Danieltoh.net: Exploring Life

Often times, we chunk time in unreasonable proportions. This makes us less productive and creates a lot of procrastination, especially when we live busy lives.

One example would be like this, you need 4 hours to write a blog post. If you don’t get that required amount of time, then you won’t get started. In my experience this works fine if you’re someone who can command your own time, an example would be you run your own home based business. But what if you’re a busy student , juggling between working part time and studying and only have an hour to spend a day at doing tasks such as writing a blog post?

Wouldn’t it be easier if you instead thought in terms of minutes instead of hours? If you do that, I reckon those time wasted in between doing certain tasks would not be wasted, and you would be able to use a lot of your time wisely. Free time when you’re commuting to work, when you have half an hour to spend before going out with your friends, half an hour before dinner is ready to be served.

Even if we save 30 minutes every day by using it wisely and thinking and planning in terms of minutes, in a year you would save 10950 minutes, and that’s like 182 hours a year! So change your paradigm now and start thinking in minutes, you’d be surprised how a small shift would create a huge increase in productivity.

Many of us have experienced failures in the past, does not matter where we are, what we do or how wealthy we have become. Learning from mistakes is one lesson that we must not forget and it pays to be able to learn from others’ mistakes. It was said that ‘If you don’t want to repeat history, you have got to learn it first’. These reasons listed here are the reasons why most people fail in life in various aspects and it will be good to review them for the benefit of not making them again.

Sometimes people are oblivious to their own weaknesses. This may eventually lead to failures in relationships, career or even seemingly trivial matters. Everyone has a blind spot, where they fail to see their own shortcomings and ends up seeing the speck of a brother’s eye, but failing to see the plank on their own eye.

So, in this post, I just want to highlight the 7 reasons why people fail:

1. Poor people skills

Some people are trying to achieve too much. This could mean that they sacrifice their friendships and their everyday contact with people shrinks to a minute amount. But what we need to see here is that people skills are actually honed by interacting and communicating with people, being able to feel and understand people, the ability to listen, converse, and be humorous at the right moment.

Most times, people who have their own voice but also have the ability to balance their point of view while respecting others have an advantage in succeeding in most areas of life.

2. A Negative Attitude

The power of thinking positively really has a good effect on people’s health in general.

As a pharmacy student, I learnt that a big proportion of mental health and physical health problems stem from stress. Stressors could be well due to a negative outlook on life and this could mean seeing things from a negative standpoint when there is actually no point in doing so.

Instead, step back and take inventory of your life, notice what is good and be thankful for the things that you enjoy and cherish in your life. You’d be astonished what amount of impact a shift of paradigm of this sort brings.

3. Lack of Focus

People sometimes are too eager in pursuing many interests all at once. This could be a mistake as I have experienced in my life many times before, that spreading yourself too thin may mean compromising your health and vitality and causes you to be overly busy, which may also compromise the quality of your work and projects.

What you need to do is limit the amount of current ‘projects’ or goals that you have in your life, and try to be focused and excel in the one or two key areas that you have chosen as your priority.

Let’s say you want to be an excellent musician. As we only have 24 hours a day, we can only have this amount of time, and by trying to master the saxophone, drums, guitar, bass guitar and the piano in two months, you’d undoubtedly feel burnt out or feel a lack of productivity in your learning. But if you chose to master the drums in six months, and fully immerse yourself into it, the amount of improvement that you can make will be astonishing and then you can move on to master the other instruments if you so desire. Try it, I have and I can tell you it works.

4. Lack of Courage

This is a biggie. Often times, people do plunge themselves into certain projects and they really do prepare hard for the task or the big project at hand. But when push comes to shove, they may flinch, or draw back as they succumb to the doubters and naysayers, who are prone to discouraging them.

The obvious solution here is just to ignore the inner doubters voice and also of the naysayers, and carry on with your purpose, as this is what in the end, will matter the most. Whether you succeed or fail is another matter, when in your mind you know that at least you tried to fulfill your dreams.

