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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

I remember hearing that we should take pride in everything we do.

What if you’re doing something just to pay the bills, should you still do the best job possible?

What if you’re working at a job that you dislike or hate? Should you still put in your best effort there?

What if you don’t get credit for work and in fact credit goes to someone else? Should you still keep on putting your best work?

If you have a job just to pay the bills, is it ok to do your personal stuff while at work? I.e. blogging while at work? Paying your bills while at work? Browse the internet? And so on…

What if the more you do, more is given to you? Should you still keep on doing the best that you possibly can at your job?

Almost all of my life I have had jobs which I disliked but had to do them due to our family’s financial situation. I’ve been working ever since I was 12. Did every single job imaginable!

In the beginning I used to always put in that extra effort above and beyond what was required of me. Later I realized that no one valued my extra work. Not only that but people took credit for my work and in fact made fun of me for working so hard. Also, all of my income went in to the family. Our whole family was like that though. Every one working hard to just make ends meet. Still, I never saw the benefit of working hard since I never got to ever treat myself with my income. As far as I knew, I worked hard for free!

Slowly but surely I started doing the minimum amount of work at jobs which I disliked. Actually I did little more than bare minimum at jobs so I wouldn’t get fired but never gave it my best. I knew I had to work to survive but also realized I did not have to go out of my way to give the job my best.

I always thought I would put in my best effort at a job which I totally loved.

Recently I realized that that’s actually become a habit of mine. No matter what I do I am not able to give it my best. I learned that even if I found something I was loving, sooner or later I slowed down and gave up! I never put in that extra effort that might have taken me over the top! I couldn’t understand why. I was held back because of my bad habits.

That’s when I realized the truth in always giving it your best, no matter what you’re doing! Because that’s how habits form. Once a habit is formed, it’s not that easy to get rid of it especially since it’s been reinforced for more than 20 years.

I’ve noticed one thing at different jobs that I’ve held in the computer industry. I’m sure it’s quite similar in other industries as well. If you do a lot of work you end up setting expectations. If at some time you do a little less work, then you’re questioned as to why you’re slowing down. That’s why you see a lot of people just taking it easy at work. They’re doing a little work when you know they can easily do 5-10 times their usual amount in much less than a full day’s work.

They were not like this to begin with. They got trained to be lazier!

So, I’m not saying start giving it your best at your jobs which you dislike or hate. What I am saying is whatever you do, no matter how little, start doing it the best possible way!

E.g. if you’re working at a fast food restaurant. Don’t try to serve 100 customers when your colleagues are only serving 25! Instead serve the same number as others but serve them well! A little smile here and there, a little politeness, whatever you can do to give it that extra edge!

Now, you’re not doing this for others! You’re doing it for yourself. Soon, you’ll develop the habit to do the best no matter what you’re doing.

And when the time comes and you find your passion, you won’t be slowed down by your bad habits but will be fully ready and prepared for it!

After all, like Aristotle said, excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit!

When I was younger I used to drive at really high speeds. I’m sure everyone’s gone through that. Going over 200km/h on the highways was not unusual for me. Even on normal streets where the speed limit was 50-60km/h, driving over 120 km/h was also quite usual for me.

Those times have passed and I have calmed down except for sudden bursts on the highway every once in a while.

One thing I learned while driving at really high speeds is the concentration it required. I was totally concentrating on driving and I was in the “zone” as it’s called.

I was totally concentrating on driving and could not afford to think about anything else. And because of that my driving was much better!

My mind was racing at such high speed as well and making decisions with lightning speed. My reflexes were much faster and I was going through traffic with incredible calm. I was driving much better and much safer than I do when I drive at normal speed limits.

That is the same thing with setting goals. If we set small and miniscule goals, our concentration is all over the place. We work on our goals for a minutes here and there and work on some other stuff and watch tv and chit chat with friends and so on. Before we know it, the whole day’s gone by and we complain about not having enough time.

When we set huuuuuge and scary goals for ourselves and totally commit to achieving them, we do not have time to think about anything else, nor do we have time to just hang out or engage in idle chit chat.

And once we enter that total concentration zone that’s when magic begins to happen. We start achieving incredible results. Things we never thought we could do before, we start doing easily and we seem to accomplish all of this in the same amount of time.

Now please do not go out there trying this experiment of driving at high speeds. It’s incredibly foolish and a stupid thing to do. You may easily hurt yourself or someone else so do not engage in that.

If you do want to drive at fast speeds then go to a track and do it. There are a lot of tracks where you can take your car for a day for a small fee and drive however you feel like driving but just don’t do it on normal roads!

But do try and set goals that require you to stretch beyond your comfort zone! Think about what it is that you want and totally commit yourself to it. Just test it out! It doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary, just something that might require your total concentration. Do that and see how it feels!

“Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if you had aimed at an object on a level with yourself.” – F. Hawes

My mind is everywhere. I want to do this but I need to do this or I want to do this but what if I’m wasting my time with this, maybe I should do this, or maybe I should do both at the same time?

Never really concentrating on one thing long enough to see it to fruition.

Recently, I was concentrating on affirmations and finding out what worked for me and what didn’t. Then I got interested in eating healthy. Then it was exercising. Then it was using the law of attraction more effectively. Then it was de-cluttering my house and keeping it that way. Then it was “maybe I should try to go on a vegetarian diet for a month?” Then I thought maybe I should buy organic meat and try that before going on a vegetarian diet. Then I thought about how I can work fewer hours at work and still get paid the same. Then I thought more about gossiping at work and how I am getting involved again. Then I thought about doing some more 30 day experiments. Then I thought about over 4,000 email messages that are in my yahoo account that I should clean out. And this is not all, that’s just what I can think of right now.

