“To seek the highest good is to live well.”
Saint Augustine
Maintaining a steady and consistent work ethic is one of the most significant building blocks for success; it is one of the vital indicators of future results and what differentiates success and failure. Although, maintaining a work ethic routine can seem arduous even dreadful for many since nowadays distractions are in abundance. This problem stems from our short attention span; many of us have become Goldfish; we literally cannot focus for extended periods of time; however, this problem isn’t biological instead attained behavior. Consequently, this is tied to our mass-consumption of social media and any interactive form of technology; though, we have more ways to reach and establish communications with our peers. However, we have succumbed to every notification we receive on our devices. In my opinion, this is what reduces productivity for many.
My background is freelancing as a digital marketer, and being a freelancer, you must maintain a steady work ethic which is built around various factors; for instance, reputation is the primary indicator of how you are performing and delivering to your clients. Therefore, I must schedule my day based on the length of time for each contract. In other words, I must prioritize what tasks are the hardest and most time consuming by creating a list of each task; once the list has been created, you can start analyzing which tasks you should prioritize. Fairly simple right? Well no, doing this can seem quite difficult for some or even maintaining this same routine throughout our professional careers. Likewise, we always tend to prioritize things that impact our personal lives significantly which has the most impact in our self-fulfillment; however, this proves difficult when we have so many choices that our minds feel bombarded and we don’t end up doing anything. Therefore, we must carefully plan out and evaluate what we spend our time and energy into; for instance, instead of spending so much time doing activities like watching Netflix or scrolling through social media we can use that time to learn a new skill, or plan out your day, or just spend time improving yourself. Most of these seem very cliché something out of a positive social media post; yet, many of us end up doing empty value activities.
However, the most important trait/quality we must sustain is the same trait that guides through thunderstorms, hurricanes, and all of life’s obstacles. Perseverance is what leads us down uncertain paths; these paths are arduous odysseys that might lead us to cul-de-sac’s or lead us to great destinations beyond our wildest imaginations. One of my favorite stories, even a story that most of us should live by is the story of Phil Knight. Phil Knight is someone who built a massive empire of pure uncertainty, Phil traveled to Japan out of a vision, out of pure vision; unfortunately, during this time Japan was still rebuilding after catastrophic bombings like Hiroshima & Nagasaki and even their capital city Tokyo. In other words, Japan and the US still had conflictive tensions; also, they are both different from a cultural standpoint. Yet, even with all these odds against Phil managed to travel to an uncertain land of opportunity and maintained that vision throughout various hardships. Besides, all the cultural differences, startup business setbacks, and unlimited liability, Phil still managed to build a massive sports clothing empire known as NIKE. So why am I telling you this story? Well, this story symbolizes the importance of uncertainty and how it can impact our perseverance tremendously. Our determination follows a close link to our work ethic; it is the fuel of how far we are willing to pursue our goal/purpose. Even if we have fantastic work ethic skills without perseverance, that work ethic will crumble significantly at the first sing of uncertainty. Phil used his preservice of building a business to fulfill an athlete’s needs and be able to perform above-expected standards; which is why Phil set his missions above all, to overcome any obscurity from uncertain business partners to bankruptcy in his first business ventures. Ultimately, this is what leads our craziest visions/goals to become a reality; this is how we build the life we all dream of, the ability to carry a vision throughout obscurity and believe in it so much with action, efforts that it eventually becomes a reality.
Once we combine all these traits and frameworks, we can set any goal for ourselves; everyone can reach their full capacity and exceed to greater feats. Life is our greatest gift; we must not devaluate it; we must not waste these precious years on self-deprecating lies we all tell ourselves. These lies are what gets us through our daily lives; sadly, many of us don’t ever experience our highest potential because of these self-fulfilling lies. We all have different purposes in life; we can’t live someone else’s purpose; we were all brought to this world for various reasons. Therefore, we must explore our mission by setting goals, once we find something we genuinely enjoy we must pursue this feeling and never stop chasing no matter how others perceive it; consequently, many of us live our lives trying to please others or be socially acceptable, and this is the biggest anchor in our journey to pursue our goals. Ultimately, we need to make the impossible possible, and the only way to do is set goals that seem impossible because once we reach that impossible mark, we can anything possible.
Side notes
- I recommend you read Phil Knight’s story by reading “Shoe Dog” his own written Biography.
- Another book ideology used in the article is: “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy.
- One of the best life coach I know is Corey Wayne and his book is “Mastering Yourself” definitely a must read to discover your mission and purpose.
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