Lacking grit.........How do I fix it?

[Vigilante]

 

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[wade1mil]

One thing that has helped me overcome the "giving up" thing is to get rid of the expectations. So you have this idea for an app, and you want it to be successful. You feel like you'll give up because you think people may not like it, it didn't turn out as good as you had hoped for, it's not generating enough downloads or profit, it's taking longer than expected, etc.

If you give up, you're reinforcing the "no grit" habit. So, try continuing with it with the thought that it's just a hobby. You're not expecting it to do well. You're just doing it to see what it's like to go from the beginning of a project to the end of a project, even if that means it takes five times longer and it costs you money (instead of makes you money). Here's what you get out of this: grit. You've accomplished learning how to be gritty. You can now break through that barrier when you face it next. You know how to overcome it, and it's no longer a "problem."

If you happen to get millions of downloads and make millions of dollars, then it's a bonus. But at least you have gotten rid of the "give up" habit.

 

[The-J]

Seems that your problem is that you still think something is missing, and without that 'thing', you'll never get to where you wanna be.

Keep working on what you're working on and don't pay the book no mind. Obstacles will come and go: just climb em. When you hit a wall, knock down the wall. When you gotta pivot, you pivot. Trust in the process, whatever your process is.

You might not ever become a millionaire. But you might, and following the CENTS/Effection will increase your probabilities as much as they can be increased.

 

[SteveO]

Ouch, that's even lower than my score. Haha.

Schadenfreude is horrible isn't it. :embarrased:

I scored a 4.7. Ten questions are not enough to determine grit IMO. You could easily answer that you move on to other projects which would lower your score. There is nothing to determine why you changed or what the results were. There are frequently reasons behind decisions. If you just change because you are bored, then it would be accurate. But they don't dig in that far.

 

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[SteveO]

Thanks for all the replies. Some interesting and useful perspectives here. @SteveO I wonder if you have the time to elaborate on what you mean? You say "quit while you're ahead". I'm not ahead.......of anything. I haven't really got going yet? Also you say that "alarm bells should be going off." For me the alarm bells are going off telling me I have a weakness I need to try and improve.

Thanks again.

The fact that you keep questioning yourself about everything. I did not mean that you should quit. Just the thought of quitting should raise you into a "high alert" posture.

You are now telling yourself that you don't have any grit!!!!

You don't have a weakness.... unless you tell yourself that you do.

Look at the life that you have CREATED! It is a fantastic and phenomenal accomplishment. Take the judgment out of the picture. Your perception is the only aspect that is showing you weakness. Your perception is what colors your view.

The real problem here is that none of us can tell you anything that will allow you to move forward with the perception that you can accomplish. That needs to come from inside you. You have ALL the tools to make that happen if you choose to look.

 

[ZCP]

You have to want it more than you want to breathe.

What is the toughest challenge you have ever faced?

What if your very life depended on it? Could you do it? Would you do it?

 

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[Vigilante]

I've been needing to get on the phone and cold call for idea extraction recently (a la Dane Maxwell,) but every time I think about it I get uneasy and put it off.

Perhaps that's because the whole concept of idea extraction is bullshit to most people. Your gut might be right.

 

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[Green Destiny]

Hey

I just joined the forum last night and have been reading through quite a few of the gold threads all of which have some great content, so I just want to thank everyone who has contributed to this great resource.

This is my first post and I'm afraid it's a little negative. Although I hope it will be constructive as well. A few weeks ago I read a book called "Grit: The power of Passion and perseverance". For those of you who haven't read it, it basically says that grit (made up from passion & perseverance), is way more important than talent and is the biggest factor in achieving success.

In one of the chapters it has this test where you answer some questions and then it gives you a score for how gritty you are. So i do the test trying to be as honest as possible and then I check my score. My score is pathetic, putting me in the bottom 20% of the population. I tell myself this must be some kind of mistake and retake the test, thinking very carefully about each answer. Still, I have a terrible score.

Now, I can't stop thinking about it. I've reassessed my life and all the decisions I’ve taken and I'm ashamed to admit that I do lack grit. When something gets a bit too tough or boring or I don't see the point in it any more, I give up, I have done most of my life. I've disguised these decisions with all kinds of excuses but I see now that it is a weakness of mine and something I need to fix.

