Transcription
One of the most harmful ideas for your success is the belief that achieving long-term goals requires some kind of inspiration or powerful motivation. It seems that you need to find a passion or a goal that makes you eager to get up in the morning and dive into it. But the truth is, friends, it doesn't work that way. For achieving significant, serious goals, no motivation or inspiration will help you, and all those courses on how to set goals using the SMART method won't help either.
Any long-term goal is always about routine; it’s always a series of repetitive and monotonous actions that don’t inspire anyone. However, there are other tools for such goals, and today we will discuss three techniques that work over the long haul. So, brew your tea or coffee. My name is Berdov, and we’re starting.
The first step towards big, long-term goals is to change your environment. Practically, this means that if there’s a factor in your life that consistently hinders you from achieving your goals, you need to eliminate that factor or at least limit your access to it. This could be anything: smoking, the internet, your phone, unreasonable friends or relatives, or an unreasonable boss at work who is a source of chronic stress. We limit all of this in our lives, and ideally, we remove it altogether.
For example, if you want to quit smoking, for most people, this is an extremely challenging task. It’s a significant long-term goal that the average person achieves only after the sixth or even seventh attempt. But what can you do right now? There are actually quite a few steps you can take. For instance, remove cigarettes from your line of sight; make sure you don’t have any at home. Go on vacation to a hotel or a resort where smoking is prohibited. Meet a non-smoking girl or a non-smoking guy who can’t stand the smell of smoke. Then, to smoke, you’ll have to leave home for an hour.
But all of this is quite complicated because overcoming any addiction is inherently difficult. So, my respect goes to those who have stopped drinking or smoking. If you have a long history of smoking or alcoholism, quitting will be one of the most significant victories of your life. All other long-term goals will seem trivial in comparison.
Now, let’s consider a simpler and much more common example. Many of you probably have a smartphone, and it’s very likely that this smartphone has social media apps. You might even be scrolling through social media right now while watching this video. If that’s the case, you probably already know that social media, smartphones, YouTube, TikTok—this is where we waste so much time that we can’t even think about work or long-term goals. It’s literally a bottomless pit of procrastination that consumes hours, weeks, and even years of our lives.
There’s a clear analogy with smoking: if you want to live longer—10, 15, or 20 years—if you want to be in good shape at 70 or 80 and enjoy life, then obviously, you need to quit smoking. This is literally point number one in all recommendations. Everything else—proper nutrition, less stress, a daily routine, physical activity—is also important, but that comes after you quit smoking.
The same applies to social media. If you want to make time for your own life, if you want to achieve big, global goals, do something interesting and serious, and look back in decades and say, “Yes, my life was not wasted,” then the first step is to quit social media. This is not a joke or an exaggeration; it’s literally the foundation of your new life. The only way to use social media beneficially is to not use it at all—don’t log in, don’t scroll through feeds, don’t consume content.
Moreover, there are exactly three valid reasons to use social media: either you have clients and interact with them through social media, or social media is your job—like if you’re a marketer, a copywriter, a designer—or the third option is if you’re a blogger building your personal brand, creating content, engaging with followers, and studying your competitors. That’s what I’ve been doing for many years.
In all other cases, you need to isolate yourself from social media in some way. For some, it’s enough to just delete the app from their phone; others might need to block social media on their computer, for example, through antivirus software. Some may find that insufficient, and they’ll have to remove their phone from easy access—take it to another room, perhaps to another apartment, or even sell it.
In any case, you will need to change something in your environment so that your time spent on social media is zero, at least when you’re working or focusing on your long-term goals. I’m not joking; you should not have physical access to social media, at least in the beginning, when you’ll be experiencing real withdrawal, just like a true addict. Some will need to isolate themselves from their phones for 2-3 weeks, while others might need to do so for two or even three months.
In my case, it took about three months from the moment I blocked access to all social media until I genuinely stopped caring about them. During those months, I relapsed several times and had to start over. I had the added challenge of isolating myself not just from social media but from all news and almost everything else. It was a real three-month battle with myself. But if I had known back then how much my life would change after isolating myself from all social media and news, I would have done it much earlier, many years ago.
