Staying Productive When Life Gets Tough

Staying productive isn’t easy. It can be especially difficult on the bad days. Everyone has them, days when it feels like nothing is going your way and the whole world is working against you. So how is it that in spite of such times, there are those who seem to always be making progress towards their goals? Today, that’s what we’re going to try to better understand. In this article, I want to share with you a list of four tips that will help you stay productive.

Number 1: Know your reasons:

There are going to be plenty of bad days on the journey to success, days when it seems like you’re making no progress at all, days when it seems like things are starting to go sideways, and days when it seems as if you’re actually moving backwards.

The only way I know how to endure such times is to have absolute conviction behind what you’re working towards, and the only way I know to develop that is to have a strong set of reasons for why you got started in the first place. If your reasons are strong enough, they’ll be the fuel you need that will keep you moving forward.

For your reasons to have maximum effect, I would advice you not to just keep them in your head. Take some time to sit down and actually write them out on a piece of paper.  Not only will they take on greater significance this way, but now you’ll also have something you can look to as a reminder during those tough times.

Number 2: Have proper expectations

Those who expect instantaneous success are setting themselves up for disappointment and failure. In 20 years of teaching, I’ve seen time and again that this is one of the main reasons many people give up.  They either don’t want or aren’t ready to embrace the struggle that it takes to be successful.

The solution: recognize that failure and struggle are an inseparable part of the journey. I’m reminded of something my karate instructor used to say, “if you make a friend of pain, you’ll have a friend for life.” The fact is, life can be painful at times, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You can, however, use the failure and struggle that you’re going to experience as tools. Let those experiences teach you the lessons you need and give you the strength necessary that will allow you to keep moving forward.

Number 3: Keep things in Perspective

As you work day in and day out it’s easy to get hyper focused on what you’re currently working on. As a result, your vision can become myopic, and when those bad days hit, it’s easy to feel as if all is for naught. This is when it’s especially important to take a step back and look at the big picture.

Stop focusing just on where you are, and take time to remember where you were when you started. When you do this, you’ll develop a greater appreciation for how far you’ve come.

Number 4: Keep Taking Small Steps

One of the things that can make it so difficult to recognize how far you’ve come, is that achieving massive success is a slow process. Arriving at any meaningful goal is usually the result of taking many small steps consistently over a long period of  time. For staying productive, this means two things:

1. It’s important to celebrate the small wins. After all it’s the small accomplishments that in time add up to big results. And…
2. When you’re having a bad day, look for the small win. Ask yourself, “is there something that I can get done today, no matter how small, that will keep me moving towards my goal?”

Following this approach will have a compounding effect. One that has an impact not only on the long term, but your short term productivity as well. On the bad days, it can be a struggle just to get started, but if you look for just the smallest thing to accomplish, you’ll often find that task, however small it is, serves as the catalyst that will allow you to get much more done than you set out to.

Staying productive is no easy task, especially in a world with so many distractions that can easily pull you off course. Ultimately, the solution to dealing with all these outside forces lies within you. It begins with first making sure that what you’re doing you’re doing for the right reasons. Those reasons, once they’re clearly defined, become the fuel which will keep you moving forward during the difficult times and which make all other productivity strategies possible.