I'm currently working on a prototype for a web/mobile app, it meets the CENTS criteria and I’m determined to make it a success. However, I'm really worried that when it starts to get tough, as it surely will, that I'll quit and be back at square one again.

It seems that so many of the people in this forum have so much grit, determination, hustle.......call it what you will, and I'd like to ask you all whether you were always like this or whether you had to develop it and what strategies do you use to keep yourself from quitting when it gets hard or boring or seems hopeless?

Thanks in advance for the replies.

 

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[Paul Thomas]

This lit a fire for me:

http://wallstreetplayboys.com/motivation-is-for-the-weak/

 

[Green Destiny]

You remind me a lot of how I used to think/act. It seems like you get discouraged, then dwell on it; constantly thinking about it until it eats all your confidence and shits it out. It also seems like you have an obsessive mindset when it comes to constantly hanging on to things (like the test results)

You know there are ways you can use this to your advantage, right? All it takes is your mental acceptance—accept you've made some goofs in the past; accept that you scored lower than you anticipated on a 10 question quiz, which—to me, anyway—seems like the equivalent of those "which character are you!?!?!" quizzes on Facebook; accept that you are in the bottom 20% of the population.

Now, once you've accepted it, take all that self-pity, self-doubt, and lack of confidence and ball it up and throw that shit in the trash. Or, even better, the toilet. Flush it and watch it spin down the drain and let it go; move on. I bet that if every successful entrepreneur took this test before they were successful they would have score the same or lower than you. That's the beauty of growing. You can be different, and you can improve your mindset. You just have to make a conscious effort to accept certain things and make adjustments where necessary. A freakin' 10 question "quiz" can't determine or control your destiny, man. Only you can. Stop relinquishing control of your life because some basic HTML poll told you to. Take your test results as feedback, improve, and kick a$$. Focus on your project. When you get those urges to quit, realize your brain is telling you that you're outside of your comfort zone and it's freaking out. It's normal. Outside of basic survival, fear is a great opportunity for growth and development.

Just remember, most things are learned behavior. You've got to learn that you're likely the only thing holding you back, your personal beliefs (or self-defeating/limiting beliefs). You didn't develop your thought-process/mindset overnight, so just remember you're not going to vastly improve/change your mindset overnight. It's a practice—perfect it and adapt.

Best wishes to you and your project. Don't raise the white flag if your project crumbles to the ground. Salvage the useful nuggets from the rubble of the experience and take them with you to rebuild.

Cheers.

Thanks for your thoughts. Lot's of great advice here. I suppose subconsciously I must have bought into the whole "cult of the entrepreneur" thing where by we are told that they are made of different stuff to the rest of us and if you haven't started a business by the time you're 16 and made your first million by 18 then you clearly don't have it in you.

I caught myself in a similar scenario but on the different end of the scale today by a random thing I read. Turns out I am the same age as the average age of a founder of "Unicorn" app when they started it. But then I thought to myself that it seems just as silly to take confidence from that as it is to lose confidence due to the answers to some little quiz.

I also feel better as I've had a couple of really productive days since I started this thread and whereas before when I got discouraged I usually ended up being really unproductive for a while after, this time I was able to work through it. Thanks to a quick call from @Vigilante ,it kind of jump started me to get going again.

I feel though that I'm in a better position now to recognise these "self-defeating/limiting" beliefs as you describe them for what they are and perhaps next time they crop up instead of wallowing in them and letting them discourage me I can accept them, recognise them and then overcome them.

Also, I set the forum to my homepage and seeing a community of like minded people striving for similar goals throughout the day is a good reminder to me to keep on going.

Thanks again.

 

[cautiouscapy]

I've reassessed my life and all the decisions I’ve taken and I'm ashamed to admit that I do lack grit

My 2c worth (because a lot of people will tell you "just keep going" but can't coach you through your own personal sticking points):

I personally think that holding this in mind (but "gently" - don't dwell on it too much, don't use it as a stick to beat yourself up with, don't make it part of your identity) will be useful, something to compare your behavior to and work on improving the "lacking grit". Until you no longer "lack grit".

I've found it immensely valuable for myself to consider that in my life so far, "I have a tendency to depression / let my self get into a depressed state".

I don't identify myself as "a depressive", but knowing that I can go that way if I don't pay attention actually helps me to pay attention to my state of mind. One day, I will know that "I used to have a tendency to let myself get depressed", it will be in the past.

