Dear Diary,
I read a lot about self-improvement, productivity, leading a fulfilling life, setting goals, and working towards them. I’ve gathered some insights on how to achieve all of that, which I’ve summarized below:
Discipline: To achieve something, you need to be disciplined in how you live your life.
Clear Goals: Have a crystal-clear mindset about what you want to do, how you want to do it, and where you want to be.
Actionable Steps: After figuring out your entire life plan, take actions that will successfully implement your plan.
These steps are theoretically correct and effective, but in practice, they often don’t work for me. Why? Because I view these steps from a single perspective.
The Pitfall of Comparing Yourself to Others
Whenever I see someone achieving something, I ask myself, “What’s my problem? Why can’t I do that?” Then, I start journaling my ideas, goals, actionable steps, and a disciplined routine for achieving those goals. Still, I remain unfulfilled and unable to achieve them.
Understanding Your True Issues
I never honestly ask myself what my problem is. I’ve never taken the time to address my real issues. Instead, I focused on what others were doing and their success. I compared myself to them and set goals that didn’t even matter to me, eventually failing to achieve them and feeling like a failure.
A Story of Exam Preparation: Lessons Learned
I never once asked myself what was truly bothering me. Let me tell you a story to explain this more clearly: I used to learn the entire syllabus the night before during my exams, like many other students. Of course, I couldn’t do all of it, so I thought I would do the rest the next morning. But guess what? I couldn’t do it.
Recognizing and Addressing Real Problems
However, some interesting things happened. I usually couldn’t wake up at 4 AM or early in the morning, but the night before my exam made me do things I didn’t think were possible. I became so disciplined that I woke up at 4 AM just to study. But I still didn’t follow the necessary steps to achieve something. I didn’t have a clear set of goals. I didn’t know how much syllabus I needed to cover, which parts of the chapters I needed to learn, or how much I needed to learn.
The Consequences of Lacking Clear Goals
Because I didn’t have clear goals, I couldn’t take actionable steps to achieve them either. I didn’t know how to learn or understand the concepts, which parts needed my attention, or what important stuff I needed to remember. Looking back, I realize that no one can learn an entire book just four hours before an exam.
The Automatic Nature of Discipline in Urgent Situations
What I’m trying to convey with this story is that I understood what my problem was: the next day there was an exam, and I hadn’t prepared anything. The problem was real, urgent, and needed immediate action.
-> Discipline comes to you automatically when the problem is genuinely there.
-> Clear goals emerge from significant problems.
-> Actions help you work on those goals.