“Forced” Career Growth

Opportunities for growth will come and find you and when it does – DON’T WASTE IT.

I’ve been trying to avoid it for a while due to the fact that taking it on comes with a new set of responsibilities.

I want it but at the same time, I avoid it. Sounds messed up. But I know you know what I mean 😉

We are scared of “change”.

No, it’s not the “change” we are scared of. We’re more scared of the “unknown” – the unknown challenges that lie ahead.

Our reptilian brain holds us back from taking on risky challenges – its main role is to keep us safe. “Better safe than sorry”, right?

Since the “unknown” is…YES. Exactly. UNKNOWN. Its scope is not limited to the challenges, dangers, and risks we are taking – it also includes our UNKNOWN POTENTIAL.

Often times we limit ourselves by saying:

“This is good enough”

“I’m content” or

“This is me…” as if being ambitious leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

I don’t see anything wrong with those statements. In fact, I agree with them – at some point, you have to stop wanting more right? But often we use them as an excuse to be complacent.

“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” caused a lot of companies to downsize its operations. That can also cause you to fall behind (not from your peers but from life itself). You need to keep up with the changes. Who you were yesterday is different from who you are today. You used to love to party on weekends, but I’m guessing now you’d prefer to chill at home.

Move on from the past. I’m not talking about that painful shit you’ve gone through that made you who you are today. I’m talking about the glorious days when you felt like you were a superstar among the crowd. The past is the past. Your awesomeness back in the day was a result of your hard work. But that “awesomeness” also requires some maintenance.

It’s the “Law of Diminishing Returns” – what got you there yesterday may not get you there today. Every approach loses its effectiveness after a while – it has its limits.

Dieting alone helped you lose 5-lbs. Dieting MORE won’t help you lose 5 more pounds. You probably need to get your ass in the gym and lift weights to get rid of that extra weight.

 

Point is – you can’t keep using the same approach to yield results. You have to change and adapt your approach to your current status.

If you want your life to level up – you need to level up the work you put in as well.

That’s what I’ve been wanting to do for myself lately, to become…

Ultra-Productive

But what does Ultra-Productive even mean?

To me: to be able to do more than what I’m currently doing now.

I don’t know how else I’m going to reach this goal other than to:

do more work with the given amount of time…

OR…

manage my time more efficiently.

However, taking on too many things could lead to burnout – which is more damaging because it will significantly affect the quality of your work.

And taking a break makes me feel unproductive as if I’m wasting time. It’s something I need to appreciate more. However, the guilt I feel for taking a break fuels me to get more stuff done. The problem that I have for doing that is – I couldn’t gauge the quality of my work.

Working longer hours is a waste of time if the quality of output you get from it is poor. It’s interesting how companies pay us more for low efficiency lol. I understand why but that’s for another topic. To increase or at least maintain my efficiency, I need to be more consistent with getting a good…

Sleep

It’s a start.

Consistently getting a good sleep is the next step – but I find that to be very difficult. How?

Every day is unique – it’s an art to combine consistency and constant change.

Recently I noticed that drinking water before going to bed did not make my sleep “worse”.

Either way, I get up to pee in the middle of the night regardless if I deprived myself of drinking water (before bed) or not.

In fact, on Thursday, I slept for 6-hours straight with no interruption from my bladder, dreams, thoughts or anything else.

Could be a one-time thing but that’s what I want to keep aiming for.

Other things I aim for:

• MSPaint3r Magazine – for my artwork
• Blog Series – different from this weekly update I regularly publish
• Sales Page for books I’ve read – Implement/practice techniques from this copywriting course I recently bought.
• Christmas cards

and study…

Insurance

I recently had a better understanding as to why there’s a stupid waiting period when we’re filing for disability claims.

It’s the insurance company’s way to avoid wasting their time and resources processing the claims. More money is wasted on processing than the claim itself. Not worth it.

I also understand now why these claims are almost half than what you are making: to prevent people from taking advantage of the “system”.

Some will say “free money”. Well, not exactly true. It’s not ‘free money’, it’s ‘support money’.

The financial benefit you’re getting is NOT there to make your life “better”. Insurance companies are smarter than that. Your benefit has to be less than what you’re currently making. Why?

To make sure your lifestyle wouldn’t get better if you rely on insurance. Otherwise, you’re gonna keep riding that wave of free income for as loooong as you can.

Some people try to “milk the system” (and some are successful at it). But I’m sure ALL insurance companies are aware of that. In other words, both parties know they’re trying to find ways to screw each other over lol.

But the real goal here is to make all parties happy:

YOU – to get your ass back up to work – so you can start making the same amount of money again and get back to your desired lifestyle.

YOUR EMPLOYER who pays a portion of the insurance (part of your employee benefits) – will stop paying the insurance company.

INSURANCE COMPANY: so they can stop paying you money and to focus more on more “critical claims”

***IMPORTANT NOTE***

I’m still learning this shit so be aware that I probably didn’t get it right.

***END OF IMPORTANT NOTE***

But I understand why people ride that wave of small steady income – because it’s much better than working for the depressing/stressful company they currently work for.

If that’s the case, wouldn’t that be a sign you need to find another job?

What do you think?