I used to be the laziest person I knew.
I used to spend 8+ hours everyday playing video games, browsing forums,
and watching YouTube.
That was my life.
It was my life for all of high school, college, and my first few full-time jobs.
And then I got depressed.
And that really wasn't a lot of fun.
But while battling that depression, I watched a lot of Elliot Hulse.
And I remember he was always recommending
starting the day with audiobooks rather than social media.
At first, I didn't really take his advice so seriously, and it took about 10 recommendations from
him before I just had it with all the bad feelings.
So I took the plunge.
And then a year later, I had read and listened to more than 20 books, and I used those
to kinda completely rewire how my brain worked.
By that I mean, I finally started the YouTube channel I always wanted.
I'm in the best shape I've ever been.
And I'm the happiest I've ever been.
Out of everything I've read, perhaps the single best piece of advice I've received is to set clear
and measurable goals, and to write those goals down in a notebook, and review them every single morning.
It's so easy so simple, yet I was never really taught to do this in school
or by anybody.
I got inspired to start doing this after listening to Brian Tracy, who has changed my life in
so many different ways.
And I kept doing it after listening Arnold Schwartznegger's autobiography, who attributes
goal setting to one of the secrets to his massive success.
So how and why does it work?
Let's say you're learning Japanese for example.
And setting a goal like "Get fluent in Japanese in X years."
is VERY common, but it's not so easy to measure.
In fact, there is no clear goal line when it comes to fluency, so it's going to be really hard to track
your progress.
Try this instead.
"I will read so and so Japanese coursebook, manga series, or novel by ________.
And then, give yourself a reasonable deadline.
You make it a race against yourself to beat that deadline.
Just make sure it's not too crazy difficult especially if it's your first written goal.
And since the goal is to finish one book or one series of books in Japanese,
you can use the number of pages that you read every single day to track your progress,
and you will know exactly when you've beaten that goal when you clear that final page.
At that point, you'll be better at Japanese, feel good about yourself, and be more motivated
to take on more goals.
But what if you don't meet the deadline?
It simply means that you chose a time frame too short, and so you learn from that mistake and then make
a new deadline that is more doable.
Now these goals don't have any real impact unless you review them every morning.
Read them aloud to yourself and try to picture the end result in your mind.
Take just a second to visualize how you'll feel after accomplishing the goal.
By doing this, you plant a seed in your subconscious mind that will start to begin to process how you're
going to make your goals a reality.
It will slowly begin to break down the steps required, and it will send you into an upward
spiral of thinking and planning.
But of course, getting started is always the hardest part.
Every time we think about reading an entire book in Japanese, our brains are gonna resist.
It's going to flood our heads with all kinds of fears, and it's going to do whatever it can to convince
ourselves that we can't do it.
There is a simple trick, however, that makes life a whole lot less stressful.
Don't think about reading the entire book.
Just open it up and read the very first word.
That's it.
If you can do just that, then congratulations because you just did the hardest part.
Now, all you have to do is read the second word.
And then the third word and so on.
It really works, and anytime you get frustrated or distracted,
all you have to do is think about reading just one word.
This same technique can be applied to writing or doing any kind of work at all.
You break down large tasks down into the smallest possible step that you could do
and then only think about doing that.
So in the end, it all boils down to how you start your day.
If you choose to start it with YouTube, or Twitch, or Reddit, you're going to find that your brain gets
stuck in this reactive mode where it's always seeking what's new and trending.
Or you're stuck in this loop where you're replying to other people's messages all day.
Or you're just unable to focus on the most important tasks
because you're getting stupid notifications on your phone every 5-10 minutes.
And you know what? I know how hard it is personally to make these better choices
especially when you're half-asleep in the morning.
It's a real fight, and I understand that this one little video is PROBABLY not going to be enough to
cure everybody of laziness.
So that's why I recommend listening to the man himself, Brian Tracy.
I've recommended Eat That Frog before, but now after listening to Maximum Achievement for
the 5th time, I'm convinced it's the better book.
And if you've new to audiobooks, you can get both of these for free through Audible's free trial.
I'll throw some links in the description box below.
And as always, thanks for watching!
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