Just use it as a sort of reminder to keep your eyes open for pointers on how to build determination, keep going, "get grit". Don't navel-gaze at length about it.

 

[Jean-Pierre]

I suppose what the book did was make me question whether I was cut out to succeed with my own business.

Firstly, a book cannot tell you whether you are going to be successful or not. It can tell you that these are the qualities of "successful" people but it cannot see into the future and determine yours. And secondly, success is defined differently by different people - One person might think making 1 billion dollars is success , another might think being free to make their own choices is success. Create your definition of success and work towards that and no one else's.

I haven't read the book but I did listen to an interview on the Freakanomics podcast with the author and I remember listening to the questions they asked to determine "grit" and to be honest, I was thinking the same thing as you since I theoretically got a low score as well. But then when I really thought about it I was answering those questions based on times in my life where I was not passionate about what I was doing, like school and university and my corporate job... Of course I'm not going to have any 'grit'!!! I wasn't passionate about the process or outcome. Now I'm not suggesting to only do the things you love, rather do things for the reason you love. What drives me with what I do now is that I'm doing it to live a certain lifestyle ("my success") which I am passionate about. Sure some of the things I have to do to get there are boring and monotonous but what keeps me going is that I know I'm working towards my version of success.

If I did the questionnaire again now I think I'd probably still get a low score (because I outsource anything I don't want to do) but who gives a shit, I'm successful in my world so who cares what a book told me.

But I do have a few tips for you from my own experiences:
- Don't do projects just for moneys sake and that you have no interest in or don't 100000% believe in. Some people make it work but if you already know your personality is more defensive than offensive then I'd say find another project.
- Re-learn how to learn and do things. I'm really generalising here - but I'm assuming people who give up easily are very outcome focused (I only say this because that's how I was, and still kinda am, but that's part of my journey). It's easy to say don't focus on the outcome, but that means absolutely nothing to most people, especially if you're outcome focused. Understand that the outcome is made up of many tiny little steps that anyone can learn and do, you just have to understand how to learn how to do them and how to put them together.

I'm in a situation where I'm second guessing myself a lot.

One word - Experience. There's nothing anyone can say to you to stop you from second guessing yourself. Only you can tell you-you are right (or at least make you think you're right ). My only suggestion would be to understand the risks of your decision, minimise the risk, and then just do it - learn from it and then make the next decision. Knowing, or even better, minimising the risk takes the edge off "making the right decision" and then you spend more time doing and experiencing, and less time thinking about, thinking about making a decision. There's no secret formula to this one, you just have to experience it and figure it out for yourself.

Don't be too hard on yourself buddy. Life isn't as hard as we make it out to be and you should give yourself more credit that you think. Keep up the good work!

 

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[mrarcher]

Sometimes it feels like you are doing so much work and getting nowhere. It may seem like a huge task and at times you will begin to waver in interest. I believe a lot of people have the problem that they want it all now and if it doesn't work within a few weeks or on the first attempt they give up. Just remember you CAN move a mountain. You'll just have to do it one shovel full at a time.

 

[TheDillon__]

When you get those urges to quit, realize your brain is telling you that you're outside of your comfort zone and it's freaking out.

Oh man, I've never thought about it like this before! I can't tell you how big of a lightbulb this just set off for me.

I've been needing to get on the phone and cold call for idea extraction recently (a la Dane Maxwell,) but every time I think about it I get uneasy and put it off.

This is exactly what I needed to hear, thank you.

 

[Guest34764]

Oh man, I've never thought about it like this before! I can't tell you how big of a lightbulb this just set off for me.

I've been needing to get on the phone and cold call for idea extraction recently (a la Dane Maxwell,) but every time I think about it I get uneasy and put it off.

This is exactly what I needed to hear, thank you.

I believe once you start making a sliver of money, grit and everything else will soon develop.

Once the spark kindles the wood, it'll ignite a flame within you.

I don't make much, but when I first started flipping I spent maybe 20 minutes looking at a bike here and there and making 30-50$ profit.My last deal made 250$ profit and my next will give me even more.It's safe to say that I spend significantly more time flipping now because I actually made some tangible money and saw results, but it took longer than expected.

Just stick it out and persevere.Get on that phone and make a call even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

I guarantee you it'll get much easier calling when you've already made 5K from doing it.

