Today is one of these days that never ends, right? Nothing wrong, nothing good. It’s just one more boring day doing things that we don’t like at our job and one hour seems eternity.
We both know that our most valuable asset is Time…so letting the day pass by us like this is a waste!
You find yourself just existing, letting hours pass by without doing something meaningful or useful for you or someone and of course feeling discontentment.
This happens to a lot of people and maybe you are one of them. I am one of them. Specially if we have a GOAL to pursuit, doing nothing kills slowly, makes us feel bad.
My goal is relatively simple:
I desire to work full time on my own company and quit my 9–5 job, having financial independence, not depending on working for others to have money.
Back in 2014, I’ve created a small car detailing business with my wife. My wife quit her job to embrace the project, while I remained working for others, providing the financial stability we needed. The idea was to quit my job when our company had grown enough to have me with an equivalent paycheck.
Years passed by and I’ve learned that growing a company is harder than creating it, at least in our business. Regardless of my efforts doing all that I can do to grow the business, it still grows slowly.
This small Company I created 7 years ago with my wife is small and still cannot accommodate the paycheck I receive working for others until now. I receive more than all my 4 employees combined and I’m not a bad payer.
So, you see the issue — I want to quit but I have a good paycheck and my company grows very slowly regardless of my efforts.
This leads me to those negative thoughts of feeling stuck on a rat race, that I avoid the most I can. Maybe you also feel stuck on a rat race. But don’t be. The rat race is just life happening to us and it’s that feeling that gives us the will to change.
Just create your Goals. Simple or Complex, you need to have something to pursuit in life. Write it down.
Don’t forget to always fulfill something, a piece of paper, a note book or a word document in our computer, we need to write the progress we’ve done.
Let me show you a good way to set clear and realistic Goals:
We should create our Goals. Under our Goals, we should create the objectives to reach that Goal. To reach the objectives, we describe the Key Results we need to have done, with a metric and a target date.
If it sounds confusing, the best I can do is to provide you my example:
1 — Goal: Quit 9–5 job and keep financial stability.
1.1 — Objective — Grow the Company business and increase profit.
1.1.1 — Key Result — Work on on-line Marketing to reach more customers. (+10% until September 2021)
1.1.2 — Key Result — Work on SEO to get more traffic from Google Search.(+10% until September 2021)
1.1.3 — Key Result — Work on the website to be more attractive and lead to more phone calls, emails and messages. (+10% until September 2021)
1.2 — Objective — Grow the online store.
1.2.1 — Key Result — Attract the first customers and do the first sales with on- line Marketing.(5 sales until August 2021)
2.2.2 — Key Result — Improve the quality of texts and photos on the website. (Complete website review until July 2021)
2.2.3 — Key Result — Grow the store blog with meaningful articles for buyers. (10 articles until August 2021)
1.3 — Objective —Gain extra money on Plus 500 account
1.3.1 — Key Result — Learn how to smart investing.
1.3.2 — Key Result — Study the trends of the invested companies.
1.4 — Objectives — Rent the classic car
- 4.1 — Key Result — Finish the car, mount dash, polishing paint, etc. (All finished by end of August 2021)
1.4.2 — Key Result — Learn how to rent legally. (End of August 2021)
1.4.3— Key Result — Advertise on platforms. (End of September 2021)
1.5 — Objectives — Buy an old Motorhome to restore and rent
1.5.1 — Key Result — Wait for the Winter for better prices and keep an eye on price drops (End of November 2021)
1.5.2 — Key Result — Buy and Restore the motorhome(End of February 2022)
1.5.3 — Key Result — Learn how to operate the motorhome (End of March 2022)
1.5.4 — Key Result — Learn the needful on the renting platforms (End of April 2022)
1.6 — Objectives — Buy an apartment to rent
1.6.1 — Key Result — Restore and decorate the apartment before rent
1.6.2 — Key Result — Register the apartment for legal rentals
1.6.3 — Key Result — Advertise the apartment on the platforms and social media groups.
We own Goal setting to ourselves. We need to be respectful to our lives and don’t let it just happen. We are here with a purpose. Not only to let our life pass by in front of our eyes.
So you wrote your goals, objectives and key results. It can be a very small step to start, but it’s time for action. Pick one of the key results and start working on it. The desire to have it done will start growing in you. As you progress, you start envisioning the task done.
Everyday I seek to DO something to progress one or more goals. A big thing or a small thing, I need keep some level of pace, not allowing a day to pass by without any kind of progress toward my goals.
This allows me to feel good and evolving, removing the feeling of being stuck on a rat race life.
I don’t watch TV as I see it as a waste of time. If I have free time, I force myself to do nothing — At least, when I’m doing nothing, I’m thinking on what I can do to progress a little bit my goals.
It’s good to revisit what your wrote after some months, confirming the advancements you did every single day. Summing all the small steps, you will find bigger milestones achieved. I do it and I can see the advancements. After months, it feels great. When having those moments of feeling stuck, review your past activities. It will help you with motivation.
I work on the same job for 6 years and in the same company for 15 years. It’s very hard for me to do something that I enjoy at my job. So my strength to keep going comes from the Goal that I have. One day I will be free of this. Knowing that will not come to me alone, I just have one way out — to gain money from other sources rather than my job.
You know, I’m not rich, but I can’t support the idea of being broke. That’s why I don’t quit and keep fighting, acknowledging that it will take time and effort. I have a family to provide and I don’t want them to feel they have less when I quit.
For me, this is a ladder to climb, and I’ll do it. It’s a matter of time. Time and effort working on it. I have the objective of quitting my job on May 2023. I’ll keep working on it the most I can. How? Progressing the goals I have.
It’s the only way I have to accomplish my dream.
I try to do what I really need to do with no procrastination. This is not always possible, I still drift sometimes but I try to correct it as soon as possible.
I seek things to do under my key results— even when I’m at my 9–5 job, I find time to plan or think about what I can do to progress my objectives, to execute it after work.
I’m learning to feel ok during the day when I’m not progressing anything. As long as I do little progress everyday. A small step is very different from no progress at all. Assure that you progress a little bit everyday. The feeling of progress deletes the feeling of being stuck on a boring life!
The journey is so important as reaching the goal itself — We need to feel good during our present. The goal may change with time and we need to live our lives while we pursuit it.
We should not need something to happen to get motivated or energized. This should come from our inner self and not from external factors.
So here is the summary of the 4 steps to avoid the boring life:
1- Write your Goals, Objectives and Key Results.
All of these can be changed in time.
2- Progress everyday and write the progress.
The progress can be small but needs to happen. Look at your paper and don’t let yourself go to bed without writing something for that day.
3- Don’t look for distraction, avoid Social Media or TV and use that time to think about your goal and what you can do.
4- When needing stimulus, revise the accomplishments you wrote towards your goals.
Since I started to practice what I wrote here, I feel better, time goes by easier and in general I have a better mood. Even when not progressing. Life keeps going with progress or not. It’s our choice to let bad mood take us or not.
You may tell that I’m not progressing that much, but I disagree. I’m here for the long run. I know that to accomplish what I want in life, can’t be fast. But I will do it, day by day.
I don’t pretend to be the success guy giving advice on how to be successful, rather I pretend to help somehow with my examples how I fight the feelings of my boring life, of being unsuccessful and my overall discontentment.
I’m publishing this story as a non-successful person. I’m one of the many that feels the pain of not feeling successful, but I fight it everyday.
