How to Pull Your Shit Together PT II
Now that you’ve practiced looking inside yourself to pull your shit together, now – let’s address everything else.
1. Being super busy does not equal being productive. People seem to get off on bragging about being super busy. However, when you look at them, they haven’t accomplished much. Sure, they run around, send tons of emails, and look unkempt, but no goals are achieved. Pulling your shit together doesn’t come from movement and activity. It comes from focus. You have the same number of hours in the day as Beyoncé. Use your time wisely – make a step by step guide for yourself on achieving your goals and create a to-do list to make it happen. Need help with making good lists? Read my article on eating elephants.
2. Perfection is the enemy of good. In surgery, this is a rule of thumb that applies to the rest of the world. In surgery, when the result is good, it’s very tempting to try to make it perfect. You know what happens? A lot of time is spent striving for perfection and the result is worse than if you just left it when it was good. When perfection is your goal, your rate of accomplishing goals decreases, time is wasted, and it becomes easy to give up. Stop it. Get it done and move on.
3. Stop beating yourself up. When you make a mistake, learn from it, forgive yourself, and move on. It’s impossible to ignore how the mistake makes you feel. Give it some time to mourn over, then move on. Focus on how you are going to improve yourself – make sure you take the lesson, not the long term beating.
4. Don’t get on the crazy train. Avoid the negative spiral of asking "What if?"- it simply fuels the fire of stress and worry, which will stop you from reaching your goals. Things can go in a million different directions, and the more time you spend worrying about the possibilities, the less time you'll spend on staying productive. Now, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t think strategically. Come up with some realistic “what ifs” and some plans on managing it, then leave it alone.
5. Look for solutions. This will also help in keeping you off the crazy train. When you focus on your problems, you create and prolong negative emotions which keep you from reaching your goals. When you focus on what you are doing to improve yourself and your circumstances, you create a sense of personal efficacy. Knowing that you are efficient and capable creates positive emotions and improves performance.
No one is stopping you from what you want to accomplish but yourself. Get out of your own way, pull your shit together and go conquer the world.