Tag: Productivity

I Couldn’t Live My Dreams Until I Discovered These 7 Rules

by Joe Barnes

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Pratical Tools & Tips

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Date: Sep 2, 2024

I Couldn’t Live My Dreams Until I Discovered These 7 Rules

When I first set out on a quest to live my dreams, 22 years ago, I thought success in this endeavour was about inspiration.

I’d read about Sylvester Stallone writing the first draft of his Rocky script in three days and assumed that, if I was equally inspired, I’d produce a similar result.

Unfortunately, nothing could have been further from the truth.

 

From Failure To Success

My dream was to become a bestselling self-help author. However, it took me 5 years to start writing my book.

Once I began, it took me a further four and a half years to complete and publish my manuscript.

After it was released, I assumed my book would be a bestseller and I’d live off the royalties for the rest of my life.

Frustrated, I witnessed a trickle of sales, very few reviews and zero impact from my book.  

I couldn’t understand it. I knew I’d written a good book; I visualised it selling a million copies a million times and I used the law of attraction to attract sales.

Still, very little changed.

It was at this point, about 2 years after I’d launched the book, I realised that the way I approached living my dreams had to change.

I had to forget working off inspiration and impose a strict schedule to ensure I got the most out of myself.

Fast forward 10 years and I’ve received a book deal for my second book, released two additional books and become an Amazon bestseller many times over.

Below are the 7 rules I discovered which enabled this to happen. My hope is that you can take them, adapt them to your situation, and achieve a similar level of success. They work!

 

1.     Work A Minimum Of 20 Hours A Week On Your Dream

Ten years ago, when I had my major rethink, I didn’t have an unlimited amount of time to dedicate to my dream. I was working at least 30 hours a week as a tennis coach and hypnotherapist.  

Despite thinking I was prioritising my dream of becoming a bestselling self-help author, my weekly time allocation told a very different story.

So, I stopped working around my day jobs, writing and promoting my books when I felt inspired, and created a strict schedule to follow.

On average, I had to work 20 hours a week on my dreams. I broke this down into 2-hour 45-minute time slots each day.

Of course, I still had a social life and occasionally went on holiday, so if I missed a time slot then I had to catch up at a later date.

Will this work for you?

Perhaps you can’t dedicate 20 hours a week to your dream.

Whatever the case, decide upon the minimum amount of time you can work per week and keep track of the work you do.

Having a schedule is the key.

If it’s only 10 hours a week then so be it. So long as you stick to your schedule and record the hours completed (see how I tick off my time blocks in the picture below) then you’ll progress.

7 Rules To Live Your Dreams

 

2.    Only Buy The Things You Need

The observant among you will realise I took a hit on my income about 10 years ago. Cutting back from working 30 hours a week on my day jobs to between 20 and 25, reduced my resources. However, I was able to mitigate this by following the rule above.

Before any purchase you make, ask yourself the following question, “Do I really NEED what I’m about to buy?”

Do I need to buy this takeaway or can I just cook a meal at home from food I bought at the supermarket?

Do I need the latest iPhone or can I hold onto my current one for another 3 years?

Do I need to buy that item of clothing or do I have enough clothes in my wardrobe for everything I do?

Take an expenses inventory and you’ll be amazed at how much money you can save by applying rule 2.

Making these savings eases the initial hardship of reallocating your time away from day job to working on your dream.

 

3.    Save 10% Of Your Income (Before Tax) Every Year

What Joe, you’re asking me to make even more cut backs on an already tight budget?

I’m sorry, but yes. However, this rule has a strategic purpose that’ll pay dividends down the line.

That 10% of your income may only amount to $4000 each year. However, you take that money and make smart investments that could pay off in as little as 5 years’ time.

Don’t believe it will work?

I applied this rule when I invested £5000 in Tesla stock in 2016.

By 2021, that initial investment was worth £150,000. At this point, I took a sizeable portion of it out, giving me a cushion to cut back even further on my day jobs and put more time into my writing.