 

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[Green Destiny]

Seems that your problem is that you still think something is missing, and without that 'thing', you'll never get to where you wanna be.

Keep working on what you're working on and don't pay the book no mind. Obstacles will come and go: just climb em. When you hit a wall, knock down the wall. When you gotta pivot, you pivot. Trust in the process, whatever your process is.

You might not ever become a millionaire. But you might, and following the CENTS/Effection will increase your probabilities as much as they can be increased.

I suppose what the book did was make me question whether I was cut out to succeed with my own business. In the back of my mind I have another idea that I was considering and so at the moment I'm in a situation where I'm second guessing myself a lot. Like you say I just need to commit to the process and keep going. Thanks.

 

[mateoverano]

Great advice from Jean-Pierre.

The Freakonomics podcast on this was really good. Like, Jean-Pierre, I have not read the book, but the key takeaway for me from the podcast was that in order to have grit, you must be interested in what you are doing. You don't necessarily even have to be passionate about it, but you must find it interesting, meaning that you want to learn more about the details. Everything gets boring at some point, but those with grit tend to be interested in learning about the nuances of their subject.

The other point from the author in the podcast was that the questionairre's don't really represent us well. You can game them and the answer will change depending upon your mood or what you area of life you are thinking about it. Don't put too much stock in them.

I am a newbie to this forum and I don't have the answers, but I do think that if you are really interested in your project, you will find ways to push through obstacles and succeed so find something interesting.

Another thought is to try writing out a WOOP each day as you start. It's a simple technique to keep yourself motivated.

Wish:
Opportunity:
Obstacles:
Plan:

Here's the website: http://www.woopmylife.org/

Here's the freakonomics podcast: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/grit/

Best,

Matt

Firstly, a book cannot tell you whether you are going to be successful or not. It can tell you that these are the qualities of "successful" people but it cannot see into the future and determine yours. And secondly, success is defined differently by different people - One person might think making 1 billion dollars is success , another might think being free to make their own choices is success. Create your definition of success and work towards that and no one else's.

I haven't read the book but I did listen to an interview on the Freakanomics podcast with the author and I remember listening to the questions they asked to determine "grit" and to be honest, I was thinking the same thing as you since I theoretically got a low score as well. But then when I really thought about it I was answering those questions based on times in my life where I was not passionate about what I was doing, like school and university and my corporate job... Of course I'm not going to have any 'grit'!!! I wasn't passionate about the process or outcome. Now I'm not suggesting to only do the things you love, rather do things for the reason you love. What drives me with what I do now is that I'm doing it to live a certain lifestyle ("my success") which I am passionate about. Sure some of the things I have to do to get there are boring and monotonous but what keeps me going is that I know I'm working towards my version of success.

If I did the questionnaire again now I think I'd probably still get a low score (because I outsource anything I don't want to do) but who gives a shit, I'm successful in my world so who cares what a book told me.

But I do have a few tips for you from my own experiences:
- Don't do projects just for moneys sake and that you have no interest in or don't 100000% believe in. Some people make it work but if you already know your personality is more defensive than offensive then I'd say find another project.
- Re-learn how to learn and do things. I'm really generalising here - but I'm assuming people who give up easily are very outcome focused (I only say this because that's how I was, and still kinda am, but that's part of my journey). It's easy to say don't focus on the outcome, but that means absolutely nothing to most people, especially if you're outcome focused. Understand that the outcome is made up of many tiny little steps that anyone can learn and do, you just have to understand how to learn how to do them and how to put them together.


One word - Experience. There's nothing anyone can say to you to stop you from second guessing yourself. Only you can tell you-you are right (or at least make you think you're right ). My only suggestion would be to understand the risks of your decision, minimise the risk, and then just do it - learn from it and then make the next decision. Knowing, or even better, minimising the risk takes the edge off "making the right decision" and then you spend more time doing and experiencing, and less time thinking about, thinking about making a decision. There's no secret formula to this one, you just have to experience it and figure it out for yourself.

Don't be too hard on yourself buddy. Life isn't as hard as we make it out to be and you should give yourself more credit that you think. Keep up the good work!

 

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[mws87]

Hey

I just joined the forum last night and have been reading through quite a few of the gold threads all of which have some great content, so I just want to thank everyone who has contributed to this great resource.