In the end I ended up doing a lot of things in bits and pieces but nothing to full completion.

So, you can see that I did not do anything effectively.

This is the multi-tasking world, with multi-tasking mentality! At work, you should be able to respond to your emails, converse with your colleagues/boss, work on your project and update the reporting sheets all at the same time.

I started looking around at people who were achieving enormous results in a very short period of time and every single one of them had one thing in common. They were all focusing on that particular item with all of their energy.

So…. what would happen if I started doing that? hmm…

I’ve done a lot of 30 day experiments but since I feel like there is so much I want to do, taking a whole month for just one item seems like a long time. It’s not really because time is passing anyways and a month is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Also, a month can easily pass by just in all this confusion. Instead of getting confused, I could have done some one thing for that month. If I started to just do things that I want to or would love to do, I would learn a lot more about myself whether I failed or succeeded.

I have trained myself to be disciplined whenever I need to be. I don’t doubt that I can concentrate on one thing for a whole month for example. It’s just deciding which one thing to concentrate on. It’s more in my mind than anything else.

Still I have to look out for myself and work with myself so instead I will devise some 7 day experiments. I will totally focus on one item for 7 days.

That means not even browsing the internet for other stuff. Totally excluding, even going to forums or websites that are not directly related to my goal of the week. Let’s see what happens!

Ivy Lee’s system

In one of his books Napoleon Hill tells a story about Ivy Lee who was working with Charles Schwab, the head of Bethlehem Steel. Ivy Lee is considered the father of modern public relations.

Charles Schawb told Lee that the biggest problem he had was making his managers more effective – helping them better utilize their time. Lee provided a system to Schwab and told Schwab to first try the system out for a while and then pay him whatever Schwab thought the idea was worth.

This is basically what Ivy Lee told Charles Schwab:

1. List the six most important things you have to do tomorrow
2. Number them in order of importance/priority
3. Take the paper out tomorrow morning – start with 1 and stay with it until it is completed
4. Only then go to 2 and repeat until the end of day. If you don’t finish all six you probably wouldn’t have finished them using any other system anyway

In a short while after trying this system out, Schwab sent Ivy Lee a cheque for $25,000. Now this was in 1920s so you can imagine what that amount is today. This shows you what Schwab thought of Lee’s idea and Napoleon Hill gave it to us for free!

There are literally thousands of time management books, tapes, videos, seminars out there but so often we get caught up in designing really complex systems that we lose track of the basics. If Charles Schwab thought so highly of this basic system, and if this simple system helped people at that level, surely it can help us!

Focus on one thing until it’s done! I am going to devise some experiments for myself and find out what can be achieved in one week!

I’ve been meaning to cancel my cable for a while now. Problem is that I really enjoy watching tv. As an experiment I once gave up tv watching for about two months using strictly my will power and self discipline.

After that I started watching tv again. There is nothing better than watching some show, that you enjoy, after coming home from work. I enjoy mystery shows the most. These days there are a ton of mystery shows. Anytime you turn the tv on, you’re bound to find something to watch.

Killing brain cells

I am not joking but it really feels like I’m getting dumb if I keep watching tv. I have realized that I can’t think, can’t concentrate, can’t even do simple things effectively while watching tv. Every time I have needed to concentrate I have had to turn the tv off.

As I really love to think, tv is actually coming in my way. My mind seems cloudy and foggy even after the tv is off.

But I just did not want to resort to using discipline again as that just doesn’t seem to last.

Even now I’m sitting watching “Without a trace”. I don’t really watch this show but it’s on right now so why not!?

Cable tv discount ended

Recently all my discounts ended for my cable tv. I could have called and negotiated better discounts once again as I always have been doing but I decided against it.

I called and cancelled the cable!!! Wuhooo!!!

Well, I have until 24th of July before it’s cancelled.

Instead of using strictly discipline, I am changing my environment to change myself. If you want to stop smoking, you stop hanging out with people who smoke. If you want to stop watching tv, you cancel your cable!

It took well over two weeks before the caffeine withdrawal symptoms started disappearing. First thing I noticed was my appetite improved. Before I would get to work and have a few cups of tea and/or coffee and wouldn’t feel hungry until well past lunch time. Now even if I had breakfast at home, I was hungry again in 2 to 2.5 hours or so. I actually felt annoyed because now I had to prepare more food.

I started feeling much clearer through out the day. My sleep improved. I didn’t need as much sleep and I started sleeping soundly. I was yawning through out the day though. This didn’t go away until after a month at least. My concentration improved. I was drinking herbal teas and rooibos tea. Best thing about this tea was that it tasted almost like regular tea and I could even buy earl grey rooibos tea which was awesome! I even found stores where they would sell loose tea, directly imported from different countries. I never realized that there were so many different flavours even of herbal or natural teas.

Every day I felt more energetic and was totally loving it. At this point, no effort from my part was required to keep away from caffeine. I noticed that even if I had a little bit of caffeine during the day it would disrupt my sleep that night. So, I stayed away from caffeine.

Only downside of all this was that whenever I would go to any friends or family’s house I would be offered tea and it seemed rude to turn them down but I still did. Most of them understood though. So, all was well