Of course, this is an exceptional investment.

However, the principle of saving and investing, year on year, will help you ease the financial burden of pursuing your dreams. 

 

4.    Go To Bed Every Evening At 11pm

You may be wondering how you’re going to find the time to work your day job, spend 20 hours a week working on your dream and still enjoy time with friends and family.

It’s not easy.

You have to take a time inventory and discover how you’re spending every second of your day.

If, like me, you’re a freelancer and in charge of your own schedule, one of things you might be doing is staying up late working or relaxing.

This has to stop as it’s not a productive use of your time.  

Of course, 11pm might be too late as you have to be up earlier in the morning.

If that’s the case, choose an earlier bed time.

The time you choose isn’t the point. Having a clearly defined endpoint to the day, when you shut everything down and get to bed can, in my experience, buy you an extra 30 minutes productive time per day.

 

5.    Keep Your Mobile Phone Screen Time Below 3 Hours A Day

Go into your phones’ settings and discover what your average screen time per day is clocking in at (The US national average is 4 hours and 37 minutes).

How much of that is productive use?

Then, working on the basis you’ll only allow 25% of your screen time to be non-productive, set a cap (so, whatever business activities you conduct on your phone and then a little extra for browsing social media, YouTube, podcasts etc).

Maybe it’ll only be 2 hours per day.

The number isn’t the point. Instead, it’s being conscious of your phone use, cutting back on the unproductive time and reallocating that to the 20 hours a week you’re going to work on your dream.

Screen Time
From last year

 

6.    Use Gary Keller’s “ONE Thing” Goal Setting Program

Before I read The ONE Thing, I used to do whatever work I felt inspired to do.

This typically led me to have a book I was writing, a series of YouTube videos I was creating, guest blog posts I was editing and speaking appearances I was making.

It was fun but I was taking forever to get tasks complete (especially when it came to releasing new books).

What Gary Keller’s book taught me, though, was to work towards a plan.

  • First decide on 1 goal for the year.
  • Then, decide on 1 goal for the month that will help you accomplish the goal for the year.
  • Then, decide on 1 goal for the week that will help you accomplish the goal for the month.
  • Finally, decide on 1 goal for your day that will help you accomplish your goal for the week.

The outcome?

You get high priority tasks done and have more impact because you don’t get side-tracked by smaller projects.

 

7.    Meditate/Visualise Every Day

Before I explain this rule, it’s important to note that setting a cap on your mobile phone screen time wasn’t just about freeing up time to work on your dream.

It had a deeper significance.

You don’t want your mind polluted by the noise of social media and the propaganda of the mainstream media.

Instead, when you’re not actively working on your dream, you need to be thinking about it.

That’s why, alongside implementing Rule 5, you need to take 5 to 10 minutes out of your schedule, every day, and focus on succeeding at living your dreams.

What does this do?

First, it can activate the law of attraction (if your vibration is high enough).  

Second, you’re keeping your mind focused on your dream and this is important for its own reasons (see below).

 

Conclusion

Although I still believe inspiration plays an important role in achieving my dreams, I KNOW it won’t show up every day (and I HAVE to).

Furthermore, there’s another factor more important to success – momentum.

Can you build enough of it?

Can you create an environment where your mind never wanders too far from your goal?

Both the work you put into your dream and the thoughts you think about it are what creates momentum.

Momentum moves mountains and, unlike inspiration, it’s relatively easy to manufacture.

Just follow the 7 rules above (although adapt them to your own circumstances) and it will be impossible for you not to progress.

Inspiration may get you started but momentum will help you win.

 

GET YOUR FREE COURSE  

If you want to discover a passion you can make a living from and overcome the fears that are holding you back, check out my free course 30 Days to Escape The SystemClick here to get the course right now! (You’ll find the tips on developing belief and self-confidence fascinating!) 

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Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash