Why Your Life Is Stagnant and You’re Not Making Any Progress (And How to Fix This) | Durmonski.com
By: Ivaylo Durmonski
Tags: Motivational Quotes, Self Discipline, Self Improvement, Progress, Personal Growth

Warning! The following article can make you shit your pants. It’s so damn good, life-changing, mind-fucking blowing that I’ll suggest putting on a diaper. Now, after borrowing a large napkin from your newborn for your behinds, let me tell you how this new article will save your life.

Wow! That’s a bold thing to say, right?

After writing this intro I’m kind of obligated to come up with a kick-ass piece of content that will transform your life, take care the dishes, iron all of your shirts, prepare your kids for school so you can have a bit time on your hands to focus on your projects. Don’t worry, I won’t touch your kinds even if you want me to. I’m going to do something much more powerful.

Today I’m going to show you exactly how to move the needle closer where you want to be. Or in other words, how to get more shit done and finally start the business you’re constantly talking about, cut the grass outside, take care of the garbage, publish an eBook, and all kind of other amazing things that you were so far dodging so you can spend a bit more time watching television or goofing around social media.

But before we get down to the nitty-gritty, it’s uberly important to understand why your projects are stagnant and you’re not moving forward in your career. So, let’s start with explaining why you’re currently not making progress in your life.

Why You Are Not Making Any Progress In life?

If you’re reading this, the chance you are not that successful in life is high. And you’re putting up with my bad tongue only because you want to read some actionable steps that will somehow get you the results you’re hoping for.

Actually, the above things are also the reason you’re relentlessly buying self-help books, attending conferences, reading motivational quotes on Instagram and digging through YouTube for more “wisdom” and more “magic” that will supposedly have to summon a purple koala in your living room that should do the job for you.

Well, all of those things are reasons for your unholiness. Instead of working on the things you should be working on — hopefully you know what these things are — you’re betting on outside factors — the purple koala I just mentioned — to assist you with the work at hand.

So, in short, you’re not making progress in life because you’re too busy doing things that are not so important, to say the least. Things that are not helping you move forward with your projects. You’re probably buried by mountains of notifications and self-help books, hoping, these things will somehow resolve all of your issues.

It kind of looks like this:

All of these dots are things that are slowing you down. Consider them like obstacles in a hurdle race. The more dots you have in your life, the slower the progress.

Most common dots are:

Social media;

Reading motivational articles;

Attending seminars;

Deciding what to wear on these seminars;

Spending an awful amount of time researching the best book on productivity;

Checking what new tool to buy that will somehow save you time;

Still thinking about the purple koala.

You think you’re making progress because all these tasks can actually help in the long-term but in reality, they are simply wasting your time. They are time-wasters in disguise.

I can tell you to remove these things from your life: block social media, throw away the clothes and leave only a few essential pieces, tell you what are the best books on productivity, explain why attending conferences sucks, even advice you to donate your kids, but these things will help just for a while.

You’ll probably return back for your kids. Besides, I’m sure you already heard that blocking social media and locking yourself alone in a room with nothing but a typewriter and a bucket — for the natural needs — is the best way to produce a book. Yet, you’re not doing it, right?

Yes, removing social media from your phone and exposing yourself to fewer decisions is going to help you become more productive. But this is just a short-term fix. It won’t solve the bigger problem. It won’t because you know that only after a few hours you’ll be back on your phone playing video games.

But let say we make some drastic improvements. You can throw away all devices from your room. You can even put yourself in complete isolation. Yet, still don’t achieve the results you’re hoping for.

Why? Because there is one other thing that prevents you from doing the work that will get you closer to your goals. And this thing is something you can’t throw away, for better or worse — our thoughts.

Our minds, and the thoughts they produce, are the reason our projects stay stagnant. You can sit in front of a computer, alone, with no wi-fi, hoping to write something. But if you’re thinking about — i.e. can’t focus — going to the beach and later posting your photos online hoping to get a ton of likes, you still won’t produce the desired result.

Bottom line, there are two factors messing with our progress. Two major components that are slowing us down:

Physical obstacles: Devices and physical objects that are distracting us;

Devices and physical objects that are distracting us; Mental obstacles: Our thoughts and our inability to focus on the current task;

How To Overcome the Obstacles Blocking Your Path?

We can illustrate the lack of progress in the following simple drawing:

So, to make progress, we can either jump through the barriers — i.e. block social media and play background music that will block our thoughts about fame and glory for a while. Or, we can completely remove the obstacles from our path. Though the first is faster to be implemented, I’m going to focus on the second solution because it’s a long-term fix.

To overcome the mental obstacles, however, we need to do something radical. Something really different. Something that will take you out of the comfort zone of your uncomfort zone. I mean, a place really far from where you are right now. I’m sure you’ve heard about stepping out of your comfort zone. But this is different. Here I’m talking about going further away. Like in the horror movies where the main characters goes alone in the woods and later in a cave, all by himself.

It’s a place we haven’t visited yet. We need to go to The Unknown.

Like in the movie The Lord of the Rings. Frodo doesn’t just step outside of the Shire(comfort zone) to play with his new ring. He did not even settle with the creature Balrog when entering the Mines of Moria( uncomfort zone). He travels through rough terrain, goes through countless of obstacles till he reaches Mordor(The Unknown) — where he eventually loses his finger but at least he gets rid of the ring.

But don’t pack your bags just yet. Though the place I’m talking about is really far, you don’t need to physically go there. It’s a thought process rather than a physical trip. And you need to find the answer within you, not outside of you.

