How We Make Progress in Work and Life

There are three things in life that better well work, in order for your life to work well… says author, psychologist, and Silicon valley leadership expert Gustavo Rabin.

And they are:

1. Your relationship to your work
2. Your relationship to others, and
3. Your relationship to yourself

Many books have been written on all subjects in each category so I will not delve into psychology here. What will be most advantageous and get us to the point, will be the simple identification of the one universal roadblock that stands in the way of all personal, professional, and relational progress: Doubt. – Everyone has it, despite its utter uselessness. Still, as Friedrich Nietzsche so eloquently put it, “the irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.”

So we’ve got that squared away.

Now, we can move on to the 9 actionable practices that must be implemented, in order to overcome this all to common, human impediment. Collectively, we’ll call these 9 solutions:

The Anti-doubt

1. Always apply confidence, knowledge, vision and positive reinforcement to every aspect of personal development
2. Always have a specific goal or focus to excite your self-discipline and love for life
3. Never put yourself down or accept negativity from others
4. Always stand strong for love, forgiveness and truth no matter who the opponent
5. Always observe and expand on the positive aspects of every circumstance
6. Never take life personally
7. Affirm your self-confidence daily
8. Refuse all thoughts that are downgrading, unforgiving, or that hold back your potential to achieve, and to be content. – Never indulge in negativity – your own or that of others
9. Decide your plan and stay the course exclusively until each next step is achieved

Good tips these are, but not revolutionary. They come to us in abundance as affirmations and self-help texts. We know if we follow through with them, like so many things in life, that progress would occur.

So where do we fall short?

All too often we get bogged down in the minutia of making small decisions and use this as our excuse. We convince ourselves we can’t move forward with bettering our selves or the planet, or even get started because we don’t know which foods to eat, or exercises work best, or gym to join, or water bottle will have the least carbon footprint. – This is bullshit and you need to be aware of that. Knowing full well that; the best gym is the one you go to; the best exercise is the one you do; the best healthy food is the one you consume, and the best water bottle is the one you reuse. That you do is far more important than what you do. The key is motion. But this requires you to get out of your own way.

What I’ve concluded and still maintain, from coaching countless individuals, myself included, is this: Progress in life is largely (if not entirely) a function of our ability to limit the ways we screw ourselves over. And what is the most common way we impede ourselves? It’s not wrong action I assure you, but inaction that hinders us and is the force of most destruction. For failure to realize one’s self, and one’s innate capabilities, is the definition of stagnation and the opposite of progress. Remember, limits are an illusion. We all have the choice. Don’t buy into it! – You make your own life. You are bound by nothing.

The Bottom Line:

Doubt will persist, but it needn’t hold you back. Moving forward in the face of uncertainty is an act of bravery, and a right of passage in the art of living. The key is not to suppress or escape the negative sensations we feel, but to own them fully, and persist…

Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark. – Anges de Mille

Finding it difficult to take that first leap? Read this post on the practical application and power of letting go https://benahrens.com/58/