We all go through phases: phases of working ourselves to the bone, and phases of sitting back trying to enjoy life.

During the grinding phases, you see your end goal(s) clearly. You’re working toward them daily, so it’s hard to forget them.

During the relaxing phases, it’s easy to let those end goals slip away, obscured by the comfort of living a life without pushing yourself as hard.

The danger isn’t in relaxing; the danger is in losing sight of why you were grinding in the first place.

How I Started To Lose Sight

As you may know, I aim to leave engineering and shift to content creation full-time, focused on helping people achieve their financial goals.

Well, in late October, I visited my parents out of state for a long weekend.

The trip was fantastic, with excellent weather, views, and time with my parents.

For context, they are retired, so their schedules have shifted significantly to focus on doing what they want when they want.

Even in a handful of days, I fell into this mindset of relaxation and doing things on my schedule.

Once I got back from the trip, I continued to focus more on finding comfort in my current life as opposed to building comfort for my future life.

The Fix

Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with relaxing and enjoying life.

The issue only occurs if this feeling of relaxation and seeking comfort becomes the norm, making it difficult to push yourself in the ways needed to see true success.

This may seem simple, but it can be so powerful.

Step 1 reminds you what you’re aiming for. Without a clear target, you will either wander aimlessly or fail to find the will to grind at all.

Step 2 reminds you why you’re grinding in the first place. Saying “I want money” isn’t enough of a why to grind. Things like “Pay off my debts” or “Afford to retire” or “Pay off my parents’ house” are infinitely more motivating.

Step 3 reminds you how you will get there. Saying “Pay off my parents’ house” is great, but what will you do now to make that happen? Writing down general, bite-sized steps gives you targets to aim for and also makes the end goal far less daunting. “Get a $10k raise” is far more achievable than “Retire with $2 million”.

An example from my list is:

1. Quit engineering and help people build wealth full-time.

2. Find far more fulfillment in life by helping people, control my hours, scale my pay, unlock my location flexibility, etc.

3. Be consistent with content, make my first 10 sales in my business, double my social following, get a raise at work (to increase savings), read about building a business and learning sales, etc.

This list has gotten me back on track, not to grinding 24/7, but to putting in consistent effort to reach my goals.

I hope this method serves as a reminder of your goals and helps you find your path to achieving them.

Until next week,

Best,

Evan

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