Basically, to stop wasting your time and to get closer to where you want to be, you need to understand why you’re constantly checking your phone; Why you’re spending all of your time and money on these self-help books; Why you’re visiting all these conferences knowing, that what you’ll hear there won’t actually do the work for you; Still thinking about the idea of purple koala doing the dishes for you.

I mean, you need to understand the core reason you’re doing all of these things that are only wasting your time.

Why every time you sit in front of a computer you’re typing Facebook and looking at pictures instead of writing more words for your future book. Yes, we have the obvious reasons like: we’re tired, lazy, social media is evil and it’s designed to keep us in, etc. But the real reason is further down the long path we need to cross on our own.

And The Real Reason You’re Stagnant and Not Achieving Anything Is…

So, the life-changing conclusion, the reason we all gather here, the main reason you are still not successful, continuously refreshing your Twitter feed hoping something changed in the last 5 seconds is the following: You’re not really comfortable with yourself and with what you’re doing. You don’t really believe in yourself. I mean, really really believe in yourself and in your work.

Initially, this idea might sound stupid and unrealistic to you, “I feel comfortable in my own skin. I have 13 thousand followers on Instagram you crazy ass. Don’t tell me that I’m not OK with what I’m doing, alright?” I understand your frustration but bear with me for just a bit more.

Every time you stop doing your work so you can perform a quick check on your social media account, you’re actually hoping to see the planet icon illuminated in red — or any of the other icons located on the top right if we’re talking about Facebook. You crave for the red notification because this means something related to you is happening. Something that feels good -new like, new message, etc.

You attend seminars and you buy self-help books to boost your confidence. Basically, each new book feeds your brain with stuff like, “I’ve purchased a new book. Therefore, I’m doing something that will help me become successful. Conclusion, I kick-ass.”

You go to meetings with complete strangers and you’re eager to talk about your project because you need others to tell you that your idea is good enough, that you’re not wasting your time.

You do all of these things to lower the feelings of insecurity and doubt. To feed your ego and to feel good about yourself.

You’re thinking about the following when you got to a conference, “Since I’m going to a business seminar I must be a businessman.” But in reality, this is what happens actually: You still don’t believe that you’re a businessman and you need outside validation to help you believe that you really are someone who can call himself an entrepreneur. This is also the reason you tweet and you gram (probably the verb when posting stuff on Instagram) like crazy with hashtags #hustle, #entrepreneur, and other stuff. Because you’re looking for approval for your actions. And you’re looking for approval because you’re not 100% confident in yourself and what you’re doing.

Basically, you’re doing all kind of stuff to validate your idea, to feel good about yourself, your actions, and about the work you’re doing. In a way these things are good. Some people do need an extra push to start doing something better than laying around on the couch. Unfortunately, all these things take a large portion of your time and you end up only tweeting about writing a book, not actually doing any writing.

You don’t yet believe me. I can sense it. But if you really think about it. You’ll see that’s the main reason your time is occupied with things and thoughts that are only slowing you down.

Let me give you a couple of additional examples:

Why do you journal? To organize your thoughts or to feel good about what you’ve accomplished today?

Why do you share your progress on Instagram? To educate people, help them become better or to boost your confidence and your ego?

Why do you create to-do lists? To track your work or to feel good every time you add the little check next to a task?

Why do you daydream about owning a yacht and living in a huge mansion? To visualize your success as mentioned in one of the recent books you’ve read or because it feels way better than actually writing or doing any real work?

Hopefully, you got my point and you now understand that you’re sabotaging yourself by wasting your time doing things only to boost your confidence. But there is one tiny little detail left that needs discussing: What the hell can we do to stop this endless desire to share things online and actually start focusing on our work?

How To Start Believing In Your Own Shit And Move Forward In Life?

To put it simply, you need to get comfortable with yourself and with what you’re doing. It’s not an immediate process. Something that can happen today, or later this week.

It’s a gradual process that usually takes time. You don’t immediately start believing in yourself. Your desire for approval doesn’t just vanish overnight. The need to share every tiny detail of your life online — like most of the so-called entrepreneurs — takes time to disappear.

But when you stop caring whether people like your work or you in general, something really magical happens. You start focusing better at your tasks. You realize that you don’t need all the fancy posts that supposedly have to sprinkle inspiration and make you look like a movie star in front of others. You understand that you don’t need strangers telling you that your work is good because you really believe, you know with certainty, that your work is good. Therefore, you spent more time doing what you need to be doing and less time updating your online status with quotes hoping for likes.

When your insecurities vanish. When you let go of the doubt, the fear that others might hate what you’re doing and creating, things will come more naturally to you.

Even though there isn’t one-size-fits-all kind of solution, you can start with accepting who you are. Being OK with all of your faults and flaws. Not giving a damn that you suck at some areas of your life. As long as you slowly improve towards where you want to go.

This self-realization will allow you to see the world differently. It will help you understand that you don’t need anyone else to fuel your motivation. As long as you see the long-term picture clearly, without biases and ego, you’ll take action and spend your time wisely and finally make progress.

Some Closing Thoughts

There are hundreds of articles that will tell you how to stop visiting social media for 30 days; Retreat camps with no wi-fi that cost thousands and teach you nothing.

The solution though, if you’re not making progress in your life, is not stopping visiting social media for 30, 90 or 180 days, it’s understanding why you’re going there in the first place. And the main reason is this: It’s because you need to feel good about yourself and you’re looking for outside validators to tell you that you’re work matters, that you’re OK, and not crazy.

This, however, is only making things worse. It’s clouding your thoughts from the really important thing: That you don’t need someone else to tell you what’s good for you. It’s something you need to decide on your own.