3 key things to finish what you’ve started
Even if sometimes starting something is a hard decision, to keep going forward until it’s finished, often, is way harder. So, let’s understand some key concepts for avoiding procrastination and building up discipline.
I’ve experienced so many times the excitment of starting something new. A wild idea floating in your head. You catch it with your hands and you are decided to bring it to reality. It’s awesome, your heart beats fast and you want to tell everybody about it, even your dog (obviously, it support you).
But, when you start this road, and obstacles begin to appear, we tempt to vacilate, then another idea pop out and you know how it goes…
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an expert at achieving goals, I’m better at starting too. But after some failures and some time going around in circles, I’ve realized that this has to change if I really want to make a major contribution. So, I’ve spent some time trying to understand what keeps me motivated and make me be more productive. And here it is, some simple ideas that could help you as they are helping me (or more).
1. Knowing how your brain works.
This is easy. We are homo sapiens sapiens and as a species, we exist for more than 100 000 years. Because biological evolution is a very very slow process, we haven’t changed a lot (biologically speaking). But these last centuries, the way we live have changed decisively. Our goals, our satisfaction and our concept of well-being are highly different now. In these times, having food, sex, sleep and fun is not enougth (for most of the people I guess). We want transcendence, wisdom and fulfillment…
Here is the weird thing. Even if you want consciously these things. Your brain doesn’t.
I mean… your brain could be divided in to pieces: one is your smart part of the brain, your cortex. And the other, is your wild animal part, know as reptilian. So, even if it could sound extremelly strange to you, the reptilian part, your stupidest part, is the one who decides what it’s done and what’s not.
I like an analogy I’ve found at Quora. You’re like a car and you’re brain are the two passangers inside it: one is Albert Einstein, at the back sit, and the other is a lizard vigorously holding the rudder.
Surely, your Albert Einstein tell the lizard (everytime you don’t want to get up from bed, our you keep scrolling, for no reason, at your phone): “Geliebten Eidechse, wenn wir dies tun, dann werden wir dies erreichen”. Good Albert, he’s a genius but he doesn’t understand that the lizard doesn’t get lenguage or logic or reasoning, much less German (me neither). The lizard only cares for food, sleep and pleasure. But he’s also very scary. He’s afraid of the dark while Albert keeps repeating: “Es gibt nichts, Angst zu haben, ist die Dunkelheit nur die Abwesenheit von Photonen mit einer Wellenlänge von 390 nm bis 700 nm”. Please Albert, stop the logic.
So, we have two tools for taking Albert and the lizard to an understanding: Pleasure and fear. The key is making Albert learn to use them correctly. Come on, he can! He has a Nobel Prize.
Pleasure
This is why you should devote your life to your passion. The lizard is going to have real fun while working, and he’ll want more. Remember, as Jeff Bezos says: “You don’t choose your passions, your passions choose you”. So, shut up and listen to you inner self.
One good way to find this out is to picture what you would do if your rich uncle would give you 2 million dollars each year, so you don’t have to care for money. What would you be doing? Some wild ideas can pop out, don’t scare, test them, maybe they are what you were looking for.
Other way is to remenber when you were a kid. When we don’t really cared for status or money, instead we knew what really matter to us. Becoming a kid again it’s amaizing (‘cause being adult sucks!) and very difficult (“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a life time to paint like a child.” Pablo Picasso), but it’s also scary.
The greatest geniuses of humankind were very mature kids just playing around.
Picture what a great world you could help to build, not in words, but in images, beacuse this way the lizard will get it too, not only Albert. This will bring a smile to your face and a lot of optimism. Don’t stop.
Fear
Treat yourself as Pavlov’s dog. You are your own experiment. If you must do something, award you if you do it well, and punish you if you don’t. Maybe with a movie, or nice food or even visiting or not visiting your [boy or girl]friend (if you know what I mean). Because, the lizard understands those things and it will start creating the relationships between its actions and the awards it gets. This way, Albert will have a way of inderectly communicate with the lizard.
If it’s too hard. Picture what will happen if you don’t, what are you gonna feel about yourself. This could help you start, but don’t overdo, because too much fear could force you to hide in your closet and not wanting to leave for a while.
2. Dopamine, drug of achievers.
Our body is a like a company. It offers incentives to their employes when they should achieve a certain goal. The same way, our body gives us incentives for permofing a certain task. Did you hear about happiness?… Yes, I’m talking about that. The feeling of happiness is produced for several types of sustances that our body produces. One of them, is Dopamine.
Dopamine is realesed when you achieve something. Its function, in the caveman time, was to keep us searching for food even if we weren’t hungry. Imagine you were a caveman, and you see an apple tree at the distance. You get a little shot of dopamine!. So you start getting closer because you want more. As you come closer, more and more dopamine is realesed until you climb the tree and take the apple.
Dopamine is specially triggered by vision. This is why you should write down your goals. Beacuse you need to see them to start recieving the dopamine and start getting more and more involved, until you cross it of your to do list and you feel almigthly. Have never ever happen to you? Try it today. Make your to do list for tomorrow, and keep it with you. You’ll see how much more you can do.
Be carefull. Even if dopamine could help you to achieve incredible things and feeling more powerfull about your life. It is highly, highly adicctive. Do you know what else release dopamine? Alcohol, drugs, gambling, even your phone. It could take you to lose interest for your relationships and even much more. So go for it! but with care.
If you would like to learn more about this subject, I suggest you a talk by Simon Sinek: If you don’t understand people, you don’t understand bussiness.
3. Learning how to make the cake
When you are going to make a cake, there is something essential that you need so you could have a clear idea of what you are doing, otherwise I don’t ever wanna taste it. This thing is a recipe. What you need and the steps by step process. This way, even if you suck at cooking, with a little of attention to the recipe, you can make something really tasty.
So, for every goal make a recipe, a plan. Divide this impossible task into more simple ones, and those into even more simple ones. Repeat this process until every task seems totally achievable. In programmign we call this:
“Divide and conquer”
Then set a deadline for each one and start!
Put yourself a high mark each day, commiting to more than what you think you can do and you will start becoming better. In some months, you are going to be fascinated to see how you’ve progressed and improved. Don’t give up (unless is for something really, really better).
I hope you enjoyed reading this article. If you found it useful, share it with your friends, colleagues and family.
The force be with you!
Thanks for reading! Let me know what do you think in the comments below and if you liked this, hit the recommend button!
Find me on twitter as @adolfovaldi.
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Adolfo Valdivieso is passionate about creating technology that helps people. Awarded as a MIT TR35 Innovator under 35. Recipient of full scholarship for Singularity University’s graduate program, at NASA (Silicon Valley). Bs. in Physics (Summa Cum Laude). +10y making technology products.