This is my first post and I'm afraid it's a little negative. Although I hope it will be constructive as well. A few weeks ago I read a book called "Grit: The power of Passion and perseverance". For those of you who haven't read it, it basically says that grit (made up from passion & perseverance), is way more important than talent and is the biggest factor in achieving success.

In one of the chapters it has this test where you answer some questions and then it gives you a score for how gritty you are. So i do the test trying to be as honest as possible and then I check my score. My score is pathetic, putting me in the bottom 20% of the population. I tell myself this must be some kind of mistake and retake the test, thinking very carefully about each answer. Still, I have a terrible score.

Now, I can't stop thinking about it. I've reassessed my life and all the decisions I’ve taken and I'm ashamed to admit that I do lack grit. When something gets a bit too tough or boring or I don't see the point in it any more, I give up, I have done most of my life. I've disguised these decisions with all kinds of excuses but I see now that it is a weakness of mine and something I need to fix.

I'm currently working on a prototype for a web/mobile app, it meets the CENTS criteria and I’m determined to make it a success. However, I'm really worried that when it starts to get tough, as it surely will, that I'll quit and be back at square one again.

It seems that so many of the people in this forum have so much grit, determination, hustle.......call it what you will, and I'd like to ask you all whether you were always like this or whether you had to develop it and what strategies do you use to keep yourself from quitting when it gets hard or boring or seems hopeless?

Thanks in advance for the replies.

You remind me a lot of how I used to think/act. It seems like you get discouraged, then dwell on it; constantly thinking about it until it eats all your confidence and shits it out. It also seems like you have an obsessive mindset when it comes to constantly hanging on to things (like the test results)

You know there are ways you can use this to your advantage, right? All it takes is your mental acceptance—accept you've made some goofs in the past; accept that you scored lower than you anticipated on a 10 question quiz, which—to me, anyway—seems like the equivalent of those "which character are you!?!?!" quizzes on Facebook; accept that you are in the bottom 20% of the population.

Now, once you've accepted it, take all that self-pity, self-doubt, and lack of confidence and ball it up and throw that shit in the trash. Or, even better, the toilet. Flush it and watch it spin down the drain and let it go; move on. I bet that if every successful entrepreneur took this test before they were successful they would have score the same or lower than you. That's the beauty of growing. You can be different, and you can improve your mindset. You just have to make a conscious effort to accept certain things and make adjustments where necessary. A freakin' 10 question "quiz" can't determine or control your destiny, man. Only you can. Stop relinquishing control of your life because some basic HTML poll told you to. Take your test results as feedback, improve, and kick a$$. Focus on your project. When you get those urges to quit, realize your brain is telling you that you're outside of your comfort zone and it's freaking out. It's normal. Outside of basic survival, fear is a great opportunity for growth and development.

Just remember, most things are learned behavior. You've got to learn that you're likely the only thing holding you back, your personal beliefs (or self-defeating/limiting beliefs). You didn't develop your thought-process/mindset overnight, so just remember you're not going to vastly improve/change your mindset overnight. It's a practice—perfect it and adapt.

Best wishes to you and your project. Don't raise the white flag if your project crumbles to the ground. Salvage the useful nuggets from the rubble of the experience and take them with you to rebuild.

Cheers.

 

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[nradam123]

I believe once you start making a sliver of money, grit and everything else will soon develop.

Once the spark kindles the wood, it'll ignite a flame within you.

I know right? The cycle goes like this -
1) You work half assed because you don't know whether the work you put will give any results
2) First sale happens
3) You have more grit. Your belief that your work leads to money is more reinforced.
You go back to step 1 with more grit than earlier.
The cycle continues.

This is why for most of us the first sale, first date, first girlfriend .etc is such a memorable moment. Because it just reinforces the belief that we are badass and that the work we put will lead to success.

To summarize - "Your mind believes in proof, not promise"

 

[Jon L]

I think you're WAY too worried about the opinion of some book (and random people on the internet that don't know you). The answer to that? Go do stuff. Creating a successful business can be accomplished with the following plan:

1) create a SIMPLE plan (with as few steps as possible)
2) Take action
3) evaluate your results
4) modify plan as needed and repeat

At this point, you don't know if you have grit or not. The only way to know is to get out there and keep doing stuff until you're successful. When you're successful, you'll have proven to yourself that you have grit.