Sometimes the best way to know whether you will fail or succeed in doing something is by summoning up the courage and do it. Its much better than having analysis paralysis or be one of the timid souls who dare not try to take up the challenge.

In the end of the day, if you fail you will still learn a lesson and improve, and have another crack again. And that’s how life should be, a daring adventure, always seeking for a fresh and inspiring challenge. That’s the essence of life.

5. Mindset of mediocrity

The mediocre mindset has a huge bearing on the success of an individual. In a world where the market is so saturated with competition, the sure way to doom yourself for failure is to be mediocre.

According to Seth Godin, everyone has to find their Purple Cow. This means that people have to be remarkable to stand out, and to stand out even in the midst of good quality competition. To be mediocre is to do yourself a disservice of moving backwards.

After all, if you’re mediocre, then how can you be memorable? For every task that you do and the quality of your work that is presented will determine your character.

A person who will not settle for anything other than excellence will stand out, and among the sea of mediocrity, will receive acknowledgement for their efforts.

If time is going to pass anyway, why don’t we just take the time to give everything we do out best shot and see what happens?

6. Lack of Goals

People who fail are usually the ones who have either no goals, goals that lack clarity or goals that were set but put aside until the next year ( sounds familiar-reminds me of the ever popular new year’s resolution that are enthusiastically written during the new year).

By generally having a lack of goals, people often find themselves wanting, as actions taken are not aligned with their most important priorities, and there is no real measure of progress, hence success is much more difficult to come by.

By not setting goals, where will you be headed? Imagine a plane, not knowing its destination, a person driving in a new territory without a roadmap, where can they go realistically?

7. Lack of Purpose

In a cluttered world that we live in, people find themselves trapped in a maze of choices and they just simply go through the motions of studying the course and without much knowledge of themselves at that young age, launch themselves into careers that they find unfulfilling. Although this does not happen to everyone, but you get the feeling that a lot of people do not really connect deeply with what they are doing in life, and let’s just say that they work just to support their family.

Surely everyone deserves a career that has a link to their existence on this planet, and the purpose that they were created for. If this is aligned to a person’s daily life, there would certainly be more happy people flooding this planet instead of murmuring and protests that we often see worldwide.

So, what you need to do is to elucidate your purpose in life. Do some deep thinking. Ask your inner person what he/she wants? Find out why you are here for? Is it to evangelize? To spread God’s word? To entertain others? To serve others? To improve others’ lifestyle? To contribute to the society in your own way?

Be clear on your purpose and you’d find that your daily living and your every actions will be more purposeful and productive and you will also be more fulfilled.

When people start to summon up the courage, improve their people skills, have a positive outlook on life, commit to excellence and set goals according to their purpose, the chances of succeeding in life would increase infinitely. But more importantly, life would be a more enjoyable process in which joy abounds with the knowledge of purposeful existence.

Have you ever woken up in the morning dragging to go to work or school after a relaxing weekend?

I certainly have. Motivation to do something can come along very quickly but can disappear very quickly as well.

I remembered when I was studying for my exams last year, when I had to sit that very challenging paper involving toxicology and that, at first it made me want to challenge myself to greater heights and I looked at it as a chance of improving my thinking and memorization capabilities. But as the days go by, even with a good study plan, I realized that my motivation was decreasing.

Then I set about to analyze why I was not able to sustain my motivation for a longer amount of time, and the answers were simple, but very powerful.

Firstly, I was not sharpening the saw. In Stephen Covey’s book, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective people, Covey emphasized that no matter who you are, you have got to take time for yourself, to sharpen that very important instrument of yours, YOU. I realized that my exercise routine was not up to par, that I rarely exercised more than twice a week, due to hectic schedules that exercise was often sacrificed. My diet was not that great either, as I was prone to having Burger King and McDonald’s, which I thought was a good compromise considering I wanted things fast. Thirdly, my spiritual walk was not constant and steady.

