Alarm goes off at 530am SHARP!
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- Rise and Grind
- Have to do my 5 minute Journal
- Next a 20 minute meditation session is on deck
- Got to get my 30mins of reading in
- Pound back the Supplements before a gym session
- Time to head to the gym for an intense hour workout
- 50g of carbs, 50g of protein and 20g of fat down the hatch
- Finally a 2 hour timed focused work session
All before 11am.
Sounds like a “perfect” start to a day right?
I Lived it! Everything we read about online, offline, in books, hear from successful people, I did everything I could to embody that for almost 5 years.
And Guess What? I was not Happy!
This routine was my everything and it helped me accomplish things I never thought possible across many areas of my life but I didn’t genuinely feel like I loved living this way.
I didn’t know this was the case until I experienced a different way of life while travelling for 3 months that brought new levels of happiness I have never experienced before.
I feel compelled to share my new outlook on life because there is so much content being put out there about “How to be Ultra Productive”, “The 10 things super successful people do”, “The 3 things to do every day to make you successful” which makes people believe that “if only” they could do these things they will get everything they want in life. Which is just not the case.
That’s why in this post I am going to share how being super productive didn’t make me happy, the 5 lessons I have learned travelling that changed me forever and how I am going to incorporate these new principles into my life.
How Being Super Productive Made Me Unhappy
One word, OBSESSED.
Obsessed with being uber successful, super productive, in the best shape, learning as much as humanly possible, developing a daily mindfulness practice, travelling every 2 months and the list goes on and on. All at the same time.
I prided myself on my discipline if that was around setting goals for crushing my sales quota at work or my strict approach to diet and training when I prepared for a bodybuilding show or on how many pages I read per day.
It was all about optimization every single day to move closer and closer to the goals I create twice a year.
My emotions were dedicated by how “productive” I was in relation to the 20 micro goals each day.
- Did I journal for 5 mins?
- Did I crush a workout before bfast?
- Did I eat 250g grams of carbs, 200g of protein and 65g of fat today?
- Did I do three 2 hour focused work sessions?
- Did I take my 10 supplements today?
- Did spend 30 mins reading?
- Did I really get in the zone with my 20 mins of meditation today?
If I would miss one of these, feelings of guilt would fill my mind and weigh on my shoulders. I would be so hard on myself demanding more and more expecting to be able to do it all. Why? Because this super disciplined approach to fitness, personal development and professionalism has enabled me to crush my goals the last 5 years in these areas.
It’s the only way I knew how to live. At least if I wanted to be successful I thought.
This turned into a way of life that left little room for deviating from the plan, rolling with the present and doing shit for the sake of it. I became TOO productive that I forgot how to enjoy something for the sake of enjoying something.
What’s weird is that I had NO intention of changing this way of living at all. Why would I? I was able to accomplish anything I wanted in life and every time I open up medium or anything else I could be the poster boy for the ultra productive life. That’s how you live life properly right?
Now I am not saying it’s wrong a to live this way. In life unless you try and I don’t mean kind of try but instead go all in on different things, you can never know if it’s something that makes “you” happy even if it makes tons of others really happy.
I felt this way when I decided to quit corporate America after 5 years of crushing it selling tech to the fortune 500 in NYC. I felt this way after 5 years competing in Natural Bodybuilding shows. I felt this way after 10 years of a super disciplined, goal oriented lifestyle.
I felt like there was more and that this was not my path.
The Turning Point
The real turning point came while travelling in the first 4 weeks of a 6 week trip that started April 13th of 2016. . Of course I am on “vacation” so its easier to turn off many of the switches from fitness, to the business, reading, meditation etc. but what was odd was just how genuinely happy I felt. Not because I was not doing these things but just the way of living. Waking up without an alarm, having coffee with my wife, not knowing what the day had in store. Going with the flow. It was great.
That’s when it happened. My wife and I looked at each other a few weeks before we were suppose to go home and immediately said, “we need to stay”. We decided to truly go on a self discovery adventure and try a new way of life.
