Do you feel your life has fallen into a routine, and you’re bored of doing the same things every day? Is life just treading water? Is the person you were yesterday the same as the person you are today? Go to work, kill time at work, come home, sleep, get up, go to work… Is the only excitement in your life whether your latest photo gets lots of likes and comments? Some people are luckier — they have several social networks to check. But even if you’ve conquered every platform, you still can’t shake the boredom and the routine? Does treading water drive you mad?
You’re absolutely right. Except for one thing: you can’t stand still. You either move forward or you slide back. So if you feel your life is stuck in a routine and you’re treading water, you’ve actually gone backwards. Shall I say it again? If you feel stuck in a routine, you’ve regressed.
You’re Programmed to Move Forward
Human beings are curious creatures, programmed to progress. Your instincts want to move forward: to do more, achieve more, live a different life, be better, look better, be with better people, work in better jobs, do better work and enjoy life more. Your instincts want change and progress. If you go against that — against the most fundamental desire within you — you get an immediate warning: you start to feel bad. Just as your body warns you when you need water — “Be sensible, drink something” — making you feel parched all over, you get a warning the moment you fail to nourish and grow yourself. That signal isn’t bad. On the contrary, it’s on your side. Thanks to that discomfort, you can leap higher and live a better life.
On the other hand, if you fight the signal — “Ugh, why do I feel so bad? Let me watch a couple of funny videos to cheer myself up” — it’s like giving your parched body a sugary iced drink. It cools you down for a moment, but then makes you even thirstier. The only cure is to move forward. If you resist this urge — “Curse my love of progress!” — you’ll feel even worse. But if you use it, there’s no telling how far you’ll go.
After all, if everyone were happy as they are, the world would never progress. Imagine your favourite TV presenter still hosting the very same show, in the very same jacket, twenty years later. I can’t imagine a world like that! Luckily, there’s such a thing as progress. If everyone stayed the same and stood still, no new inventions, technologies, systems, services or art movements would ever emerge. Can you imagine a world without the smartphone in your pocket? Not so long ago, that was the world.
The world has to move forward, and since you’re part of it, you have to move forward too. Your brain is simply reminding you of that. It’s saying: “Feed me, make me do things that make me happy, help me grow, set me goals to achieve, map out a path for my development, let me make this world a better place!”
So What Should You Do?
Instead of resisting this urge, harness the driving force inside you and work hand in hand with it. But first, listen to it. What is it telling you? In what direction does it want you to grow? What does it want to add to your life? What would make your life more meaningful? What could you do differently each day that would make you feel you’re progressing? What goals do you want to reach?
Life Loves Those Who Keep Moving
Add something new to yourself every single day. Learn something new, try something new, take on a new project, build new things on top of what you have. In other words, be better than your yesterday — and not as good as your tomorrow! Set yourself goals. Run towards them. Keep moving, keep progressing. As they say on the train: mind the closing doors — don’t just stand in the doorway.
Life Loves the Brave
Do some of your dreams scare you? Do some of the steps you’ll need to take make you nervous? Does swimming in unknown waters and leaving safe harbours worry you? Wonderful! Then you’ve found a free source of adrenaline. People pay small fortunes to go bungee jumping — and you’ve got it for free, right on your doorstep. Run towards your fears. The more you run at them, the more they’ll run from you. The more you avoid new things and run from your fears, the more fearful you become. The more you face them, the more fearless you become — and you create a constant, free source of excitement and fun.
Life Loves Those Who Push Their Limits
What are your limits in life? How far do you think you can go? What is your capacity? No, I don’t mean your high score in a mobile game or the record number of episodes you’ve binge-watched in a day. How much higher can you raise the point you can reach in life? Do you want to see an even more magnificent you — in your work, your health, your looks and your relationships? If you want to experience things you’ve never tasted before, you have to do things you’ve never done before. In other words, you have to push your limits. As you push them, your limits expand, and what you can do — and what you could do — multiplies.
In Conclusion
- You now know where you’ve been going wrong.
- You know what you need to do.
- You know how to do it.
The only thing holding you back right now is, once again, you — and you have the power to overcome that obstacle!