A Guide To A Better Life - 2/2

How to figure out what brings growth (Pt.2)

We have so many activities we do on a daily basis, and know that some things are fun, other we don’t like doing, some leave us with nothing and others bring us a high return-on-investment. So let's make a list. 

Think back of the last couple of days, the last week what have you been doing in the past 168 hours?   

In life we mostly do what we feel like doing, what is fun, where you don’t need patience and you receive a positive reward immediately. But true success takes time and endurance.  

As promised in my last post I will now introduce you to the system I've been using for a while now, that's changed my life and hopefully will work its magic in your life, if you want it to.

The Star System: 

Harmful habits = (0 Stars) 

Short-term satisfaction = * (1 Star) 

Happiness = ** (2 Stars)  

Serenity = *** (3 Stars) 

Fulfillment = **** (4 Stars)  

Long-term success = ***** (5 Stars) 

The less stars, the less value/ return-on-investment. The sequence obviously is subjective.   

You begin to live effectively when you begin to cancel out 0 & 1 Star activities out of their existence. They do not serve your growth at all. And yes watching TV, might not seem equal to bad habits, but it leaves you with the same result/ Error: stopping growth.  

2 Star activities either brings joy to you OR to others, and you should include one or two activities in your daily routine that serve this purpose. Things like helping someone else, having quality conversations, spending time with your loved ones, or maybe it’s a hobby for you.  

3 Star activities is a slightly deeper and includes practices of concentration, such as breathing consciously, meditating, doing yoga, reading a book, taking a walk and re-connecting to nature. Level three is important to keep you sane and is often overlooked, underestimated or disregarded by most people. Well if you don’t want to be like most, live like most, I highly recommend including at least one 3 Star practice in your daily routine.  

4 Star activities oftentimes goes hand in hand with 5. Level 4 - Fulfillment comes from performance and achievement, by breaking down your one big goal into small daily digestible pieces. When you have a long-term goal you already know that you won’t get there overnight, you must be crystal clear on the fact that one workout won’t make a change, but only consistency does.   

The difference between 4 and 5 Star activities is that 5 Stars include what is particularly long-term, hard to push though, tasks you struggle with completing and maintaining. If you for example would love to have a skill that needs time to be developed. You don't like the learning of it, but the end-result is worth it to you. It takes 60 days of consistency to delete your bad habits as well as form new good ones. All the pain won’t be there any longer, the body doesn’t remember and you will be laughing at your old self, who struggled to push through the beginning. 

Now your life becomes efficient, you work on what you want daily, turn success into a habit, because you focus only on activities that have 4 and 5 stars. Sometimes 3 and 2. 

Activities with 0 or 1 star don’t exist in your world, only those that serve what you truly desire, so that eventually you level up and your life becomes 5 stars, which is the level of matching your vision.
What would your life-review look like currently? And how would you want it to look like? 

The activities that are most important are always the hardest. Just like working out isn’t fun at first, and only later when your body has become used to doing it (remember: your body fears change, and can’t distinguish between bad and good change) you will begin to enjoy your routine and feel comfortable.  You set a long-term goal only once, and after that you put your head down, keep the long-term goal only in the back of your mind as fuel, and look straight at your goal of the day, that is to accomplish. 

Just like when you go to school you don't hope to be done tomorrow, you know that you have 12+ years to go, but you still live day by day and accomplish milestones, feel success after every test. You don't have to wait to feel good, as it is likely you become discouraged otherwise. 

Instead, focus on completing the daily task during the specific time you set beforehand. Once you accomplish your daily goal you are allowed to feel successful, because you have accomplished what was possible and you should even celebrate progress. Reward yourself, for example after staying consistent for a month. If you are starting out new on a project or goal, you will feel resistance, no you should feel resistance. 

It's part of nature, accept it and learn to welcome it, because it means you're doing something right.

Everything you haven't done before will be hard at first. But once you've done it, it's forever. You had to learn how to walk, how to talk, how to tie your shoes, how to brush your teeth and how to use the internet. All these events are successes of your life, they are no different from learning a new skill, a new language, building a business, becoming a crypto expert or whatever it is you seek to learn. You can do it if you know what it takes, put a 5 star priority level next to it and stay consistent on execution mode. Before you know it you've reached your goal.

The funniest part is that the closer you get to accomplishing it, you will realize that the journey was the success all along and not the goal, but that you must experience to believe it.   

Two questions I want to leave you with, that my mentor gave me in regards to this matter:  

How far would you get in a year from now if you spent 20% of your time on fun and 80% on progress? 

& Is it worth it?

Much love,

- Mrs.Steemit