Just Do It

Often times productivity gurus or the ones selling us our dreams tell us to visualize the goal and then plan out the steps to follow. It's all great when I know what to do, but if I'd never done something I will get myself into a never ending internal debate on what to do and how to do it. More and more I find that the only solution to this issue is to start doing with some sort of even a vague idea for the end goal and learn as I go.

Thoughts on hard work, success, focus on money and video of Tool's Lateralus (with lyrics)

Recently I have gotten into trouble at my full time job. I'd lost some motivation, started coming in late and viewed non work related internet sites at work. Many visits were to this blog, to the community site and others. 

My boss whom I hold in high regard due to his fairness to his employees was disappointed and I chose to receive a slap rather than fight it out. Took a final warning and offered to come in half hour early for a year to make up for the roughly three months of 5-15 minutes lateness. And of course no internet.

Immediately after the meeting my mood slumped (show me a person that wouldn't be feeling down after such an obvious failure) and I reluctantly started to work very hard to rebuild my lost reputation. 

The thing that I have noticed is that when faced with a task that was new, or difficult, or boring, I had this urge to default to eating, opening internet and generally fidgeting.

It made me think and the nasty conclusion came to me that it is true what I feared the most, that I am simply lazy and need to push myself to do the work. When I did though, a lot of work got DONE and I reluctantly started to regain some of my good mood. Even though I forced myself to do the work, the results made me feel better.

I still don't want to be a push-over and still would like to work for myself, however I understood that this will have to be one of the tools in my arsenal in order to achieve anything, regardless whether this is whilst working for someone else or (maybe especially) for myself.

This slide created by Richard St. John lists "push" as one of the secrets to success as quoted by many successful people.

The bad mood at work and working hard made me tired and perhaps lazy at home and I didn't do anything for my own projects for a week. I was a bit depressed and felt like a complete failure. Hardly a good way to motivate myself.

Before I go into any more details on motivation, I feel I need to address money matters.

Wanting to be rich is vague, so I don't. A lot of gurus say to follow one's passion and the money would come - perhaps; but subconsciously suppressing my value and not wanting to receive money as it might put me in a bad light is simply defeating the goal isn't it? 

In the past, when I was a kid and then a teenager, raised only by my mom in very limited conditions, we looked at people of means and thought that they take advantage of others to make money. mind you, I was only 9 when communism fell in Poland, so this wasn't totally without merit. There were, however many people who took the opportunity and started not only legal but ethical businesses. The point I'm driving to is that I must have felt that I was worth very little in financial terms and that I don't deserve(or my self image didn't allow me?) to be worth more.

Finally the band Tool popped into my mind again with a piece of lyrics from the song Lateralus:

Over-thinking, over-analyzing separates the body from the mind

Perhaps I think too much? Or is it my strength? Here's the song, enjoy:

Definition of hard work

This relates to the previous post.

When working, the feeling of hard work is to push myself into doing even when I want to turn away and default to the easy stuff.

I can do it all day but that is hard work - and I think this defines it best for me.

Competence

When I'm at work and I'm stuck I eat.

I believe this has something to do with dopamine. Both feeling of competence and eating.

The goal is to not substitute competence with an illusion of it.

Be aware of it. There are many things that would give me a dopamine boost: eating, watching vids on youtube, making up ideas based on assumptions.

The goal is to complete tasks. Don't stop at a hard task. push through it.

edit: competence or maybe laziness - going for an easy fix?