You’re reading How to Use Fear to Destroy Laziness, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

It’s the start of the New Year, and we want to reach our full potential. Yet, its so easy to be lazy. We live in an age with the highest amount of distractions – with so many options for entertainment e.g. Seasons of Game of Thrones. We have so much information flowing into our minds on a daily basis through advertising, work, and what we hear through our social circle.

With all that going on, it’s easy to lose touch with what we should be doing with our time. Unless we really know what’s important to us, we can fall into excessive patterns of: watching T.V, surfing the web, socializing to an extreme – all to fill in the hole of emptiness we feel when we don’t keep ourselves distracted.

That feeling of discomfort when you go to bed, that extra sleep in the morning – it’s often all partly related to not doing the things you know you should be doing. Whether that’s: studying that subject you used to be excited about, writing that book, consistently working out, building a business, creating videos, learning from other people, playing your favorite sport, teaching something you’re passionate about, reading books, gaining new experiences, travelling, or else.

Without a strategy on how you’re going to spend your time, you can live many years without reaching your full potential – not doing the things you truly want to do. Unless you bring what you want to the forefront of your mind, and then do those things, you will fail in achieving a consistent baseline of positive emotions. Yet, you might not even realize it until a year or two has passed by.

For many of us, so little time is invested in improving ourselves, expressing ourselves, and creating. Too much time is spent absorbing content, replaying our past, worrying about the future, all while we lament our lifestyles, and take little action to change our realities.

Let’s describe the story of someone called ‘Jimmy’. The way to become the best version of you, is to firstly understand how to be the worst version of yourself.

The Story of ‘Jimmy’

If you looked at his life beginning from the 1st January to the 31st December, you would see little variety in Jimmy’s days. He never travels. Never skips town. He hangs around with the same people, who are also in the same life situation as him. Stuck. Unwilling to push himself out of his comfort zone, he subconsciously reasons that it’s okay since others are the same.

He sleeps and wakes up at different times everyday. The result is a messed up sleeping cycle that acts as the foundation for his life. To add to that, he works in a dead-end job that sucks most of his precious energy.

The cycle repeats itself weekly.

He never reads any books, he simply has no interest in expanding his knowledge or delving into stories. He is completely self-absorbed in the mental masturbation of his mind. He worries, frets and is always pondering. But perhaps he shares a joke or two with one or two friends every now and then.

Yet he rarely pauses to simply breathe.

There’s a lack of inspiration for betterment in his life and the cause of this is deeply rooted in taking life for granted. He fails to see the brilliance and wonder of the world. He never fully seizes the day. His life is marred by the attainment for short term pleasure. He saves very little of his money and instead splurges it on fast food, ice cream, desserts, cigarettes, and alcohol.

He has no long term direction, it’s simply not in his paradigm of thought. He fails to see how his present is influencing his future.

He doesn’t really know what he wants from life.

His past is a daze and he never tries to learn or embody any lessons from his experiences. He spends lavishly on the things that don’t matter, little on the things that do. His home is cluttered, and messy – just like his mind.

He doesn’t exercise, and his body is tight and tense. As a result, all his family, friends, and the world don’t benefit from the extraordinary person he could become. In short, he is selfish and he doesn’t even realize it.

Maybe you partly relate with the story of ‘Jimmy’. I know I do and I only tell this story because we’re often motivated by the extreme bell-end curve of being positive. We rarely think about the ramifications of not living meaningfully. This may be an extreme example, but it’s a useful one.

Fear, just like any emotion, isn’t inherently bad or good. It can be used to our advantage, and by remembering the sentiment behind this story, we can use it to fuel us to lead better lives on the occasions where we’re not being perhaps inspired by love.

Your Challenge

The biggest challenge we face is having the courage to make changes.

Let’s learn we find meaningful, and which days we’ll dedicate to those activities. Let’s develop daily habits that help us feel terrific each day. Let’s experiment with different things we find fascinating.

An inability to identify the unique factors that lead to a meaningful and fulfilling life, is responsible for creating unhappy men and women all around the world. But by having an allegiance to making positive changes and using your time wisely, you will be well on your way to lead a meaningful, fulfilling life – no matter what difficulties life throws at you.

If you’re interested in mastering your habits in the New Year, read my free guide. Here’s what you’ll learn:

• First, You’ll find out how to split up your day into four chunks, so you’ll worry less about external influences.
• Second, You’ll discover how to consistently celebrate your small wins, so that you feel more creative and enthusiastic each day.
• Third, I’ll show you the small productivity hacks that will take your output to the next level.

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 Samy Felice is a writer who is passionate about unique ideas related to living a meaningful life. His Free Guide explores ways people can make success easier.

You’ve read How to Use Fear to Destroy Laziness, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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