Without obsession, I'm already set to failure. If I keep false expectations, I'm going to get 'scammed' or trapped. I couldn't make sense of my situation, so I committed to obsession (and learned how to create it). That's when I've felt the most alive (and happy).
It's not easy to research this topic, as almost every source you find will talk about it as something wrong that you should stop doing. Either way, this is what I found after researching for the last 4 days (by priority):
1. Create a strong sense of urgency
Urgency = Hunger (for success) You can create this by:
- a. Reinforcing the risks of inaction and the opportunity cost (in my case, if Amazon didn't work out, I'd need to freelance for the whole 2021 just to get back to the same spot. waste a year of my 20s)
- b. Reminding how many days/weeks are left for a key event (today, I'm 500 days from my 22nd birthday)
- c. List all out-of-control events that can kill your success opportunity overnight
- d. Increase the contrast between the present and your future self (that's why I'm starting this thread!)
2. Eliminate apathy
There's some emotion in being obsessed. Positive emotions reinforce actions while the negative ones create rejection (and reflexion). Too many negative events in a row cause frustration and lead to apathy as a defense tactic. I have to:
1. Increase my pain tolerance to prevent that from happening:
- Take cold showers
- Work out
- Track your data and finances (I hate doing that)
- Work in public places
- Have others observing your work (that's why I'm starting this thread!)
- Research complex topics
- Send job proposals/join interviews
3. Activate myself (lower body temperature, work out, eat dark-green vegetables, walk more often, drink more water, among other things)
3. Set bold goals
Daily goals that are 'bold' enough to be worth the effort. Such as:
- Doing something others don't
- Doing something for the first time
- Doing something with a self-imposed limitation for the challenge (skipping sleep, fasting, no phone...)
- Beating a work record
[...]
4. Create micro-events
Whenever there's a close event, I feel motivated to finish work before it happens (even if it's unrelated to work). I want there to always be 3+ close events, and if there aren't, I can invent them:
- Anniversaries
- Group events/calls
- Memorials (stuff I sacrificed or stop doing for work reasons)
[...]
5. Dominate your mind
Domination happens when an idea occupies all your mind. After I described my ideal live, I've placed visible reminders everywhere in my desk to always think about it.
There are other exercises that work, but I won't get into that to keep this thread short.
[...]
The daily update will look as follows:
- The Benchmark is the future-self version I'm using for comparison. Between me and my perfect life, there's multiple versions I need to change to, not just one. The first one is about writing as much as I can and spend 2h in business (see My B.Time & Time Goal), while the last one is spending 100% of my time on Amazon research. Different benchmarks mean different goals.
- The metrics are Dollars Earned Today, Business Time (Amazon stuff), Gig Applications, and Total Balance. Each of these has a goal to compare with.
- CP stands for checkpoint, and there's 5 of them in my day. They show how much I've earned after each time period.
That's that. I have no idea of how well this is going to go. It starts tomorrow, and I'm preparing right now. It's time!
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