I was just updating my planning and that suddenly made me realize how far I have come. And of course that reminded me of one of the quotes I found and sent:
“The reason why people give up so fast is because they tend to look at how far they still have to go, instead of how far they have gotten.” – Unknown
And I didn’t even remember what the quote exactly was and I couldn’t find it straight away, but I found it. And weird enough this site was even on the first page in Google with the exact text, but no, it’s not mine.
And the reason why I was reminded of that quote was that I improved my planning by adding something like goals, results, where until now I have been very conservative with my planning, my daily to-do list. So imagine, how far I have gotten, starting to think about results, goals, and planning them, where before I believed that you can only plan activities and not goals or results.
And keep in mind that today, like most days, I still feel very bad, very unhappy in the morning, meaning it takes me quite a while to find the courage to get out of bed, meaning I often start the day late, very late, like around eleven on average.
And keep in mind that in general am very unhappy and that my relationship is in ruins and that my financial situation is still bad, very bad.
But somehow something has changed. Somehow I am growing, somehow my self confidence is growing, a lot. And while writing this I am getting a bit emotional, as this relates to something I wrote long time ago and that is hanging on the bathroom mirror. So somehow that statement, even though I recently hardly practiced it or so, must have stuck in my mind.
And I am thinking of making a page about this, but I don’t want to put the time for that right now, so for now I’ll just write my process on how I got here in this post. As I think this is very important information, this could be very useful for you, especially if you are fully stuck and down and without energy or anything.
And my process was something like this:
- I read somewhere about habit, about discipline.
- And somehow I wanted to get started with something, no matter how deep down I was.
- So I found this ‘trick’ like doing something very small, every day. Like making the bed, every day.
- So I started making the bed, every day. And yes, that was also triggered by what I learned about decision, about deciding something and sticking to it.
- And yes, there were some external factors in that, like someone giving me the book Think and Grow Rich. So that must have been Infinite Intelligence or the Law of Attraction at work.
- But I started making the bed, as I presumed that was something I could do every day, which was kind of a decision, as at the time I was fully paralyzed, emotionally. I couldn’t do anything, that’s how I felt. But somehow making the bed I could manage.
- And there was someone else involved, giving me some advice. As I was fully overwhelmed with all the things I ‘had to’ do, all the responsibilities I felt. So there was an enormous pile of unfinished things on my desk, in my mind, but yes, literally also on my desk.
- So this person advised me to just move this pile aside and just pick some little thing or maybe a few little things I could handle. And not think about anything else that was there.
- So based on that I literally moved my whole pile of unfinished paperwork from my desk to another desk, out of sight, out of my mind. And yes, even until now part of that pile is still there. And no matter how crazy that advice sounded, as there were and still are many things in that pile that couldn’t wait, that needed to be handled, looking back I think it was a very good advice.
- So I started with making the bed and just deciding on doing some very little things I thought I could handle. And just know that ‘little thing I could handle’ might just be making one phone call or sending one e-mail, a day. Where I was supposed to work eight hours a day. As that was what I could handle.
- And slowly, somehow, and I think it took me weeks or months, I was able to increase the amount of things, the amount of work I could do on a day. And when it became more than one little thing on a day, I started making a daily to-do list. Just one piece of scratch paper listing some things I wanted to do.
- And again, a challenge, as somehow I had decided to indeed do, finish, the things on my to-do list. I wanted it to be something like making the bed, every day. And I managed, but only because I
started very small. - So if I noticed I had written too much like a too large thing or too many things, I scaled it down, the next day. Sometimes even scaling it back to only making the bed or something.
- And then somehow, one day, I added a scratch paper for the next day. And put some things on it. So that became my planning, my to-do list, for the next day. And I just made sure I stuck to it, finish it, no matter what.
- And somehow, some day, I decided to add scratch papers for a whole week ahead, most of them with only a date on the top. And that is or was still the stage I was in until today. And today I even found that there were even a few days, papers left. But I had planned today to extend my planning, my pile of papers in quality and quantity. So that’s what I did. As in the mean time I have created a habit of doing the things I planned, no matter what. So I had no option, as my whole system is programmed like that right now. And no, it doesn’t feel like ‘have to’ or ‘obligation’. It just feels like, well, that’s just how it is.
- So today I didn’t really know what increasing quality would mean. I thought something like putting more specific activities or something. But it turned out the quality was like adding results, goals, to the planning. And yes, that had been in my mind for a few days already, but today it became reality.
- And no, I didn’t add any specific goals or results yet, but I put three categories under the heading ‘goals‘. And it just felt like the right thing to do and it’s just enough for today. And I felt great about it.
So that’s what I wanted to share today, that no matter where you are, as long as you can decide to do one little thing every day, something like making the bed, but it could be even smaller, like just ‘eat something’ or ‘go to the toilet’, you have a start to get out of anything.