Sharpening the Saw

So I decided to work on that right away, and I set up plans to go on a healthier diet, exercise at least for 30 minutes a day for four times a week and have my devotion and meditation time with God in the mornings everyday. That drastically improved my mental focus, and I was more up on the priorities in my life that was studying for my exams in that crucial month.

In fact, there are many things that you can do to sharpen your saw, examples would be by reading a book in a week, be it a non-fiction book, a motivational book or even a fictional book to add some variety and spice to your life. Also, learning a new skill such as speaking, learning a new language; Reviewing your long term goals and plans, tidy up your room, go for a stroll in the beach or striking up a deep conversation to connect deeply with another soul or to know someone more intimately.

Next, I realized that I was not getting constant stimulus to fuel up my desire to study. I was studying and reading through my notes constantly while not having enough breaks and setting enough milestones, and hence also not rewarding myself while in the process of studying even though I progressed in my plan.

Rewarding Yourself for Every Mini Milestone

Then what I decided to do was to treat myself with some snacks and a 15 minute break after I finished revising every lecture. This worked wonders as I was able to relax my mind while indulging in some of my favorite snacks (healthy ones such as fruits) and gives me a chance to regroup and solidify what I had studied at that time. My motivation skyrocketed, and doing the ‘task’ of studying was not so anymore as I enjoyed the process of learning while not depriving myself as a slave to pure hard work.

Have the Support of Like Minded People

Often times when I am studying for a massive and all important final exam, I tend to get isolated in my room and do the hard yard of studying all by myself. But in all honesty, this may not be the best way to sustain motivation in the longer run especially when exam periods are over a month long sometimes.

Having people who are on the same journey will probably lift your spirits especially when you need some sort of encouragement, and when you need help to solve a problem that does not fall in your circle of expertise.

Visualization: Painting a clear picture of success

I noticed for that when I began the arduous task of studying, I sometimes forget to paint a good picture of the outcome of the day, in this instance a productive day of studying. Beginning the day without a clear picture of success would be counterproductive as you would run the risk of having fuzzy direction, lack of determination to achieve the goal or even doubting whether you would have the strength to go through the day with enough motivation to succeed in the task that you are doing. By visualizing, possibly before you start any work, it will actually attract success because what you think about you will eventually attract.

This can be done with accompanying music of your choice, preferably an inspiring one, and the visualization should be clear like an animation, 3D or real live movie on the big screen of your mind.

I find that this exercise helps me to just keep my positive vibes going and start the day fresh and optimistic.

Try it, and tell me if there is a difference.

Take Action Right Away

Once you have gathered all your motivation and have the right mindset to go for the goal, don’t just sit there hoping for even more inspiration to come. If you do, the risk of you leaving the job for later increases, and sometimes you’d end up leaving it for the next day or procrastinating due to the size of the project.

Instead, break the task into several smaller goals, and set individual targets and work on them right away. You will find that as you go along more motivation will come and you will gain momentum enough to keep you going.

Realize that if you keep fueling yourself with motivation but not start anything, eventually your ignited motivation may cease and you will have trouble starting it up again. By taking action, even small actions, momentum will slowly increase and this would drive appositive loop of extended motivation.

For my studies, I realized that if I break down the task into individual objectives such as understanding the diseases first and then the accompanying issues, I would be able to learn the different drugs that are required to treat the disease, because I have enough clarity, and this stops me from procrastinating.

Motivation is but one of the keys to success

In the end, motivation is just one of the required attribute to succeed in life, but is a vital key to opening the door to many opportunities in life. Without motivation, there would be lack of ambition, lack of passion and unsustainable consistency in the work that we are doing. I must say that after changing my life to increase my motivation in my life and in my studies, I am able to cope with the task of studying and turning it into something that is purposeful, and that makes it all the more easier to succeed.