On Not Wasting Time, Staying On-track, and Finding Life Purpose

I wrote this in response to someone’s questions in a Reddit channel about discipline. What I’m going to say may not be agreeable to everyone, but it is what has helped me a lot in terms of motivating myself, staying on track, finding purpose, and alleviating stress.

1) On not wasting time

I often have periods of self-doubt where I feel that I am wasting my life away. This is usually the case when I indulge in a video game, binge watch TV, or sleep into the afternoon on a weekend, etc. — basically anytime I’m overindulging in an activity that I view as not a productive use of my time. I will suffer from anxiety immediately afterwards because I feel like a failure for having wasted so much time.

What I have come to realize is that if you feel this way, the only thing you need to do is to change the exact behavior that is causing you anxiety. It is that simple and that hard.

For example, if I played 10 hours of video games and feel like shit because of it at 2 AM, I will immediately set my alarm for 7 AM the next morning and write down on my whiteboard a clear, simple first goal of the day such as “Get out of bed and put on exercise clothes”. Then I make the goal easy to achieve for myself by making preparations such as laying out the clothes right next to my bed. The next morning, I mechanically force myself to physically get out of bed at 7 AM (this is the toughest part) and put on my exercise gear. At this point, goal 1 of the day is accomplished and I start feeling optimistic and good about myself. So I follow up with goal 2, “Walk down to the park while listening to my favorite tunes”. While doing that, I build momentum by thinking of the next mini goal 3, which could be do laundry, etc.

I never set more than 1–2 mini goals at a time because that would be too stressful and daunting, but as I am close to accomplishing my current goal, I immediately plan what I’m going to do next. Minor goals are the best, because they act as mini milestones that are easy to achieve, which will build your confidence and optimism as the day progresses. Once the day is over, you should sit down and jot down what you have accomplished throughout the day. It is a really good feeling to look back at yourself hitting all those mini goals, and acts as positive momentum for you to set that first mini goal for the next morning. The mini goals for each day can very well be the same one (get out of bed and put on exercise clothes), but don’t take it for granted — always reset mini goals each time. Rinse, repeat.

I have been putting this plan into action for the past couple of weeks and have felt more productive than ever. The key part is to not look too far ahead. Don’t plan your day. Set a goal for the next 20, 30, or 60 minutes. That’s it. It is like focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, you can scale a mountain this way.

2) On staying on track

I used to think a lot about discipline and staying on track for my ambitious goals, until I realized it was causing me so much anxiety and stress. For instance, one of my personal goals is to write a novel. When I go a day without writing or miss my daily word count target, I often feel like a failure. I had gone off track. Then I would go and play a day of video games while I sulked and feel even worse.

If your life is a hallway, and your “track” or “life goal” is to get to the door at the end, you will get tired out and lose focus because you are basically telling yourself, I don’t deserve a break or to be happy until I reach that door. This is why we often hear people saying: “When I’m rich, I will…” or “I wish I were…, then I would…” This is how the concept of being on the “right track” is born.

What I have realized is that shifting my focus to my immediate day has been a much better approach than always ogling at that distant door at the end of the hallway. I have stopped thinking in terms of “One day, I will…” or “If only I was…, then I would…”

I now think “I want [X], so today I will [Y].”

Then, in the spirit of my strategy in 1) above, I will build [Y] into my day as a mini goal. Over time, I will achieve [X] which could be the figurative door at the end of the hallway. But rather than waste time imagining how nice [X] would be, instead I focus on my daily [Y]’s. This allows me to keep making progress without being constantly pressured to make progress.

A concrete example is dieting. I used to set goals like, “This week I will lose 2 lbs by hitting daily 1K calorie goals or going to the gym for an hour a day”. I usually failed and gave up within a day or two, because I lacked discipline, got discouraged or cheated, and then felt like a complete failure. The “2 lb’s at the end of the week” was my door at the end of the hallway, and by focusing on it, even if I set clear daily goals, I was still overcome by anxiety and stress, because I was in constant danger of going “off track”.

Now, I no longer set these far off goals. I no longer say I will lose X lbs by X date. Instead, I focus on today, one meal at a time, one exercise goal at a time. At each meal, I will make a choice to eat the healthier option. Each morning my first mini goal of the day is to walk / run in the park for an hour. Over time, these positive choices will build up to achieving some good results, but I have removed all the pressure by not stating specific goals in the distant future. There is no risk of going “off track”, because there is no “track”, only mini decisions at lunch time. As a result, even one bad decision won’t set me back, because I know I will make a better one at the next opportunity in a few hours.

3) On finding life purpose

How do we find life purpose? This was the hardest question to answer. The good news is, I firmly believe that if you are looking out for your life purpose, you will find it. The bad news is that it is different for everyone and there is no universal formula. And the looking out process could be stressful and daunting in itself. It makes us feel listless and anxious, but since we don’t know what we want, it also makes us feel powerless to change our situation.

A shift in mentality that has worked for me is to not let “finding my life purpose” or “my life purpose” become that door at the end of the hallway. Because as I noted in 2), it adds so much needless stress and anxiety. I know because I have been down there many times. I have felt lost and hopeless before because I didn’t know what I was doing with my life. I felt like I was wasting time, while others were getting further ahead. This was because I was convinced that I had to find my purpose behind that door at the end of the hallway. I was supposed to be on some track, and not getting ahead or even just getting somewhere, made me feel like I was wasting my life.

What has changed things for me, again, is to focus more on today, now. For instance, it is okay if I don’t know what my purpose is, but I know I want to tell a story — okay, so today I will go to the local coffee shop and try to write a couple words. Or, I don’t know what my purpose is, but I want to make more friends — okay, today I will text a high school classmate and ask what they have been up to. Or, I don’t know what my purpose is, but I know I want to look better in jeans — okay, today I will make good choices during my meals and walk for an hour after dinner. So forth.

We all go through life not knowing what we want out of it. We are always wondering. So, doesn’t it make sense to act on the few specific things you do know for certain that you want?

In my hallway analogy, if your life purpose is the door at the end of the hallway, and you have absolutely no clue what is behind it, what most of us do is to keep walking blindly towards it and HOPE that we get there and HOPE that what is behind it is something that we want and will make us happy.

But what if along this hallway there are doors on either side. What if some of them actually look interesting to you? But you’ve convinced yourself that they can’t possibly be your purpose because they are too shallow or too specific or too short-term? So you ignore them and continue down this hallway, make a mental note that you will come back to these doors once you find your purpose.

What I’m saying is, you don’t need to do that to yourself. Explore these side doors to your heart’s content, even if you don’t think they will lead you to your ultimate purpose (whatever that may be). This is actually the surest way to find your purpose. Because the truth is, there is no guarantee you will actually like what you find behind the door at the end of the hallway. So, doesn’t it make sense to explore the doors that do pique your interest along the way? You may be pleasantly surprised by where they take you.