 

[Green Destiny]

Firstly, a book cannot tell you whether you are going to be successful or not. It can tell you that these are the qualities of "successful" people but it cannot see into the future and determine yours. And secondly, success is defined differently by different people - One person might think making 1 billion dollars is success , another might think being free to make their own choices is success. Create your definition of success and work towards that and no one else's.

I haven't read the book but I did listen to an interview on the Freakanomics podcast with the author and I remember listening to the questions they asked to determine "grit" and to be honest, I was thinking the same thing as you since I theoretically got a low score as well. But then when I really thought about it I was answering those questions based on times in my life where I was not passionate about what I was doing, like school and university and my corporate job... Of course I'm not going to have any 'grit'!!! I wasn't passionate about the process or outcome. Now I'm not suggesting to only do the things you love, rather do things for the reason you love. What drives me with what I do now is that I'm doing it to live a certain lifestyle ("my success") which I am passionate about. Sure some of the things I have to do to get there are boring and monotonous but what keeps me going is that I know I'm working towards my version of success.

If I did the questionnaire again now I think I'd probably still get a low score (because I outsource anything I don't want to do) but who gives a shit, I'm successful in my world so who cares what a book told me.

But I do have a few tips for you from my own experiences:
- Don't do projects just for moneys sake and that you have no interest in or don't 100000% believe in. Some people make it work but if you already know your personality is more defensive than offensive then I'd say find another project.
- Re-learn how to learn and do things. I'm really generalising here - but I'm assuming people who give up easily are very outcome focused (I only say this because that's how I was, and still kinda am, but that's part of my journey). It's easy to say don't focus on the outcome, but that means absolutely nothing to most people, especially if you're outcome focused. Understand that the outcome is made up of many tiny little steps that anyone can learn and do, you just have to understand how to learn how to do them and how to put them together.


One word - Experience. There's nothing anyone can say to you to stop you from second guessing yourself. Only you can tell you-you are right (or at least make you think you're right ). My only suggestion would be to understand the risks of your decision, minimise the risk, and then just do it - learn from it and then make the next decision. Knowing, or even better, minimising the risk takes the edge off "making the right decision" and then you spend more time doing and experiencing, and less time thinking about, thinking about making a decision. There's no secret formula to this one, you just have to experience it and figure it out for yourself.

Don't be too hard on yourself buddy. Life isn't as hard as we make it out to be and you should give yourself more credit that you think. Keep up the good work!

Read this and re-read it. Amazing advice. Thanks

 

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[limitless_c]

One motivational post in just one picture.

If that is a post, it should be gold.

 

[SteveO]

I suppose what the book did was make me question whether I was cut out to succeed with my own business. In the back of my mind I have another idea that I was considering and so at the moment I'm in a situation where I'm second guessing myself a lot.

You are running in a circular reference. You are correct that from what you describe, you don't have grit. Quit now while you are still ahead....

When something is trying to stop you from achieving your goals, alarm bells should be going off.

 

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[Green Destiny]

I scored a 4.7. Ten questions are not enough to determine grit IMO. You could easily answer that you move on to other projects which would lower your score. There is nothing to determine why you changed or what the results were. There are frequently reasons behind decisions. If you just change because you are bored, then it would be accurate. But they don't dig in that far.

Yeah I think that's right. I remember reading Seth Godin's book "The Dip" a while back and that was basically saying that once you have gone through that initial honeymoon period there is a long dip, where things get tough and you have to decide if the potential rewards once you're through the dip are worth the pain you endure through it. He says that a lot of times you're better off not starting things or quitting if you feel you can't become great or succeed at them and you should concentrate only on ventures that you are confident that you will be able to work through this dip and become successful.

Mediocrity is worse than quitting.

Quite an interesting read.

 

[JohnZ123]

just.do.it

 

[nradam123]

I suppose what the book did was make me question whether I was cut out to succeed with my own business. In the back of my mind I have another idea that I was considering and so at the moment I'm in a situation where I'm second guessing myself a lot. Like you say I just need to commit to the process and keep going. Thanks.

I am in my 10th fastlane month and I am yet to make $1000. The simple reason behind my slow growth is that I am really aggressive when i start and then I slow down because I will start second guessing. I do not hold on to anything for long because I tend to look at everything as an event and will want to jump to the next shiny golden idea. Beware, that is a fantasy land. If there is something I tried to improve really hard in the last 10 months of fastlane journey it is to improve that bad habit of mine.

