You are ready to start a productive day. Still, you face yourself in the evening, wondering why it didn’t go as you imagined.
Some mistakes and wrongly built habits can hinder your day’s productivity and need to be reconsidered.
Let’s look at the 7 productivity mistakes to avoid.
1) Waiting for the Right Moment to Start
There is no perfect moment to start but a perfect mindset to have.
Inspiration is an illusion until you start working. Hard work is all about self-discipline and consistency.
Who can hold you back (not even yourself!) if you set your alarm to the same time every day, sit in front of that desk, and start typing one day after another until you reach those magical paragraphs?
Who can hold you back if you take that guitar and play the same chord repeatedly until you are flowing through the strings like never before?
Like Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it needs to find you working.”
Choose to tease inspiration into your workspace. Once it gets used to you, it will keep coming without a knock on the door.
2) Doubting Yourself
Self-doubt is what you do when you want to score in your goal box. It is when you kick the ball over and over again in your goal box and expect to win.
Winning starts with believing. Achieving is possible when you believe in your ability to do so. Remember, “impossible” is made of “I’m possible.” The moment you trust you can, you will become able.
Trusting yourself is the first step, then follow the work routines you may set yourself to get things done.
When you stop doubting and pondering why you cannot do it, you will start planning. If you lack motivation and are not sure where to begin, you may check this fantastic post that includes 9 Easy Yet Effective Ways to Motivate Yourself https://aykotadesign.com/9-easy-ways-to-motivate-yourself/
3) Living with Regrets
Make mistakes. Make lots of mistakes, and see them as experiences that had to happen for you to produce better work.
Looking back at your mistakes with regret will keep you in the past and prevent you from going forward. But if you see the mistakes as a way to learn, they immediately become your favorite teachers.
Regret is not for those who aim to make a change with their work but for those who need excuses not to continue. As you strive to improve each step of the way, take your beautiful mistakes with you as your constant reminder of what not to do.
It is a perfect way to save time from the unwanted and focus on how to reach the most desired instead.
4) Sticking to the Comfortable
Have you heard of the book Sophie’s Choice? Or OSHO’S Living Dangerously?
In Sophie’s Choice, the magician’s rabbit that’s taken out of the hat represents the world. Children sit right at the tip of the rabbit’s fur, daring to look into the eyes of the magician. Everyone else sinks deep in the warmth of the roots of the rabbit’s fur. Those people choose not to see nor to be seen.
In contrast, philosophers and kids aim to ask questions about life and the world. There you have the perfect example of slowly sinking in the warm, comfortable roots of the rabbit fur and the horror of not being able to see the things you could see when you sit on the tips.
Only by climbing onto the tips of the rabbit’s fur can we appreciate that safety is not what we need to make a glorious life!
Osho, similarly says in his book, “Living never flowers in security; it flowers only in insecurity. If you start getting secure, you become a stagnant pool. Then your energy is no longer moving. Then you are afraid… because one never knows how to go into the unknown.”
What to do, then? Do what scares you. Do what makes you more alert and more aware. Do what makes you think about the things you never thought about and know the things you never knew.
Novelty is heavyweight work for your brain. Out of your comfort zone is where the magic takes over!
5) Giving In to Fear
Fear is valuable as long as you don’t give in to it. Fearing when you start work and while you work is a powerful sign of how much you want it.
When you love, you fear. When you want to make it right, you fear. When you aim for higher, you fear. It is just like the fear of losing someone you love.
Fear is a precious feeling as long as you don’t relinquish it and let it prevent you from taking further steps.
You may instead acknowledge the fact that you fear and specify what you fear, why you fear, and how you can overcome it. Diving into the darkness of the causes of your fear will allow you to map the way to the light.
6) Comparing Your Work to Others
Why would you compare yourself to others while trying to achieve something unique?
Once you turn to yourself and look elsewhere, you will realize how much there is to work on and improve within yourself. When you want your work to be the best, you can only make it possible by being your best, which is only achievable when you put complete focus and time on yourself.
Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and different ways to deal with both. You will shine more brilliantly once you find your own and work with them in great depth.
Choose your battle, know your strengths and weaknesses, and fight only with yourself. You are one and only with all your qualities, and if there is one person you can keep beating and keep failing against, it’s your beautiful self! That is the key to constant improvement, and the satisfaction of stepping into the higher step in your castle is priceless!
7) Letting Perfectionism Drive You Crazy
“How can aiming for perfection be wrong?” You’re asking yourself. It can be right, but it can save you time aiming for something you can’t achieve.
Suppose you are one of the mad perfectionists. In that case, you will know what it means to try and plan all your steps considering the minor details and all possibilities of what may go wrong.
Yes, you aim to ensure nothing goes wrong, but at the end of the day, there is no perfect work but a perfect journey you can get into. And this road only lies in front of you once you begin knowing how much fun you will have tackled the unknown that will come your way.
Shoot for the moon (land on it, if that’s even possible!) and enjoy the free-fall among the stars. Aim for your best but accept that you will continuously achieve your best as you miss the landing each time.
Work is just like life. We eventually learn how to fall beautifully and get better at it every single time.
