In this era of hustle culture, overworking or staying busy is worn like a badge of honor. Taking a break or a day off is frowned upon while squeezing in work into weekends is praised. What we need to understand is that productivity is subjective. A productive day in the life of each person can be completely different. Something that is productive to you may not be the same for another person.
There are various factors that feed into having a productive day or week, and they don't need to sound as complicated as many make it to be. The one thing that really matters is your mindset and how it can benefit you genuinely in the long run rather than finding shortcuts in life.
Motivation vs Discipline
One of the most crucial factors to keep pushing with what you're doing is finding motivation. That first boost of motivation when you feel like you're capable of doing anything is great. But motivation comes and goes.
You cannot expect motivation to keep you on track every single day. This is like feeling that surging amount of motivation to get your life together in the middle of the night. The real deal is if you feel the same when you wake up the next day. How long do you think it's gonna last?
Relying on motivation alone is not going to get you anywhere. Discipline is what will lead you to the finish line of your goals and ambitions. For instance, say you want to get fit and decide on going to the gym every morning. The initial motivating factor to get fit will last maybe for a few days. However, when that motivation wears off, the discipline to keep going is what will give you results.
It sounds simple but staying disciplined is one of the hardest things to do. Get into that compelling mindset of following through with goals till the end. Once you learn to stay disciplined, there's no stopping you.
Motivation is temporary. Discipline is doing what needs to be done, even if you don't want to do it.
Practice Patience like a Monk
When we try building habits into our routine, the first few days or weeks are the hardest. They say it takes up to 21 days to build a good habit and 90 days to break a bad one. The problem here is that many of us are not very patient with this process. We get easily disheartened when we don't see results in a few days.
One of the main traits you need in this habit-building process is patience. If things were to come easily to people, everyone in this world would be doing great by now, which you know is not the case. Only the ones who practice patience and persevere make it to the finish line. When you are patient enough to make things work on its own time, the next step is quite basic - all you got to do is practice.
Do it today, do it tomorrow, do it every single day. You may or may not see visible progress in the first few days, however, eventually you will see the difference. Your perseverance and consistency are what will set you apart from your counterparts.
Success is a few disciplines, practiced every day. Nothing worth having comes easy.
Revise & Improvise
Let's say you've formed a routine and can't wait to kickstart your habits. Once you start implementing them into your life, you realize mid-way that some of them are actually not that realistic.
Oftentimes, when we start planning, we become over-enthusiastic and want to do a hundred things every day in the name of productivity. In such cases, the rule of thumb is to do a reasonable amount of tasks and tweak your way to more, gradually. This is what we call revising and improvising.
For instance, your ideal morning routine may go like - waking up, working out for 30 minutes, reading for 15 minutes, taking your dog out for a walk, making breakfast, a 10-minute meditation, and God knows what else you add in there. Ask yourself - Is this realistic? Will I be able to do these things every single day?
In such cases, improvising your routines from time to time can be a life-saver. You may not have time to do every single task on some days, so you can skip a few and do the absolutely necessary ones first. Following such a process makes sure that you don't fall out of your habits completely and keeps the motivation floating above water.
Learn to adapt to change and you'll be the strongest of them all. You improvise. You adapt. You overcome.
The book 'Smarter Faster Better' by Charles Duhigg gives a lot more insights into these mindsets changes that are backed by scientific researches and experiments.
You can check out the book here: https://amzn.to/3B8fTeg
Hope you enjoyed this article. Comment down below any mindset changes that have helped you become a better person.
Take care!