Questions Are Crucial

And the one that keeps me focused

Sculpting and pursuing the life you dream about is always going to be difficult. No two ways about it. It doesn’t matter who you are, navigating the ups and downs of your day to day, while keeping an eye on the prize is a complicated and frankly, disorienting affair.

Yet many people do it successfully, and whether consciously or not, they do it by building habits that keep them moving in the direction they seek to go.

According to a recent podcast, with the man who wrote the book on habit forming, questions are crucial to forming habits and one of his proposed questions in particular, stopped me in my tracks.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a constant itch to be doing more. You struggle with not just with doing more of the work that’s important to you, but figuring out what the hell that work is in the first place. You’ve got inklings about what it might involve, random pieces that you’re struggling to fit together, but the big picture’s still fuzzy.

It’s hard enough to get out of bed at 5 or 6 am when you know what you want to get done, but if you‘re lost in that regard…good luck.

When that alarm goes off you think to yourself, “I swear I’m going to get up any second now. Just snooze one time.” You had such great intentions, but the magnetism of the bed seems to have you wrapped in a bear hug, unwilling to release you to your morning and the plans you had diligently set the night before.

It’s incredible what we’re able to justify. My mind will say, “you need sleep, this is important” or “look how dark it is outside”, or revert to past times when I’ve gotten up early only to see the couch as I walk out of the bedroom and think, “yea, maybe I’ll just lay down here for a few minutes. I won’t fall asleep, just ‘wake up’ a bit more.” But no! That never happens! Within five minutes you wind up drooling on the pillow and before you know it then suns up, you’re late for work, the coffee hasn’t been made, and more importantly, you haven’t made any progress towards your dream.

No matter how determined and resilient you think you might be, you’re eventually going to run out of steam. Motivation can’t do it alone. You need to start getting clear about what you’re doing this for and build structure into your life based on the answer, and it starts with a few simple questions:

What do you want?

Where do you want to be in 2, 5, 10 years?

Write these down and be specific. Think about them often

Then, throughout the day, when you find yourself reaching for your phone or lost in the TV, think about the person you want to be in life. The one whose already achieved the goals you’ve written down for yourself. What would they do if they were in your shoes?

What would the person I want to be, do?

I’ve found this to be a great motivator. It helps you to visualize yourself achieving your goals, making you your own hero, your own idol. Hey, anything to get you up out of bed in the morning and put your writing pants on again. So next time you find yourself, like me, glued to the bed or nose diving into the couch, think “what would the person I want to be do.”

Fair warning. There will be times when you’re smart ass just says, “it would take a nap, because naps are good.”

You’re ultimately going to have to find your own way out. Your own way to build momentum and get yourself motivated, so find out what questions work for you and build your dream team. There are many different variables involved in achieving your goals. Take the time to learn about them in this podcast and others.

Notes

Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results with James Clear — YouTube

“The most important words in the world, are the ones you say to yourself.” — Chase Jarvis

“We often talk about habits as being the pathway to external success, like they will help you lose weight, or make more money, or be reduce stress, or be more productive; and it’s true, habits can help you do all that, which is great, but I think the real reason habits matter, is that they can reshape your identity, they can reshape your sense of self, or give you a different narrative to tell yourself.”

“And it’s hard for habits to stick, if you don’t change the underlying identity, if you don’t change the way you look at yourself.”

“Every action you take is like a vote for the kind of person you want to be come. And so no, writing one sentence does not finish the novel, but it does cast a vote for ‘I am a writer.’” — James Clear (~30 minutes in to the podcast)