Doing Something Everyday is Hard Until It’s Not
I’ve been laying down on my bed for the last two hours thinking about something that I could write about. I had a long day filled with interviews and attended a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class for the first time. It’s been a while since I felt so exhausted, both physically and mentally.
All I wanted to do the entire day was to come back home and sleep immediately. But something in the back of my mind told me that I did not deserve it yet. I can’t give in here — not after everything I’ve worked for.
Two weeks ago I started writing, reading and exercising everyday. I’ve been trying to do what I say I’ll do, and it has improved my life and my discipline dramatically.
I’ve been training myself to only compare myself to who I was yesterday, and it has helped me focus more on the important things in my life. Without these daily goals, I think I would go back to my unhealthy, unproductive and meaningless lifestyle almost immediately. All my efforts can crumble by giving in just once.
I noticed that the initial passion that I tackled my goals with during the first week has died down significantly. Somedays, I wake up and have a strong desire to hit the snooze button and lay in bed all day. Somedays, my body feels so sore that I feel like I should give myself a rest day.
I started brainstorming excuses to rationalize skipping out on my habits. I knew I was being lazy and if I just started on the tasks, I would get into the groove of things. But sometimes you just feel so tired and lazy and all you want to do is just not think about all these goals.
What is it all for anyways? I don’t even know if I’m improving myself or not. I certainly don’t notice it for most days. It’s discouraging when I feel like my efforts are in vain, but I know I’m just being impatient. It’s hard to be focused on the long term rewards.
This post is just a free flowing thought article. It’s not like one of those other articles that I write where I structure it around an idea. I think sometimes having a post where you put down anything you want to write about can help you relieve some mental stress. Who cares if it doesn’t get read? Writing your thoughts down is therapeutic. It helps me codify my thoughts and organize my mind.
Even if you fail to make interesting content today, you still have tomorrow to try again.
Another thing on my mind that might be more practical: If you want to stick to your habits, you must commit to telling the truth.
I continuously catch myself trying to lie or do the bare minimum. Sometimes, instead of focusing on the quality, I just write to fill the quota. Sometimes, instead of reading 50 pages like I said I’d read, I would only read 5 pages of a book and read a couple of Medium articles and convince myself that I had completed my task.
You can argue that “technically” I can work around these goals, but I feel that if I keep blurring the line and making the task more vague, I will keep giving myself opportunities to perform these goals in a subpar fashion.
If you are not honest with meeting your daily/weekly/monthly goals, what’s the point of trying to improve in the first place? You can constantly fool yourself and wonder why none of your expectations are met.
I am not very proud of this article. This may be one of the worst articles I have ever written, because everything about it seems lazy to me. Every sentence I write, I feel more discomfort. Yet I feel like I should publish it because of a quota.
I think I need to rethink my strategy or my goal.
I need to create a way to objectively critique my writing. I need to have a way to track my progression and measure my improvement in my habits. I feel that my daily habits are getting easier because I got used to them, and yet I don’t make the necessary changes to make them harder for me because I don’t want to feel more discomfort.
I need to try writing different genres. Try out different styles of writing. Read different kinds of books or the books that I’ve been avoiding. Add more workouts to my regimen.
I will take my own advice in telling the truth. I have not been completely honest to myself. Up until now, I thought I was improving everyday by simply completing these daily tasks. I thought I would be able to get better simply by doing, but it seems that now I need a strategy and I need to start tweaking.
It’s frustrating when I don’t have a good idea to share with people. I feel like I failed them and I’m being lazy and betraying their trust, because they follow me and expect me to put out quality content. I will do better next time. I will try being more organized and more responsible for my content.
But for now, I guess this is what I have to offer. A bunch of random thoughts.
