319. actions are truer than words
It doesn’t matter what you tell yourself, or the things you espouse to the world. Your actions ultimately show your true values. Your actions reveal what you actually want.
We all say we want certain things — I want to lose weight. I want to write a book. I want to travel the world. I want to start over in a new city. It’s easy to say we want something, and it’s not wrong to want, however if those words aren’t followed up by actions to get you there, then you need to be true to yourself and ask; is this what I really want? Most likely, if you did want that thing, you would have already gotten after it, instead of merely talking about it.
Once we understand this, it’s easy to spot our true priorities. You can ignore what continues to be said and simply focus on your actions. It will show where your values truly lie.
If you say you want to lose weight, yet you continue down the same road, making poor decisions around your nutrition and health, it’s easy to see that you aren’t really in a place where losing weight is of the utmost value to you. If you say you want to write a book, yet fail to sit down and put ideas into words, then stop saying you want to write a book. If you say you want to travel, yet find excuses about it costing too much or not having enough free time, then stop saying you want to travel. If you want to move to a new city so that you can “start over,” yet you take no action towards applying for positions or looking for places to live in that area, then stop saying you want to start over in a new city.
We prioritize what we value. If we’re hungry we eat.
At a certain point, we need to stop lying to ourselves. Get clear on what you value. Stop putting energy into an idea that you have no interest in entertaining with action. Look in the mirror and ask yourself about the actions you consistently do. What are you doing everyday? What can’t you miss out on? What makes you, You? The answers you come up with are the things you truly value, and are what guide your life. All the other “I wants” are just lip service until they become part of what you consistently do. Stop wasting time by saying “I want”, if you really did, you wouldn’t continuously have to tell people because they would already see it in your actions.
301. hustle & grind vs. hustle & flow
We mistakenly glorify the hustle and grind. Don’t get me wrong, we should always exude a measurable level of commitment, but wearing the ability to get by on as little sleep as possible as a badge of honor that symbolizes our work ethic or toughness is just a failure of priorities.
We buy into the idea of the grind because we want our hard work to mean something. We want all our discomfort and sacrificing of the present to pay off in the future so that we can finally enjoy what we’ve been putting off the whole time. But that is where we need to start — with the end in mind. Most likely, that thing we are hustling and grinding for isn’t money or fame, but freedom to explore what we love and the ability to be admired for sharing it with the world.
The unfortunate part is that a focus on the grind takes our focus away from what we should be fixated on, placing it on toil, instead of redefining the hustle. The whole purpose of this life is centered around achieving your purpose and your why. This means you’re so aligned with the effort it takes to get where you want to go, that it doesn’t feel like a grind or a sacrifice, but every step becomes an enjoyable part of the process, no matter the effort. It’s a perfect alignment of your purpose becoming the thing that drives you and directs your life. It’s having all your hard work deliver you to your why. It’s more hustle and flow than hustle and grind.
252. time is finite
Time is finite. It’s the only unrenewable resource.
There isn’t a more effective way to figure out what is most important to us than to experience a shortage of time. What we choose to fit in those narrow moments of freedom, or deliberately place into our schedule because we can’t afford to miss, reveal to us what we truly value. We like to say things like, “if I only had more time…” but you don’t. And those important things you can’t live without, you always find the time to fit them in. So stop wasting your precious moments thinking about what you would do if you had more time, and instead think about what you could do to maximize the things you can’t pass off.
Worrying about what we can’t fit into our day still takes up time that we could be enjoying things we value. If you have been saying “if I only had the time…” about something longer than 3 months, chances are, you never will because it isn’t a priority. Let it go. Clear the space to focus on things that hold greater importance to you.