Avoiding Homeostasis
I’ve been bored out of my mind the past few days. I shouldn’t have been – I wrote a book, I’ve been waiting for the start of the niche challenge and everything is ticking over. But that’s the problem – everything is just ticking over.
I have about as much freelance work as I normally do (though it’s been a slow enough month that I actually have time to think, which is never good) and my book projects are running at a smooth five chapters a day, as I wrote about yesterday. In short, it’s pretty boring. One of the problems with not having a screaming boss (if you can call it a problem) is that there are times when motivation doesn’t just appear. Today has been one of those days. To a lesser extent, yesterday was as well.
After spending entirely too much time watching travel videos on YouTube, I’ve compiled this list of stuff that I’m going to do to avoid homeostasis and the feeling I’ve got now where it’s coming towards the end of the day and I feel like I haven’t achieved anywhere near enough.
Make Yourself A Challenge
I’ll be doing the Niche Site Challenge soon. I’m really looking forward to it. Something which I do with regular success is to turn various drudgery and work-based stuff into a game. I wrote an article about this before called “Gamify Your Writing.”
In the Niche Site Challenge, which officially starts on May 1st, I’ll be creating 28 niche sites with a monetary goal of making more than a doctor within a year. It’s a stupid challenge, but I love unrealistic goals.
Added to that, other people are joining in and following along. That’s already made me more likely to succeed.
Anyway, I’ll be posting about the niche site challenge on Saturday.
Competition Is Vital
I like competing with myself. I like competing with others. Hell, I even enjoy making my creations compete with each other.
Normally, therapists would encourage you to not look at everything as a competition. If you’re stuck in homeostasis, then I recommend ignoring the therapists and looking to compete as opposed to trying to pull yourself up by the bootstraps for the sake of it.
Speaking specifically to myself, I might be a bit down about the fact I’ve wasted a day, but I’m seething mad thinking I’ve let the competition get ahead of me by a day. In fact, that’s probably enough to spur me on to work through the evening.
Avoid Fantasy Land
The modern world is filled with distractions. I spent the afternoon watching adventure videos and feeling glum about it.
Loads of people I know spend loads of their time playing video games or binge-watching TV shows. Then there’s porn, which nobody talks about but someone’s got to be consuming all those billions of hours that get watched every month.
I’m not moralising, but ultimately these things are fantasy lands which take you out of the real world and then when you unplug from the Matrix you feel a lot worse about having been hoodwinked.
Try New Things With No Intention Of Keeping Up With Them
Historically, I’ve been pretty hard on myself for starting new hobbies and not keeping up with them. This has been even more of a problem now I figure I can start a new website and monetise hobbies relatively easy.
However, this is stupid of me. If you’re stuck in a rut, the best thing to do is just trying out some new stuff. Sure, you could go on an expensive holiday or quit your job and live as a nomad for a while, but you can probably get the same benefit from getting immersed in fixing an old car or something. (Disclaimer: I’ve never fixed an old car.)
Don’t Drop Mechanised Habits and Lose Progress
The absolute worst thing you can do when you’re stuck in a rut is to give up on habits you’ve been building. Since the New Year, I’ve “installed” new habits. I haven’t missed a topic of the day. I do pullups every day; I could only do two or three per day in February, now I do five sets of ten every morning before I sit down to work.
There are other things that I have been doing every day for years. I might miss a day or two of work because I’m feeling stuck, but I’d feel madder if I broke a chain of a habit that was two years in the making.
Even if you have to brute force your way through a daily habit because you feel terrible, you’ll still be progressing and proud of yourself. (Disclaimer: Don’t exercise through actual injury. It’s not worth giving yourself long-term damage.)
Bring Exciting Plans Forward and Try And Burn Through Current Projects
My whole philosophy of getting jobs done as quickly as possible comes from the fact I know I suffer burn out sometimes. No matter how well things are going, I’ll eventually have a down period, so I try and make sure I get as much done in my uptime as possible.
I’ve got another book that I want to write – and because I’ve wasted a day and a half, it’s going to be a struggle to get it done to deadline. However, going back to the first point, it makes it more of a challenge. Also, the quicker I get through it, the faster I can go on to do nothing without feeling unproductive. That said, by the time I actually finish I’ll probably feel reinvigorated and will be straight on to the next thing.
Speaking of which, I’m probably going to start work on the niche site challenge earlier than Sunday. I’m hoping that being able to commit to the challenge will help shake off this feeling.
Final Thoughts
This is a bit of a non-topic, but hopefully some of these ideas will be helpful. I’ll certainly return to it next time I’m feeling a bit like a lazy moron.
On the plus side, I’ve managed to brute force my way through this topic of the day and within a couple of days that’ll be one third of the year done.
See you tomorrow, when I’ll be feeling positive again!