So I have some tips that works for me, may not work for you but you can try.

Lets start with a quote - “Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day-if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.” - Charlie Munger

There is a famous book called Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker (You can take my notes, its going to help you - http://www.evernote.com/l/ArmnBIKqowND75bj5Uaxo_u_7RpaRRlcJrA/). The author Peter Drucker says that the way you perform is given on birth (Along with your strength). So my goal is to find the way "I" perform for maximum efficiency. So I was conducting a lot of personal experiments with the way I work in the past several months. I will share them with you.

Things that helped me -
1) Identifying my main focus and promising that I will not change that focus for next 10 months. My main focuses are -
- Getting Sales for freelance web desiging (Highest Priority)
- Fulfilling customer orders to 100% satisfaction (A very close second priority)
- Learning coding (Third priority)
Whenever I get some shiny new idea that does not match with the above main focus areas I shut it down instantly.

2) Rewarding Small Wins -
You and I will spend 99% of our time in the process and 1% in the event called success. Since you will be in the process for most of your life you better learn to enjoy it. The way i reward myself is -
- I have a jar of nuts on my table. Whenever I complete something I will reward myself by eating from the jar.
- I go out for a walk every night near my home after a day of hard work.

Basically what I am trying to tell you is that I am reframing my mind to believe that the process is the win, not the result. Reward yourself if you take some action instead of rewarding yourself only when you get results. Its also fun because you will feel like you are winning everyday haha.

3) Reading books -
I read everyday. If I read everyday for some strange reason I feel that I am focusing a lot more.

4) Working Hard -
Working hard means how long you will sit down on your chair to work. I have a process to work hard. Everyday morning I wake up at 7, takes a bath, gets nicely dressed and then sits down to work. And I work for 10 hours or so a day before I do anything else. I do not have any entertainment during this time.

5) Working Fast - (Experimental - I am still testing this process)
Working fast means how focused you are. I have a process to work fast. I have a huge timer on my tablet which I keep on whenever I work on my laptop. And I keep it for 3 hours or so. Before I set it up I will decide what to work on those 3 hours. Its almost like an examination, I keep 3 hours to finish my work before the exam gets over.

Test some of the ideas that I told you. But remember to find what works for you.

Regards
Adam

 

[nradam123]

I just asked my friend who is a really good pickup artist how he is able to hustle so hard. I will paste his answer here -

If things don’t fit under a big picture, they become emotionless goals that need willpower to keep working out. You need the right emotions to give you energy. Though this does need a heavy amount of self exploration but I believe its worth it. That’s the difference between a pro and an amateur. In every aspect of life people carrying big pictures, why dont their standards fall? The F*cking goal is tied to a big picture, the energy isn’t coming from mere willpower. Its that future reality calling you to put your best foot forward. And that kinda shit, you only can get that from a vision of a better life. Not from small goals. “I will meditate this month", 6 days down the line the goal falls apart. You’re too sleepy, too bored blah blah. BIG PICTURE man. BIG PICTURE. That’s why Tony Robbins would ask you to write goals for 10 years down the line. Because those goals aren’t goals, they all tie up and become a vision or for who you want to become.

I think this is very important as well. Gary Vaynerchuk calls this Cloud (Big Picture) and Dirt (Hustle). Cloud and dirt are in the two extremes and you need to push hard to expand in both directions.

Super key.
This mindset will be a game changer (Note to myself as well)

 

[GuestUserX09]

The MFCEO project - One source of solid nourishment to my own lack of grit.

 

[Luke.]

Why do you want to build the app? What's it going to do for you? How is it going to change things?

You could have the next billionaire dollar business idea. If you don't even know what you're doing it for, you will never get it done.

 

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[Luke.]

Well after reading TMF I think I have an idea that could help millions or even billions of people. It will save them time, money and improve their health. If I can execute it properly.

I want financial freedom and am willing to the price to get it.

Are you sure you're willing to pay the price? Doesn't sound like to me that you are.

Elaborate on your idea. Write down what it will be like every step of the way. Launch, few months after, few years. Create a vision. Set goals to acheive that vision. You want a vision so big and so strong it pulls your 'gritless' a$$ out of bed every morning without even thinking about it.