Make your life about work
I don’t think somebody’s whole life should be about work. But putting your head down and grinding for a few years can put you leaps and bounds ahead of everyone. Making my life about work has allowed me to create a decent sized blog. It’s nothing to make me super rich yet, but over the next year I’ll be getting a good amount of traffic. I’m already showing up on the search engines. I made my life about work by letting my work consume me. I spent time learning how to write. Then, I figured out how to apply my skill in the digital age. So far, so good. I get more and more traffic from Google on a variety of articles. A bit more work and my blog will have an extremely solid viewership.
Come up with a 10-year plan
I’ve been in the process of working through mine. It’s been a lot harder than I expected. The country in which I live is quite poor, and it can be really tricky to get ahead. It’s taken a massive amount of effort to create a business with a hope at succeeding, but it’s going to be worth it when the job is done. Coming up with a 10-year plan will help you find a clear path and master a skill to the point at which you can succeed. If you’re realistic about your 10-year plan, you should see your life improving significantly around year 7. Before that, it can be pretty hard.
When coming up with a 10-year plan, think about your current lifestyle, and your ideal lifestyle. Break your plan down into monthly chunks. Spend each month completing the tasks you need to in order to make progress. This has worked well for me so far. I set out small, very achievable goals. The first 2 years were hell. I was making a bit of money, but I didn’t see how to progress. Then, it all “clicked”, and I saw a way by which I could succeed in my industry. Now, I’m well on my way to earning a decent living. The next step will be to accrue enough funds to move overseas, then head abroad. Simple, but it takes a lot of time and forethought. None of this would have been possible if I hadn’t put together a ten-year plan four years ago.
Realize that success takes a long time to achieve
Generally speaking, whatever country you’re in, it’s going to take a long time to get “successful” by the standards of your society. It can take you less time, depending on how much help you’re getting and how smart you are, but it will usually take you a few years to get ahead in life if you’re being cautious and smart. I find that life gets easier once you make peace with this fact. It’s possible to create a certain degree of comfort with what you have, but outsized results are outsized for a reason. You might think this isn’t true because you see some celebrities earning $1 million per year, but Given that whatever you want out of life is going to take time and patience, you might as well get comfortable working hard.
Reward yourself
Don’t bother trying to be disciplined and depriving yourself if you’re actually grinding. When you’re working really hard at something you’re talented at, you make leaps and bounds ahead of everybody around you. You turn months into weeks and years into months. Getting to the point at which I can earn $15,000 per year from my location is pretty tough. Not next level tough, but it’ll take you a couple of years with no skills at all. There’s a limit on how much you can crunch that timeline down if you’re working at something. Sometimes it just takes time. If you don’t reward yourself with things you enjoy in the meantime, you’ll probably find yourself going crazy. Rewarding yourself is almost always healthier than keeping yourself deprived if you’re working hard. Just don’t overdo it and create health problems.
Be as healthy as possible
This doesn’t really apply if you’re still at the stage where you don’t have money and is why people in poor countries don’t live as long. Generally speaking, though, you should optimize for health once it becomes possible. Being unhealthy will screw with your productivity, and you won’t be able to enjoy your money. Make sure you’re in shape all the time, never allow yourself to be fat or obese. I’m very skinny right now, but I have a solid six pack. I don’t work out, but I’m young and my main priority is to push things further
How hard you work is the second biggest predictor of your success. The largest predictor of how well you do is what you choose to do for a living. If you put all your effort into a fruitless endeavor, you’re going to be suffering. So, whatever you do when you’re working hard, make sure it’s toward something worthwhile.
Thanks for paying attention.
By Rising Current on .
Exported from Medium on November 8, 2024.
