(9) Goal Setting , Documenting , Stress , Focusing & Creating

1. Goal Setting Setting goals help us to narrow our focus , and make them more likely to come true. ​​

Best Youtuber and one of my personal hero. We are being exposed to too many information and opportunities on a daily basis , and if we don't filter and retain those that really matters to us , there are simply not enough hours in a day to achieve any of them in a meaningful way. Setting goals force us to be honest with ourselves , to seek out our true passion , and be radically honest about our talent and ability. It is extremely important to decide what you really want to do , and have a plan to eventually do it.Want to be a full time youtuber? Write a novel? Start a podcast? Be an artist? Go ahead and do it now , but if you're currently not in the position to go after your dream , make sure you give yourself a time limit to give it a go. It's perfectly fine and rational to work a job you are not into for a living , but it is not fine if you live in delay gratification for your entire life. Have a plan , and sacrifice to earn a chance of having a go at your dream. Once you stop postponing your dream for eternity , and put yourself on the line , that will open up limitless possibilities. ​​

I don't buy all of his ideas , but this quote leave a long lasting impact on me.

1. Journaling The next vital step on the journey of pursuing your goals is to document it. We have an incredible tendency of lying to ourselves , I have no idea why , but I highly suspect it's one of our self coping mechanism. We tend to deflect responsibility , and beautify our memories instead of being honest and review our mistakes objectively. Start a journal from day 1 , record your journey in details , find out what works and what doesn't , be radically honest with yourself. Review your journal from time to time. Journaling is incredible in helping you piece together memories into a story which we can extract value from.

2. Dealing with Stress The first obvious way of reducing stress is to simply take time out. No one can function at a high efficiency 24 hours a day , 7 days a week. Don't burn yourself out , chasing your dream is a long game. Set a sustainable working rhythm as well , fully capitalize on the time where you are highly efficient , and go easy on yourself when you're not in the zone. Again , we are not robot , it's impossible to be on top of our game all the time. Another analogy is don't be a marathon worker , sprint and take a small break in between. There is no universal applicable duration on how long to sprint before taking a break , but I personally find a 15 minutes break every 2 to 3 hours works best. Experiment and find your own best sprint and break timing.

3. Importance of focusing and overcoming procrastination Try playing your 2 favourite piece of music together , not only they will not become this masterpiece that you enjoy even more , they become unbearable noise. It's easy to focus on quantity instead of quality in this multitasking based world that we are living in right now. How many tabs are currently open in your browser? How many emails or unread texts in your phone? How many things are there in your To-do list? Heck , how many goals that you're simultaneously pursuing right now and none of them are progressing? It can be counter-productive and overwhelming when we have too much going at once. Focus on doing one thing good , before moving to the next. If you are on the other spectrum of procrastinating , try using these 5 tips to overcome it. Apply the 5 minutes take off rule , which is if you find something unbearable , like running for 30 minutes , try putting on your running shoes and run for just 5 minutes , if it feels horrible you are free to stop , but chances are you'll finish the 30 minutes. Reward yourself for completing something too. Give yourself that damn coffee , as Jordan Peterson said. This might not work for everyone , but telling the world and go public with your goals really help with overcoming procrastination. When everyone remember you saying you would quit your job and finally start your own business , it's hard not to go through with it. Form a team and keep each other accountable. It's way easier to stick to your schedule when you have a workout partner waiting for you in the gym. Finally , write your goals down from time to time and picture yourself doing them.

1. Incubation When you're not making any significant progress coming across a bottleneck , take time off for incubation. Go on a walk if you need inspiration. When you have an new idea , stress test the idea as much as possible. Evaluate it by yourself. Seek opinions from people you think highly of. And seek opinions from people you don't think much of. When you're only surrounded by like minded people , it's fairly easy to live in an echo chamber where you may not be able to see reality as it is. Finally , elaborate it in details on how you're going to execute your plan. It will never be perfect , but it's far better to navigate ourselves with a mapped out plan.