On Friday I posed a question – What are you doing in your life to go the distance?
One of my favourite business authors, Brian Tracy, wrote a book called Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life. This book is jam packed with actionable advice on how to create the life you want. One piece of advice that resonated with me is that to get ahead you need to pay it forward beyond the minimum. The minimum is a 40-hour workweek, one that most people live without any additional work. Tracy argues that a 40-hour workweek allows you to stay status quo and won’t lead you to a better life. I agree with this philosophy. The times in my life where I was able to reach new heights in my career was from pushing myself out of the 9-5 box.
One thing that many people underestimate is consistency. While working above and beyond like I have talked about previously is great, it won’t pay you dividends unless you put in the time day-in and day-out. This is not something I make a point of reiterating when providing career advice but there is a plethora of evidence that talent is overrated and to find success, grinding and honing your craft over time. In some cases that amount of time would be 10,000 hours.
Finding ways to purposefully move towards your goals by taking the necessary action outside of your 9-5 may come naturally to you. If so, good job! You can skip the rest of this article. Of course I kid! There is always room for improvement. One area that I find a lot of people overlook that are already stretching themselves is taking a step back and evaluating their effort. Self-reflection is one aspect of human existence that I believe Western culture has not put enough emphasis on. To become who you want to be, you need to look within yourself and take an inventory of your life. Put more emphasis and reflection on what you are bringing everyday that moves you forward rather than whether or not you have reached your goals. This allows you to maintain that consistency to become who you were always meant to be.
When I reflected on my own efforts, something I’m becoming better at by journaling each night before bed, I identified some areas that have been crucial to moving my career and life in a positive and upward direction.
I’m in sync with my biorhythms
I have always been a morning person. My best work comes well before 1pm. I usually get a second wave of energy in the evening but it never reaches the level I find myself at in the morning. What I was doing wrong before was following a standard sleeping schedule between roughly 11pm to 6am. This would leave me feeling lethargic and unfocused for most of the day. I’d also have issues getting to bed on time as well. Recently I changed this. It was accidental because one night I crashed at 8:30pm and woke up without an alarm at 3:30am. You’d think this would destroy my energy levels about halfway through the workday – it did the exact opposite. I crossed off many lingering items on my To-Do list first thing in the morning and started work feeling more accomplished than I had in a long time. I was focused and motivated to crush it that day at work. This energy continued into the evening and, by my bedtime, I was looking back at one of the most productive days I had in years.
Maybe you are a morning person, maybe not. Work brings its own set of limitations for developing an optimal sleeping pattern. Having said that, you can make small adjustments to your sleeping schedule that will have tremendous impacts on your energy, mood and productivity. Identify what time of day you work best and build your sleeping schedule around that time.
I stay in touch and share ideas
One of the keys to a happy life is to have strong social connections. There was one Harvard Business School longitudinal study that showed this was the determining factor between the men in the study who ended up leading happy lives compared to those whom did not. I’ve made a point of staying in touch with many of my colleagues from the MBA program as well as former coworkers. I do this not to reminisce on the good ol’ days but rather to share ideas about what interests me and what I’m focused on in the present moment. I also get the opportunity to hear their perspectives and learn from them. This has helped me affirm the direction I’m taking in my life and in some cases has helped refine certain goals I aspire to reach. We can choose to live in our own head or we can harness the collective wisdom of our network to carve out a fuller, happier life that we could not imagine by ourselves. I choose the latter.
I work towards my goals everyday
I want to bring things back to the beginning of this article - consistency. One thing I make a point of doing is to move myself closer to my goals and dreams everyday. This doesn’t mean I need to move mountains and have transformative moments daily – that’s just not possible. What I mean by this is that I take incremental action to move forward. It could be sending out one LinkedIn message or email to someone I want to connect with in my industry. It could be attending one networking event to meet likeminded professionals. Today, it’s writing this article and sharing my ideas with you.
I’d love to hear what you are doing to go the distance and move towards your goals – let me know below in the comment section!