Learn From My Mistake

I've recently moved to Lithuania and there's so much going on in my life at the moment.

It was quite easy to settle back in and I'm really glad that I've made a decision to move back.

However, there were some drawbacks that I've experienced because of this move.

For example, this transition affected my sleeping patterns in a negative way.

Since my move I've had very irregular sleeping patterns (sometimes I would go to bed at 7am!) and now I try to establish a new habit of waking up at 6am (in UK I used to wake up at 5am).

The biggest issue that I've had here so far is trying to manage too many projects at the same time. I'm really happy that I keep getting all kinds of great ideas in my head, but when I try to act on them all plus manage other things, I accomplish very little and waste a lot of my time.

Trying to manage everything at the same time created a lot of chaos in my head and in my life. I got distant from my goals because I got lost in the everyday trivia. I started feeling strange and my motivation began to fall. I fortunately noticed this confusion in its early stages and therefore was able to quickly re-establish clarity in my head and in my everyday activities.

This experience showed me how easy it is to lose focus on what's important in your life. If you don't take time to regularly review your priorities, you will most likely get lost in things of minor importance.

Life gets more and more complicated because we have to deal with increasingly more components of it which all require our attention. If you don't develop good time-management skills, you can easily get distracted by hundreds of unimportant things in your life and the whole day can pass by without you accomplishing anything significant. You absolutely must define what's important to you and focus only on doing things that bring worthwhile results.

The complexity of life

You can take any area of your life as an example to understand what I mean by saying that life has increasingly more components. Let's take work as an example. Because I work online, it's easy for me to see what's currently happening in the internet world. More and more applications are being created every minute, the internet trends are constantly changing, there are so many great services online and it's so easy to spend hours searching for information or getting entertained.

Internet can certainly make our lives easier but most people lose track of time when they are online. Some spend hours checking email inboxes, facebook accounts, watching youtube videos and following others on twitter. This creates huge imbalance in their lives because they have increasingly less time for more important things.

It's extremely easy to spend hours online without even noticing how the time flies by. That's the main reason I don't often visit websites such as youtube – it's just too easy to get sucked into watching a bunch of videos you didn't plan to. It's logical that companies create tempting websites and applications to increase our viewing times, but we don't usually get any significant value from using such tools except for slight entertainment.

It's good to entertain yourself, but you should always balance this with creating value. You will never feel fulfilled if you live for entertainment only. The example of this are people who do everything they can to be entertained yet they still end up depressed or even attempt suicide. This is because they don't create anything which is a necessary ingredient for the happiness of any human being.

How to gain clarity

If you've been lost in everyday insignificant activities, I can suggest you some steps you can take to gain control over your life.

The first and foremost thing you should do is...

Set Your Priorities Straight!

This is THE most important thing of all because you cannot have clarity in your life until you fully know what it is that you value most.

Your priorities will naturally lead you to certain goals that will improve your life significantly once achieved. If you had goals before, you should redefine them so that you would become clear about what you want and this will also allow you to check if your goals need some readjustment.

People are target-driven beings and if you forget the target or it becomes unclear, you get confused and lose motivation. So it's very important to keep your goals at the back of your mind at all times. When you drive your car, you keep the destination in mind because otherwise you will get lost or get into an accident. So the same goes with goals that you want to achieve – you have to keep thinking about them and resist the temptations to go off the track.

Another important rule you should follow to avoid disappointment and loss of motivation is this...

Do One Thing at a Time!

You can never accomplish anything in the best possible manner if you do more than one thing at a time. Entirely focusing on only one thing will give you clarity and you will not get lost in the small routine tasks that could consume your whole day.

Doing one thing at a time let's you place your entire focus on taking action that will make a difference in your life. It's not likely that you would spend hours doing one irrelevant thing because you would straight away notice how worthless such activity is. However, if you multitask, it's very easy to do many insignificant things at the same time without realising how inefficient such behaviour is.

Another thing that is very important is...

To Have a Definite Plan

When you set your priorities straight and understand what your goals are, the next thing you should do is to make a plan of how you will achieve your goal.

Sometimes when you follow a definite plan it's easy to deviate from it and again get lost in the small actions of the plan. This happens because you focus so much on one particular task that you forget why you take action in the first place! And if that happens, it makes you feel confused, stressed and demotivated.

I'm not saying that it's bad to be completely focused on taking action – it's great to do that – but only if you know why you take that action. If you take action without any goal in mind, that action will not produce good results.

If you think that you will achieve your goal without a plan, it might happen. But to be absolutely sure that you will achieve your goals, the plan is a must. When you make a definite plan of action, your mind becomes very clear and the achievement of your goal seems possible. The plan breaks down your goal into manageable pieces so the goal doesn't seem as overwhelming as before.

Once your plan is done, don't hide it somewhere in your draw or in some cabinet. Keep it in front of your eyes at all times. It's best to stick it on the wall of the room you work in or in your office. Every day take action to accomplish the steps in your plan. This will insure your steady move towards your goal.

Why people fail to achieve goals

I've recently asked my newsletter subscribers what was their biggest self improvement problem. (Thank you for all your answers – I was literally flooded with replies.) Many wrote back telling that their biggest frustration is that they keep setting goals but they continuously fail to achieve them.

This problem can be easily solved with the previous advice I gave. You should set your priorities straight, stop multitasking, define your goals and make a plan to achieve them.

Another reason why people don't achieve goals is because as soon as they set goals they completely forget about them. They don't have any triggers to be reminded of their goals. They don't even think about how they could achieve them.

People sometimes set too many goals and then they get overwhelmed because it looks as though their goals are impossible to achieve. They don't take the time to decide what steps are required for their goals to be achieved. Since they have no plan, they get stressed because they don't know where to start from. So they never really start taking any kind of action and therefore they don't achieve their goals.

Best goal achievement strategy

The best strategy for achieving goals I've found so far is to have one very big goal that would make a huge difference in your life. I personally set a two-year deadline for such goal and then divide it into smaller goals that would seem more manageable. Then I divide each of the smaller goals into definite steps to take to achieve them. Then every day I take steps to complete one goal at a time.

This strategy may seem confusing to some, but it's actually very simple. You just need to get used to it and then you will see how easy and effective it is. This method keeps me completely focused on the end result.

I cannot guarantee that you will find this strategy good, but it certainly works for me. You should definitely try it out – maybe that's exactly what you need!

Good organisation leads to more clarity

In general, you should try to be organised to avoid any chaos in your life. Chaos creates confusion in your head and confusion restricts your ability to solve problems and achieve goals. And this leads to demotivation and the feeling of not being able to accomplish anything.

When people have too much stuff in their homes that creates chaos in their heads and they also very often feel tired very early in the day. This shouldn't be surprising because every single thing in your environment takes some of your attention even when you don't consciously know that. Therefore the less things you see, the more focused you will become and the more clarity you will have in your mind.

When there is clarity in your mind, it's very likely that you will naturally become more disciplined. You will also perceive your goal as easier to achieve than you previously thought.

The more clarity you have, the easier it will be to determine what's important in your life. It will also be much easier to focus on your goals and not to get lost in small everyday actions. Once your head is clear, you will feel much more centred and positive. Frustration and confusion will vanish from your mind because you will know exactly what you want out of life.

P.S. I'm writing this post from my favourite public library in Lithuania. Sometimes I like to work in different places (like cafés and libraries) because it's boring to always work from home. I can't believe this library is almost always empty because it's so beautiful inside and there are absolutely no distractions. Nobody minds if I bring latte here and staff is just amazing! The picture of the library is below:)