First, you will gain a tremendous amount of free time—3 hours a day, 5 hours, or even 8 hours for some. This is time that you previously wasted scrolling through social media. Now, those hours will return to your life. Secondly, and this is crucial, your stress and anxiety will drastically decrease. You will stop worrying about who is achieving what. You will stop comparing yourself to others and feeling that your life is somehow imperfect because you don’t wake up at 5 AM, don’t have a precise list of goals for the next 10 years, haven’t made a billion, or haven’t bought a luxury car or other markers of success. All of this will cease to bother you.
The informational noise in your head will disappear, and you may finally, perhaps for the first time in many years, be able to listen to yourself and understand what you truly want from life. So, friends, once again, the best way to use social media is to not log in at all.
But every time I mention this, someone in the comments inevitably asks, “What if everyone follows this advice and stops using social media? Who will watch your videos? Who will need you?” Personally, I find this question as pointless as if someone went to the dentist with a bad tooth, and the dentist said, “We’ll put a filling in, and here’s some toothpaste. Please, cut down on sweets.” At that moment, the patient suddenly jumps up from the chair and argues that if he gets a filling, starts brushing his teeth regularly, and stops eating sweets, who will then need a dentist?
If we’re serious, friends, don’t worry about other people. First of all, most people, even if they watch all my videos, still won’t do anything to change their lives. Watching videos and endlessly gathering information, even leaving very smart comments, is one thing; actually going out and implementing any of it to change your life is something entirely different.
Secondly, on this channel, I talk about what people need to do to change their lives for the better. How my life changes and what I do with all this will not affect your future or your plans in any way.
The second step to start acting without motivation is the strategy of external controlled enforcement. In a sense, this is also about changing your environment. But in the previous point, we structured our lives to isolate ourselves from unwanted factors or actions. External controlled enforcement is when we structure our lives so that we have no way to avoid the necessary actions.
A classic example: millions of people every year promise themselves that they will start exercising, go to the gym, and take care of their health. They even buy a membership and sometimes show up for the first workout. But literally a month later, about 70%, or even 90%, of these people drop out. They get busy with more important and urgent matters, they constantly need to go somewhere, and eventually, they stop going to workouts.
It seems that the membership is paid, and they have plenty of time. They know very well that physical activity is good for their health and that exercising in any form is beneficial. But as we’ve discussed many times, knowing something is one thing, and actually doing it is another.
If you recognize yourself in any of these descriptions—if you constantly lack willpower or time, if you always have excuses not to go to workouts—then the strategy of external controlled enforcement is just what you need. It’s actually very simple: hire a trainer, buy a membership for several personal training sessions, and then you need to personally contact this trainer to schedule a date and time for your workout.
At that moment, when you agree on everything with them, external controlled enforcement begins because now you’re going to the gym not just to work out but because another person is waiting for you there, with whom you’ve made an appointment. We humans really don’t like to break such agreements.
Of course, you might object to this strategy, saying it’s too expensive or that you can manage on your own. Friends, if you could manage on your own, you would have already gone and done it. But if you constantly have other urgent matters, if you’re always tired, don’t want to go out in the rain, or have some other problem, and a whole month goes by with only one or two workouts, then here’s an objective fact: at least for now, you’re not able to go to workouts regularly.
In this case, the money you spend on a trainer is literally the cost of external controlled enforcement for yourself. It’s the price of implementing a very beneficial process for your life over the long term, which is called regular workouts and taking care of your health. This is precisely why we have all sorts of courses, coaches, trainers, teachers, and even schools and universities—they force us to do things regularly, time and again, that we likely wouldn’t do consistently on our own.
This doesn’t depend on any rational arguments. You can perfectly understand that exercising is beneficial in the long run. You can know exactly what you need to do to change your life and achieve your global goals, and you might even want to do all of this. You have all the opportunities for it. But days, months, and even years go by, and you still do nothing.
It doesn’t matter why, because time passes, and your life doesn’t change with the years. The only emotion you feel when you realize all this is anger at yourself and a sense of worthlessness—a feeling of guilt for all the things you could have done but didn’t.
