Every day you wake up, a battle starts. It’s similar to thousands of battles you’ve
led in your life. And just as any of them, this one offers the opportunity for you to
be in charge of the outcome. As time passes by, this process ends up being
habitual and automatic. We don’t even notice how important it is for our lives to take
control over how the battle ends at the end of the day.
This is the battle between two sides of your personality.
Let me explain. One side has a Ph.D. in instant gratification,
and its sole purpose is to get as much pleasure as possible, while at the same time doing
as little work as possible. Oh, we have a soft spot for this one, because
it never denies us anything. But, we often forget that this side is prone
to rationalizing and it will do whatever it takes to give you the daily dose of pleasure,
whatever form it may come in. However, because it’s driven by primal urges,
it’s shackled by short-term thinking and has a low tolerance for pain.
All of the snoozing, sleeping in, binge eating and watching, procrastinating, and different
vices stem from this beloved mayor of the tomorrow land.
Also, this part of us often reaches for drastic measures, such as imposing self-doubt, a fixed
mindset or a lack of confidence, whenever we encounter anything that slightly resembles
pain and hard work. Now, you might be thinking is the other side
a perfect, do all goodie good?! Actually, no. It’s just different.
This is your life’s drill sergeant. Always looking forward, keeping an eye on
our goals and the bigger picture, which is often exhausting.
It’s the side of you that will demand discipline, grit, hard work and consistency. Its purpose
is to make sure that you do whatever you can to reach your goals and to push you as hard
as possible to make sure you stay on track. This is the part of you that will guilt trip
you when you buy an ice cream. Even though you mostly dislike this side,
you know it’s the one that will take you where you want to go in life.
So, now what? How do we solve this issue? The solution is two-fold.
Let’s start with the mindset first, and then move to the practical method you can
use starting from today.
The question to ask here is: How do we win these daily battles, and with
them the war itself? That’s the thing. I don’t think we can.
Just the notion of fighting internally on a daily basis sounds exhausting, and I will
go down the cliche path and say that we should make LOVE, not war.
So, you need to arrange a truce and approach this rationally knowing that one of these
sides has a higher return on investment, but also don’t neglect the other side, because
it often adds a lot of joy. Of course, it depends on who you want to become
in life, what goals do you want to achieve, and how much you are willing to sacrifice
to achieve these things and evolve into the 2.0 version of yourself.
To be honest, it shouldn’t even be considered a sacrifice, but rather an investment.
Instead of this being horrifying work, think of it as a challenge or an experiment of social
nature. When you switch from thinking about the drill
sergeant as an equivalent of a MONDAY, things will start to get better.
If you are currently placing 30% to the long-term version of yourself, and 70% to the short-term
one, don’t make radical shifts and changes. It’s better to take it one day at the time,
and slightly improve the ratio. Even by 1%. Which brings me to the method itself, which
has helped me a lot.
When you get the mindset right, and slowly eliminate that initial resistance, you move
onto daily execution. How do you define what needs to be done?
It’s simple. You will need to think like a bank manager,
and all you need are two lists. Every morning when you wake up, imagine as
if these two sides of your personality come to ask for resources.
In this case, each one of them wants to do something in the time you have within one
day (excluding the time spent sleeping). You have a choice: how many hours will you
allocate to each one of them? You should become aware that you have the
control of how much time goes into which side of your personality.
Balance it as much as it suits you. But know that only one side has a high Return on Investment.
On the other hand, you can go out for a cheat day, and a couple of seasons of your favorite
show. Just remember, the second list has a low ROI.
It usually leads to mediocrity, averageness and that awful feeling on high school reunions.
You know what I’m talking about. Nobody wants to be that person who is shackled
by the bad choices, hates Mondays, can’t wait for the weekends, their marriage is falling
apart, and overall they are pretty unhappy. Note that I’m not suggesting that you manically
try and use every single minute of your day. Here are the two lists I was talking about:
1. Green List These are the activities that raise the quality
of your life and bring results in different areas of it.
They are defined according to your goals and everyday responsibilities.
How does it work? Well, since the majority of the tasks are
kind of repetitive no matter what your goal might be, here you want to put them on the
list, and sequence them based on how they come within the day, starting from the morning,
all the way until you hit the pillow. Once you finish an activity, you get to cross
it off, and it will give you a sense of accomplishment. That’s it.
2. Red List These are the activities or habits that simply
do not support any of your goals, and reduce the quality of your life in different areas
of it, making it challenging to stay true to what you want to achieve.
How does this list work? You can list down anything that you are struggling
with in your life, anything that you think of as a harmful habit or behavior. Unlike
the first ones, these are often not in a sequence. If you resist doing any of them, you get to
tick them off. Your goal for each day is to mark as many
as you can on either list. Ideally, all of them.
In the beginning, you shouldn’t pressure yourself to exactly this, but go one at a
time, starting from the ones that can make the biggest difference in your life, and the
ones which once reduced/eliminated, can help you improve a certain area of your life.
Just like the con-artist, you need the play the long game.
To do that, you need to have a constant overview of the big picture, but play on a micro-level — your
24 hours within a day. Wake up, take a look at each list (adapt them
if needed, based on new circumstances), and decide how much time you will allocate to
each, and how can you resist doing the ones from the red list.
Tick as many as you can from each list and do better tomorrow.
Remember, it’s not about manically using every single minute of your day, but when
you’ve dedicated time to certain things, to do them with 100% focus.