Making the most of your day

Day 179 / 365

Yesterday I came across a motivational speech by Arnold Schwarzenegger on Youtube and it has become one of my most favorite videos online. It was a real eye-opener for me, and I would recommend everyone to check it out as well. Just to give you a taster, here are a few things that he said that stuck with me.

Have a vision

75% of people in America hate their jobs. I’m sure that number would be the same if not higher here in India as well. It’s because most of us lack a clear vision or a goal, or if we do have one, the work we do doesn’t match our vision. We just move from one job to another aimlessly and wonder why we aren’t satisfied with our lives.

When you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve in life, and you work towards it, there isn’t a happier feeling in the world. When Arnold was starting out, he used to work out 5–6 hours each day, but with a smile on his face. Because he knew that every sit-up, every bench press, was taking him a little bit closer towards his goal. He didn’t resent going to the gym, he waited for it eagerly each day.

There is no substitute for hard work

People are always looking for a shortcut, for a magic pill, for a secret to success. And I think it’s partly because we think of other people as overnight successes, so we want to become one ourselves. The reality is that most overnight successes are preceeded by years or sometimes decades of hard work that we usually ignore.

And the most common excuse we give for not putting in enough efforts is lack of time. It sounds crazy to me, and probably to you as well that Arnold used to work out for 5–6 hours each day, and most of us might find it hard to take out even 45 minutes every other day to go to the gym.

What’s even crazier is that it’s not like Arnold had a lot of free time. When he came to America, he went to college, he went to the gym 5 hours a day and apart from all that he worked in construction part time to make money for food supplements. And that’s not it, 4 times a week he went to acting classes from 8 PM to midnight! He had a clear vision of what he wanted to do, and he squeezed every waking minute he had to work towards it.

Still think you don’t have enough time?

Let’s do the maths, shall we?

We have 24 hours a day. You sleep for 7 hours, 17 hours left.

You might work for 9 of those hours, that leaves you with 8 hours. Take an hour or two out for traveling and maybe another one for all the other stuff.

You still have 5 hours left for the day!

So where are you spending those 5 hours? Are you putting them towards reaching your vision?

If 5 sounds farfetched, take just 1 out of those 5 hours and use them productively for a year. Think of where you can get with 365 hours of work.

365 hours towards working out for the body you want to get.

365 hours towards that new business you want to start.

365 hours towards learning that guitar that’s collecting dust on the corner of your room.

The possibilities are endless. So pick up a pen and paper today, find your vision and figure out how you will take out time each day to work towards it.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog —Man Vs. Wild