The most amusing part is that the way out of this vicious circle is right in front of you: external controlled enforcement. Yes, it will cost you money. Yes, a good trainer, mentor, or coach can’t be cheap. But in return, you get a predictable long-term result. Essentially, you’re buying your movement towards your goal.
The third way to act without motivation may seem the most challenging at first, but over the long term, it’s also the most effective. It’s literally a weapon of mass destruction against any procrastination and any worries like, “Am I doing the right thing? Am I on the right path?” This technique is called turning necessary actions into habits.
Now, let’s break this down with specific examples because some preliminary preparation is needed.
The first example we’ve partially covered: suppose you want to live a long life and feel good. This means you need regular workouts and physical activity—swimming, 10,000 steps, gym, whatever. This task entirely depends on you. You literally need to organize your life so that on the same days of the week, at the same time, you have no other tasks except going to the gym. In short, you need a clear and regular schedule.
If you can stick to this schedule long enough and consistently, at some point, you’ll find that you no longer need to force yourself to go to the next workout. Your bag will be packed, your time will be cleared, and ultimately, you just need to grab that bag and head to the gym.
The best part is that you will have done this repeatedly over the previous weeks and even months. With this approach, the next time you’ll no longer question whether to go to the gym or not, just like you probably don’t question whether to brush your teeth in the morning or wash your dishes after eating.
In a certain moment, after enough repetitions in roughly the same conditions, you’ll start going to workouts almost automatically. You won’t have doubts; you won’t need to seek motivation. Moreover, you’ll want to go; you’ll think, “I need to go to the gym.”
But for those thoughts to arise, you first need to accumulate about 20 or 30 workouts, which will likely take you several months. By the way, you can easily stick with a trainer during those months. After that, you won’t need any trainer or additional motivation. That’s the main advantage.
The second, and actually even more important, advantage is that the habit-forming technology is universal. It can be applied to any repetitive and regular task. A classic example is content creation, where you need to regularly produce videos or create posts for your Telegram channel or elsewhere.
I often get comments asking, “Pavel, where do you find the motivation to write new videos? Where do you get the motivation to shoot, edit, and upload all this?” Friends, I have no motivation. Even right now, as I stand here filming this video, my motivation level is zero.
But every day, at the same time, I have the task in my schedule to spend at least half an hour on dictation. Initially, it was half an hour, then 40 minutes, and gradually it turned into an hour. Just one hour a day to take the dictaphone and record my thoughts.
For reference, during this time, I dictate about one post for Telegram or sometimes 8 or 9 minutes of this long video. Just one hour a day, but every day, and you will never have problems with content.
An hour a day is actually quite a lot for an unprepared person, so if you’re just starting your blog, it’s better to start with 30 minutes or even 15 minutes. Start with 10 minutes, but do it regularly every day for at least 2-3 months.
Even better, spend at least six months forming the habit you need, especially if it’s a complex one. Creating content for any social media is a complex habit; it’s hard work. And don’t listen to myths about habits forming in 21 days.
Do you know where this myth about 21 days came from? A long time ago, in the last century, there was a plastic surgeon who noticed that his patients got used to their new appearance—like they stopped being shocked by their reflection in the mirror or stopped scratching the arm they had amputated. This adaptation after surgery takes about 21 days on average.
But as you can understand, this number has nothing to do with forming new habits. In reality, you will need an average of 60 to 240 days or even more just for a complex and regular action to become a habit. This means that forming any habit that will ultimately lead you to a complex and long-term goal is itself a complex and long-term task.
That’s why all those promises to yourself, whether on New Year’s or some other significant date, that you’ll start a new life tomorrow, almost always don’t work and are almost always a guarantee that you’ll soon relapse.
If you’ve been smoking, drinking, and doing nothing, and suddenly promise yourself that starting tomorrow, you’ll run, jump, quit drinking and smoking, work on your projects, eat well, and do something else—all of this means you want to give up a bunch of bad habits in an instant and simultaneously form several good habits.
No, friends, it doesn’t work that way. No matter how smart and willful you are, this approach will inevitably lead to failure and regression. That’s why I say that habits are the most powerful yet simultaneously the most challenging tool. They only work over the long term, and any habits need to be implemented gradually and strictly one at a time.