Since that day I have gone all in. Trying new ways of life to determine what lifestyle truly makes me happy. From mediating and yoga everyday in Bali to eating great grub and hitting the beach in Sardgena, I have learned so much about life and myself.
There are 5 lessons that stick out to me the most that I have learned in the last 90 days that have reshaped the way I will live my life moving forward.
1. Don’t Take Life So Seriously
It’s that feeling of needing to make progress towards being successful every single day and crushing your “goals” that I need to lighten up on. Life is not this rigid game of make progress, be productive or you are a failure.
Spending the day doing nothing or farting around with some friends does not make you this unproductive underachiever. It makes you a person having fun and taking it easy that day.
That’s’ the difference. I used to look at myself and others for that matter that weren’t super focused with a detailed plan for being successful in life as people that didn’t give a crap. Instead many of these people probably found a level of happiness in the present rather than finding negative emotion constantly worrying about the past or future.
It’s about going with the flow, have periods of focus on whatever areas of my life I decide to put attention around but the mindset shift of taking it easy doesn’t mean unproductive.
It’s life. You live. You Die. In between we need to do things that genuinely make us happy very often.
This is a big one. It’s always been about becoming the best human possible, become legendary and accomplishing the highest heights in business. Having goals and focusing on the big picture to get through the tough times regardless what needs to be sacrificed.
Life is life. You live and then you die simple as that. It’s not this master game where you have to destroy of inch of every day and if you don’t you are a failure. Failure in the eyes of who? Society?
Your life and the happiness associated with it is a product of what you want it to be. You can be a farmer in Oklahoma, Banker in New York, CEO in Silicon Valley or a coffee shop owner in Italy.
2. You need to Take Actual Decompression Time
I spent almost 10 years hyper focused on professional development. From when I was in university and the crazy amount of discipline I put towards studying and volunteering so I had the best chance to get a sweet job out of school.
To my 5 years selling technology putting very detailed plans and goals together and sacrificing many things to ensure these goals were accomplished and success achieved.
I never turned off fully. I never actually put as much time and effort on very important things in my life like my relationship, or friends or personal happiness that I put into professional improvement.
Don’t get me wrong this helped me progress very quickly professionally and learn a ton but for what. What’s the race? There isn’t one.
That’s why having ACTUAL periods of time to decompress that are scheduled regularly is critical. Not oh I am going to take a few weeks vacation and you spend 75% either worrying about work or focusing on how not to think about work. A solid 2 months of shutting it down and focusing on things for the hell of it. Doing things just because you want to do them. Not related to professional improvement.
That’s what I have concluded I needed but didn’t realize until I was actually doing it. I have been decompressing since April but just recently realized why and it’s importance. Trust me it’s not easy but I feel it’s recharging my mind and body immensely.
Why should we spend our whole life progressing professionally when in most cases its not the actual thing that makes us truly happy.
Tim Ferriss wrote a great blog post in March around the power of deloading that resonated with me immensely. Check it out. http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/03/29/deloading-phase/
3. Simplify Life
This I learned travelling in Bali. It sounds so broad but when you look under the covers it makes so much sense and brings clarity.
Simplifying to me is aligning my actions and thoughts with my prioritization scale in life. The order of importance of different areas in my life.
For me it’s as follows.
- Family/Friends
- Health
- Personal Development
- Professional Development
But what is funky is I have been able to verbalize this scale for 5+ years yet I was not actually living it. My actions and thoughts were not reflecting what I deemed to be of importance to me.
Simplification is embracing this scale whatever the order is to you and I then just living by it. For me while I travel it’s put my wife first every minute, have fun and learn about me. That’s it.
It’s used to not be okay to just put my wife first. I would need to figure out what’s the goal, how many times a week do I have to do something special for her, after week 3 I want to do something special 4x/week then two weeks later 5x/week. No it’s simple. Put her first.
