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The key to motivation is to keep tracking your progress.
Knowing it is the easy part.

Tracking your progress is the difficult part.
Because if you won’t, no one else will do that for you.

It is difficult because we don’t see mountains moving on the basis of daily efforts.
Yet if we keep putting in the daily efforts, they do move over a period of weeks, months, or years!

However, in order to reach that place, we need to be motivated. To be motivated, we need to keep tracking our progress. Even when we don’t feel like. So that when we actually don’t feel like working, our tiny steps will remind us that our work does make a difference.

Motivation comes from daily insignificant actions, that create significance over time.

It is the day you die.
It is the day you leave this planet and go up there.
it is the day you finally get to meet God.

And as you reach there, you expect to be welcomed for the comfort zone you stood by.

Instead, God hands you over a long list of all the things you could have done yet you didn’t.
All the times you procrastinated because you had fear.
All the times you binge-watched TV instead of working on your dream project.
All the times you said yes to going out and having fun, instead of going through the discomfort of discovering yourself.

What would your answer to God be?
Would you really be able to answer, because no excuses or reasons would be allowed then :)

Can we avoid this Big Question on our encounter with God, by doing something about it daily?

The world is a place filled with bad people.
People want to cheat on you.
People want to make the most out of you without caring about you.

Most of us, consciously or unconsciously, grow up with this belief system.

The truth is, the world is a place filled with very helpful people.
People innately want to be trusted. And they love to trust in return.
Only if, we get rid of our blinders, that make us inconspicuous of the goodness all around.

The biggest lie we grew up with, was that most people are bad.
The second biggest one was, that you also have to be bad in order to deal with the bad world.

The first thing, the very first thing that I do after making a mistake, is accept the fact that I am responsible for making the mistake.

Yes, someone else could have avoided the mistake. That is how most people handle their mistakes.

However, just because someone else could have, doesn’t mean I couldn’t.

The reason why we keep repeating our mistakes and not learning lessons from it are, because we think we are not responsible for those.

Seth Godin is one of the people in the content industry I look up to.
He has been writing his daily blog for over 25 years now.
And over and above being a marketer, he is one of the finest thinkers I’ve come across.

In a recent blog post, Seth mentioned about his new course on decision making.
The course got me thinking, where Seth primarily focussed on giving up your chips.

The sunk cost fallacy.
The opportunity cost.
The cost of continuing something you hate just because you spent 5 years decades ago working on it.

It is like most dentists hate being called dentists. Yet they continue that profession because their neighbours know them as dentists, they have invested in that chair, and they spent 5 years getting that degree!

He shared that example by demonstrating the green iguana lizard. The lizard is a few inches long, in its nascent stage. It is very easy to bring it home, and tame it.

With only one problem.

Within 6 months, the lizard becomes up to 5 feet long. Not the best thing to still tame it.

Most people, would drown in a guilt trip, on taking the 3 feet long lizard a month later, and dropping it back to the jungle.

That is where we need to throw down our chips.
This is where we need to let go of the green iguana.
This is where we need to know that I need to drop out of my PhD. Or I need to give up my consulting and join a startup. That I need to step down from the position of CEO of nearbuy to get all into content creation.

Just because you’ve been doing something for a long time, it is not enough a reason for you to continue doing that forever.
The opportunity cost is the cost we do not see in cash, it is nevertheless a cost.

I was once asked the definition of awesome, on Quora.

I believe there is no defined parameter.

Awesome is the manager who chooses to trust despite a team mate faltering.
Awesome is the friend who listens to what you are going through, without any judgement.
Awesome is the 20 year old girl / guy who chooses to earn on the side and invest, because that is the right thing to do.
Awesome is the kid who relentlessly writes cold emails and gets things done.
Awesome is the one who was expected to not show up for a difficult day, yet they did, because they cared.

There is no set parameter of awesome.

Awesomeness is simply going beyond what someone else or you expected yourself to do, just because you knew that was the right thing to do.

We all love surprises.
Wrong.

We all love only those surprises that we love.

The surprises that we didn’t expect, are called problems.

One of the responsibilities as a leader, is to take care of your team.
Which also means, to never give them the surprises they didn’t expect.

As a leader, you will come at a point to take tough people decisions.
While you may have to take those decisions, if it comes as a surprise to the team, you have not done your job well.
Have you given them enough feedback? Did you give them the grounds to make the change? Did you trust them with making those changes?
All of these ensure their trust in you, even though you may not end up working together.

If people do not like unpleasant surprises, it is up to us to make sure they do not get them.

I’m a big fan of habits.
Habits are how I have set up my life around.
Be it content creation, be it reading books, or even working out.

It has been one of the greatest reasons of why I feel energetic always.

However, one of the secrets is I never predict my future by setting targets.
I rather take control of my days.
How many meetings I want to have.
When will I take a break.
My eating timings.
My timings of responding to emails.
Even my timings of reading books.

The days, eventually create the future. No exception.

Three ways to waste your money:

1. Investing in Fixed Deposits (Because their rate of return is lower than the inflation rate, thus, the money never beats the market.)
2. Upgrading your lifestyle because of FOMO, not because you want it to be
3. Spending time doing things you hate (Time is the ultimate currency. Cash could be lost and regained. Time could only be lost.)

Only when we begin to think of money beyond cash, we will be able to make cash beyond what we think.

A hallmark of a good team is that everyone is closely knit together, and is each other’s good friend.

Which is far from truth.

Any team, is comprised of people coming from different perspectives and priorities, and it’s natural for them to not be friends with everyone.

However, the best teams are the ones where people with different attitudes towards life still respect each other, and help each other grow. Not out of pressure, rather because of the culture of the team.

The best teams, accept each other where they are, instead of bring each other down.
It isn’t about being friends, it’s about rising the game for everyone. Together.