Wake Up, Work Hard, Make a Plan to Get There

I’m writing a chapter in my third novel Six Strings that is called Waking Up. It’s about the main character waking up in patch of grass with a fresh wound at the back of his head and no memory of how he – or it – got there. I wouldn’t want to put my waking up in an equally dramatic way, but it’s a bit like that, sans the blood.

You see, I’m sometimes everywhere all the time. Trying to start a business, hustling to improve at my daily job, writing a book, maintaining a blog or two, improving my tennis game, reading tons of different books. It’s all rather unfocused, unstructured and I don’t really have any idea of where I am at a given moment. I know where I want to be, but I haven’t made up a plan of getting there.

What that leads to is a feeling of dissatisfaction, mostly because you can’t really visualize the process, although you might actually be developing yourself and your skills in the right direction.

If you want to succeed at work, as an author, or just generally improve in any area – you need to set up some kind of plan on how you’re going to accomplish it. Life sometimes comes in the way to temporarily obstruct the plan, but if you have the dedication you’ll ride through it and pick it up afterwards.

So prioritize what’s most important to you, what would give you the biggest joy/lift to accomplish or improve in, then make a plan for a how to get there. How that plan looks like, is individual of course. A guy I used to work with tracked everything in excel sheets where he clearly monitored his time down to each hour he spent working on it, some people set up a few milestones in their calendar, others create something close to a business plan with personal KPIs (key performance indicators). No matter what kind of plan you would be most comfortable with, you need to make sure you follow it and keep going back to it throughout. It’s your reminder that you mean business.

What really made me think about this in a more detailed way is my “so called” writing career. One of my big dreams in life is to live off what I write, but I haven’t really been working in a focused way towards that dream. I’m somewhat disciplined, but in periods (which probably means I’m not). That’s just not good enough. I need to be disciplined all the time.

It’s not difficult to find inspiration for this. Just look at our athletes and how hard they work to be able to fight for medals, trophies, prize money and ultimately recognition. You can’t work out when you feel like it if you want to be the best in the world, you need to get up every morning with the mindset to work hard. And if you do that over and over again, you will be rewarded.

I know it’s easy to put a lot of doubts into that reward, but it’s there if you keep at it. You might have to accept defeats, suffer setbacks and work through pain and disappointment, but the reward is there. This is what hopes and dreams are for. Don’t lose track of yours.

Summary:

Get up early.

Work hard every day.

Prioritize your goals.

Set a plan for the most important one(s).

Make sure you visualize your progress.

Don’t get too discouraged by setbacks, they’re a part of the game.

Give yourself a congratulatory pat on the back from time to time.

Make your dream come true.

It’s that simple.

But don’t forget your loved ones in the process. They’re priority one.