I always wanted to write but I never felt good enough.
By: Michael Wentz
Tags: Life Lessons, Procrastination, Goals, Writing, Personal Development

During my senior year of my undergraduate degree I really started to notice how much school and work had taken over my life. I was living life by reacting to every fire that appeared, instead of conquering my goals. Realizing that I was headed down the wrong path mentally forced me to re-examine what I wanted out of life. I started to read again, looking for meaning where I had lost it. I started to listen to great minds again, through YouTube and podcasts. I can’t stress enough how much listening to podcasts during my daily commute has improved my life.

If you aren’t listening to podcasts or audio-books instead of the same old songs and boring radio stations, then you need to get Castbox, Spotify, Soundcloud or whatever is easiest.

Taking those 10–30 minutes every morning and evening to think critically about new topics or listen to something more engaging than the newest hit song will help everyone in the long run. There are podcasts about anything you can think of, just like there are books about almost every topic imaginable. Find what suits you and upgrade your drive time.

Another flaw I am working on overcoming is procrastination. If there’s one thing I have learned in MBA school is that “what gets measured tends to get done”. That is to say that if you set a simple goal, you are much more likely to complete the task than if you keep that task locked up inside your head. Make a list on your phone of tasks you want or need to get done (I use google Keep for lists and google Tasks for specific goals). Since I have started writing out my goals I have gotten a lot more done, and I feel more accomplished checking off the box on my phone app.

One of the newer techniques I am trying out to boost my fight against laziness is setting goals on my google calendar (which I had never thought of before). I have mountains of books I want to read, but I fall into the habit of getting lost in the middle of books and just watching T.V. instead. To fix this I am set a new goal on my calendar to read 30 minutes for at least 3 days a week. So far I like it, because it notifies me at my set time of day I want to read and nudges me to get some reading done. The first week I only got 1/3 days read, but this week I have all 3 already. People don’t like failure, and setting goals that remind us of when we don’t live up to our ideals nudges us to do better.

It seems trivial, but recognize your goals by defining them. Set some type of measurement for your definition of “success” towards that goal, and you will see a difference. Setting a realistic goal is half the battle. I could have easily put my goal as read every night of the week, but that is too much to jump right into for me at the moment. That also doesn’t mean that I don’t want to read every night, because I do, but I am working slowly towards it. The rub is that there will be ups and downs along the path, but keep striving towards the top and you will see improvements.

I reset my life by realizing what my goals were. I wanted to improve my relationships, read more, learn to write better, and countless other goals, but I never would have made as much progress if I had left those goals floating around in my mind. Part of my procrastination is the feeling of not making significant progress, but by setting measurements it has helped me to see the changes I am making in my life. I am determined to keep climbing.