For example, recently my count of short videos published surpassed 200. This means that for 200 consecutive days, I’ve been coming up with scripts, filming videos, editing them, and uploading them. It seems like just one video a day, but it’s every day without breaks, holidays, or weekends.
Meanwhile, I’m optimizing some processes, speeding up recording and editing. Now, yes, I can indeed shoot videos in bulk after six months of continuous work and habit formation. This habit has formed, and now I don’t need any motivation or inspiration. I just go and do it. All I need is my camera, my computer, and my phone with the dictaphone.
By the way, right now, at the beginning of February, I’m setting a new goal. I want to form the habit of recording long videos. On one hand, this is a much more complex task. Anyone who has done any content creation will confirm that shooting long videos is much harder than short ones.
On the other hand, I already have the foundation—the habit, as well as the equipment: my computer, camera, and phone. The same will happen for you. If you’re currently at the bottom of an emotional pit, perhaps you don’t know what you want to do, or maybe you do know what you want to do but have been sitting still for weeks, months, or even years, just scrolling through motivational videos, here’s the recipe: try to implement just one habit into your life.
Start regularly doing one simple and quick task that, nonetheless, brings you closer to your cherished goal over the long term. Under no circumstances should you implement several habits at once or take on complex tasks. Start with something as simple and quick as possible, and then spend 2 months, 3 months of your life, or even half a year turning that simple and regular task into a full-fledged habit.
It’s very possible that after this, you won’t need any motivation or advice on finding yourself or your calling.
And friends, a key addition: I almost turned off the camera and suddenly remembered that I hadn’t mentioned a crucial point. Since you’ve watched this far, it’s useful for you to know: everything we’ve discussed—these technologies of changing your environment, external controlled enforcement, and especially forming new habits to achieve big, complex, and long-term goals—should not just be watched or studied for additional information.
You need to go out and try them in your life. No technology, no matter how cool or useful, will bring you any real benefit if you just read about it or watch some videos but do nothing to implement it in your life. You can scroll through thousands of videos, watch a bunch of bloggers, and say that none of this works and that you have a unique situation.
Or you can go out and try to implement all of this in practice and see what results you get. The fundamental difference between my channel and endless motivational videos or nonsense about easy money and becoming a millionaire in no time is that the technologies we discuss are, on one hand, not secret or revolutionary. They might even demotivate some at the start because I’m telling you that there are no secret or quick paths to success.
But what we discuss here works, it’s applicable in practice, and at the very least, it won’t worsen your life. On the contrary, if you implement all of this, it will almost always improve your life and your results.
Once again, the key thought: don’t seek motivation. Don’t look for inspiration or secret knowledge. All of this sounds beautiful and might even motivate someone at the start, but the truth is that over the long term, it doesn’t work. Big goals and long-term projects are achieved through entirely different technologies, and these technologies have nothing to do with motivation, inspiration, or finding yourself—whatever that means.
The same goes for the example of 200 short videos. Just imagine what will happen if you also publish 200 short videos. If you spend 200 days continuously working on content, after such a period, any of your work will become routine and a habit.
If you need a script for a video, you just take the dictaphone, turn it on, and dictate the script. If you need to shoot videos, you just grab the camera, turn it on, and shoot. Finally, if you need to edit and upload those videos to social media, it’s no problem. You sit down at your computer, edit, and upload.
Yes, it might be difficult at first, especially if you’ve never done this before. It will take you much more time, and you’ll make various mistakes. In the beginning, when you first pick up the dictaphone, your mind might go blank, and it may seem impossible to just dictate a new script for a short or even a long video.
But friends, I assure you, in just six months or a year, you’ll be doing this automatically and without thinking. In two, three, or maybe five years, you will have honed these skills to the point where everyone around you will constantly say how lucky you are and what a talent you have.
Well, yes, there’s no talent—neither in me nor in you. It’s just long and continuous work on yourself. And through such work over the long term, you will achieve any result. If you keep searching for motivation, talent, inspiration, or something else, then with that approach, you won’t achieve anything.