I feel it’s easier to simplify things while you are away from your “home” environment so I understand it will be a challenge when I get back but living a simpler life brings emotions of happiness everyday that is not what I can say for how I approached life previously.
4. Get off your own back
I was the ultimate hard on yourself type guy. I couldn’t pay someone enough money to be hard on me compared to the standards I put on myself. Now this level of self motivation/drive I am not saying is bad. All I am saying is does it make sense to beat yourself up so much? What good does it do for who you want to become or the level of happiness you want to acquire?
That’s why I have committed to loosen up on myself. I don’t need to be this perfect person everyday crushing the things I put in front of myself.
If I don’t feel like doing something no worries because tomorrow is another day and I will get it done. That’s who I am but feeling shitty about myself or my progress is not a healthy thing.
It does not lend itself to being happy. The strictness and rigidness self imposed is just not worth it in life. If you aren’t nice to yourself and I am not suggesting hate who you are and what you do. I am talking about just giving yourself no room for error. Then who will be? We need to reinforce positive self talk rather than negative and pat ourselves on the shoulder.
If we don’t then we leave it to chance that within our network someone will provide compliments or that needed pat to make us feel good. That’s crazy.
I am committed to being nicer to myself and getting of my own back so life can happen rather than be forced by my actions.
5. Everything always works out. SO CHILL!
This is a principle I learned 7 years ago while growing a volunteer group that helped entrepreneurs start businesses. There was so much ambiguity in what I needed to do to make it successful that when one thing failed the other pieces would follow. But what happened time and time again was that it found a way to just workout.
At the end of the day everything works out no matter what. There will be tough times where things don’t seem like they will be okay but they always do. So why stress? Why get so caught up and upset?
Instead I have faith in this principle and it allows me to chill out. I know when I get home there will be time to focus on my business, make some money, spend time with family etc. So why worry now about my lack of progression in these areas.
In grand scheme of things if we live to a modest 80 years old a couple years even of farting around is a mere 4% of our life. Doing nothing for 4% will that ruin everything? NO.
So that’s why I need to chill out and have confidence in the principle that everything always works out.
My Life Moving Forward
So now what? How will I live life to get the upmost happiness? Well it’s a mix of everything that I have experienced. I know that living the super simple life where you remove all worries of the future and past and spend your time in a mindfulness state is not how I want to live moving forward.
Waking up, going to the coffee shop chatting for a few hours, hitting the beach, grabbing food for dinner then relaxing with friends is something I enjoy tremendously but not everyday.
For me it’s not about changing the things I do in life. I’m still obsessed with fitness, learning everyday, family and becoming a great entrepreneur. It’s the way I go about them that will change.
The big change is removing all of the self induced rules imposed on my life everyday that lend themselves to feelings of under accomplishment and beating myself up. Living a more go with the flow lifestyle while not being so strict. It’s not about getting 100 things done in the day across so many areas of my life anymore. It’s about doing them when I want to do them and spending more time with my wife and friends.
- I don’t have to wake up at 5am everyday.
- I don’t have to read for 30mins then mediate for 20mins daily.
- I don’t have to have three hyper focused and timed worked sessions.
- I don’t have to turn off my Facebook except for 2x a day.
- I don’t have to eat 250g of carbs every day and 200g of protein.
I can do these things but don’t have to. That’s the change. I will going with how I feel more and stop being so hard on myself. Stop beating myself up or setting my days up for failure because I am not perfect.
I don’t know exactly what it will look like since I still have 3 months of travelling left but I do know that I am ditching the alarm, removing the 100 micro goals each day, doing things when I want to do them and having ”bursts” of focus periods for certain areas in my life (2–4 months) before deloading and decompressing.
I have grown to enjoy spontaneity and the little things that come with life. I know for sure I won’t be missing waking up with my wife and enjoying our morning coffee together anymore. That’s for sure!
Don’t think that if you are or could become super productive that happiness and success will follow. Maybe it will or maybe you will be like me. See some success but not be truly happy.
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