#YesYouCan
This is part of the #DesignYourLife series, check out the other articles in this series in our publication.
Sometimes you might feel like you don’t have what it takes to get where you want. Maybe you think don’t have the knowledge, the skills, or the capital. And that might actually be true. But don’t despair; there is hope. Read on.
First, figure out what is it that you want to achieve and why you want to achieve it. Remember, #StartWithWhy. The ‘why’ is always the most important — or else you’re gonna feel burned out even when you finally managed to achieve your goal. Once you’ve got your ‘why’ sorted out, focus on these 3 things — Resources, Processes, Priorities — and you can achieve anything you want. Let me show you how.
Resources — the ‘what’
Broadly defined, resources could mean the following:
1. Capital
2. Network
3. Customers
4. Equipment
5. Knowledge/Skills
6. Brand
or even more abstractly,
7. Time
8. Creativity
9. Energy/Willpower
For example, as a University student, at the very least you will have network (your friends/faculty/mentors), knowledge, and time but perhaps not so much of the rest. But that’s okay. Through a truthful assessment of your current level of the various resources, you can then have a better idea of how to go about achieving your goals by making use of your existing resources to get more of the other resources. The way you do this is through good processes.
Processes — the ‘how’
Good processes allow us to use our resources efficiently to achieve what we want. For example, good habits/routines can potentially help us finish a task on time. But a life of rigid routine is not for everyone.
Good processes could also simply be removing bad habits, i.e. learning how to use “productivity hacks” to your advantage. For example, you could use site blockers like Focusd when you’re studying — trading time for knowledge. Or you could replace your Instagram button with a more productive app like SoloLearn(great app for an intro to/refresher on programming languages.) So the next time you subconsciously want to click on Instagram, you end up learning a little bit of a programming language — a great skill to have.
There are many good processes that allows you to get more of the other resources. Such as using your knowledge of social media(network) to create a brand for yourself, which could even become a source of revenue(capital). If you’re a little more adventurous, you could even use your knowledge, skills, creativity and network and give the startup life a shot. Who knows what you might chance upon!
The list goes on and on. If you have no idea how you can create good processes to make use of what you have to achieve what you want, leave a comment below and we are more than happy to help.
Priorities — the ‘when’
Our priorities tells us which of our processes we should pay more attention to and which one we should do first.
Setting priorities is easy, sticking to them is hard — unless you have a great ‘why’. Then it’ll be effortless. That said, finding a great ‘why’ isn’t easy, and you aren’t expected to find one in your early 20’s anyway, so don’t worry if you haven’t found yours, most of us haven’t either. But read on anyway, setting priorities is still something that works every time 20% of the time.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a great framework for setting priorities and it’s simple to follow. Our tasks are either important or not important; urgent or not urgent. By figuring out in which quadrant our long list of to-dos belong, we can see very clearly which task requires our immediate attention and what to do with all the others.
In summary, to achieve what you want, first ask yourself why you want to achieve it. After you have convinced yourself on the “why”, there are 3 things you need to focus on.
- Assess your resources
- Design good processes
- Set your priorities
Equipped with this empowering knowledge, how are you still not convinced that you can do it?
P.S. ‘Can’ is not quite the same as ‘will’. Actually doing it requires much more than reading an essay on the Internet. It requires you to put your knowledge into daily practice.
