Way too many people let a someday mindset ruin their chances of success and fulfillment in their careers and lives. We seem to have forgotten that we’re the creators of our time here on this planet. And, it’s perfectly within our own power and control to create the life and career we want.
Changing your mindset and focus is the first thing you need to do to stop drifting and, instead, start focusing on the things that will fulfill you and help you succeed in your career and life.
Let’s dive in!
A Someday Mindset Makes You Drift Through Life
I suppose we’ve all fallen for having a someday mindset run part of our lives, your career, personal life, or social life, I know I have. I bet you can relate to feeling like you should reach out to an old friend to catch up, but you haven’t actually done it for a few years. Or you’ve wanted to ask your boss for that raise or promotion for the last 6 months. A someday mindset is when you don’t take ownership and action on what you want to achieve and instead let convenience rule your life. Doing that, we’re often left in an almost nomming state of mind feeling unfulfilled, lacking momentum, drive, passion, and direction in our lives.
When The Truth Hits You Right In The Face
Have you ever read a book feeling like it kept giving you punches right in the gut, making it hard for you to breathe because it delivered some truths which weren’t pleasant to face?
A couple of months back, I read a book that gave me that exact feeling.
‘Outwitting the Devil‘ was the book that delivered some hard-knock truths. Napoleon Hill wrote it in 1938, but because Hill’s wife was afraid of the consequences the book could have on their lives, he chose not to publish it. It wasn’t until after Hill’s wife passed away the manuscript saw the day of light and then got published in 2011 by the Napoleon Hill Foundation. As you can imagine, some of the content must have been controversial back when Hill wrote it.
The Drifting vs. The Non-drifting Mindset
In the book, Hill talks about how drifting puts you at the mercy of the devil’s work. Drifting is when you live without having goals or ambitions for your life. You’re pretty much like a ship at sea without a sail going in whatever direction the current takes you, and it disempowers you to accomplish the things you want to achieve in life and your career.
Drift in one direction, and, soon, you will be drifting in all directions. – Napoleon Hill
As a non-drifter, you know what you want in life, and you have a plan for accomplishing your goals. Thus, not letting anyone or any circumstance stand in the way of fulfilling your goals and dreams. If, for some reason, you don’t get closer to achieving your goals, you alternate your plans and keep working towards getting to where you want to go and who you want to become.
Victory goes to the people who know what they want and are determined to have it. They have mastered the habit of drifting. They have definite policies, definite plans, and definite objectives. Their opposition, which may outnumber them very greatly, has no plan, no purpose, no policy except that of drifting along, hoping that something may turn up to help them. – Napoleon Hill
Taking into consideration that Hill wrote this in 1938, there is still much truth in those words.
Change Your Someday Mindset To A WINning Mindset
What are some of the important things in your life that you haven’t given much attention to lately?
Changing your someday mindset to a WINning mindset, you need to figure out what areas of your life you want to rekindle your inner fire. I read Stephen Covey’s ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People‘ many years ago, which helped change how I approach life. In his bestseller, Stephen Covey suggests finding out what’s most important in your life by beginning with the end in mind. In other words, envision your future self and the impact you want to make on your surroundings. Using that approach will help you find out what’s important to you, where you want to go, and the legacy you want to leave behind once your days are up.
To help you get started, I’ve made this short visualization which I suggest you listen to and then take notes of the things that shows up when you’re finished.
Set Goals For The Most Important Roles In Your Life
Think about how you can be your best self in all the important roles you have in your life. Setting goals based on your most important daily roles such as being a parent, partner, professional/colleague, social/friend, volunteer/community makes it much easier to focus on the important things and therefore lay the foundation for success. Also, remember to include your continued personal, professional, and spiritual growth in your focus list.
Once you have a list of 5-7 roles you want to focus on, including your growth “role” as one of them, it’s time to set goals for each role.
For example, back when I first did this exercise, I wanted to strengthen my relationship with my dad. Not that we had a strained relationship, I just felt it would be nice to get closer to him. So I prioritized calling my dad once a week while he was at work, so my mom wouldn’t be joining in the conversation in the background. Then, after about four weeks of calling my dad on Thursdays around 2 pm, something interesting happened. My dad started calling me! Something he rarely did because most communication between my parents and me was when my mom called.
No matter what type of goals you set in your different roles, it’s important you write them down, and you’re intentional about achieving them. For example, I made sure to put the weekly call to my dad on my calendar. That way, I made it hard to forget and easy to remember.
Another example could be prioritizing reaching out to one or two friends or professional connections a day to nourish those relationships. Finally, if you want to advance your career, prioritize your professional growth and development by setting goals that bring you closer to achieving your goals and success.
Review Your Progress Weekly
Keeping an eye on how your journey goes is important. Doing a weekly review of your prior week and recording your outcomes will help build momentum once you see how well you progress.
I usually spend around half an hour to an hour on Friday afternoon to review and reflect on how my week has been. And then, I plan the following week’s priorities based on my roles and goals.
A great planner that can help you do all your prioritizing and reviews is the Opus One Daily Planner. It’s based on Stephen Covey’s planning tool, and it’ll help set you up for success. I’ve been using the planner, which sync’s on both my Mac and iPhone, so I’m always up to date when I’m on the go.
Final Thoughts on Leaving Your Someday Mindset behind
It’s such a shame that we let ourselves stand in the way of the success we can achieve because of an ingrained someday mindset. Doing that, we’re letting life’s opportunities pass us by because we often aren’t aware of them when they come knocking on our door, unfortunately.
Changing your focus and mindset to a more proactive one will help you achieve many great things in your life. It’ll put you in the driver’s seat and in control of where you’re going, not letting your destiny be for others to decide. When you build momentum in the most important areas of your life, it’ll positively impact your overall well-being. You’ll feel and be more fulfilled by your daily actions seeing your relationships flourish, and your professional life will start to align with your purpose.
Drop the someday mindset and stop procrastinating. Instead, implement a WINning mindset that will encourage you to work passionately towards achieving your life goals.
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