If you’re like me, every once in a while you’ll have a morning where there’s absolutely NOTHING on the radio, and a few minutes down the road you’re lost in thought — thinking about life. For me it usually looks like, “I really need to work out”, “I should spend more time reading books and less on my phone”, “What are my goals?” which then leads to other things on a macro level, “what’s my purpose?”, “am I maximizing my potential?”, “am I even making a difference?”, and the list goes on and on. One thought leads to another and suddenly you find yourself down a rabbit trail in a moment of depression and you don’t even realize it. Now you’re sitting at work unsure of where your day got off track.
This happened to me recently. I was tired from the night before; I had stayed up late working on side-work and one of my twin daughters woke up and wouldn’t go back to sleep. I got to work that day after one of those drives and I’m sitting at work with no motivation and I’m exhausted. I had to get out of this funk and needed to take a walk. While I was walking I opened my journal app and I began to journal out-loud using dictation, and I started working through my thoughts.
During my short walk I broke down my thought pattern. What I realized is that I have a high expectation for my life, as many of you probably do too, and I find myself doing whatever it takes to succeed. So I pick up a side project here, I go to a networking meeting there, I have a side business over there and suddenly I’m overwhelmed with life. So what’s the point? I would venture to say it’s discipline. Discipline of prioritizing what’s important and planning time to execute the tasks that achieve our goals. Everyone’s priorities may be different but mine look something like this: having a time of silence, affirming myself, visualizing my goals, exercising, reading and journaling. These are absolute staples in my every day life. If I miss any one of these things, then I start to lose focus.
Then there are my secondary goals. Working in the technology industry it might look like: side-work, t-shirt business, online e-commerce, networking, learning the latest code technology or staying up on design trends…etc. But I must have the discipline to pick a few of those things and complete them. The moment you get squirrely you immediately lose track of where you are and suddenly you can’t find time to execute what really needs done. Discipline will remind yourself what you are focused on and to execute only those things you have chosen. If you have new ideas — Great! But put them in a reminder list. Come back to them when you have exhausted your potential for a current idea. Jumping all over the place will never allow you to put enough time into something to actually see if it succeeds. Thus causing things like family and work to suffer — so you must have discipline.
In short, everything I just said is much easier said than done. It’s so easy to get caught up in thoughts and ideas and lose track of where you are. Suddenly we allow doubt, depression and fear to set in. We then become victims of paralysis by analysis. So you have to have a plan for times like that. Figure out what is absolutely necessary to your life and discipline yourself to do those things. THEN, do everything else. You have to feed your mind, spirit and body otherwise you’ll fall prey to the crashing waves of life. Think ahead. Most importantly remember that your life is actually great. Every day above ground is a blessing, but you have to have a time during the day to acknowledge the important things. This will empower you to live a more fulfilling life.
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