Cover Photo by Valeria Zoncoll on Unsplash
Hint: I’m not mad
This morning I sent a letter to my team telling them that I’m cancelling a project I’ve been working on for more than a year. Some of them were involved in it.
Why did I cancel a project I was “close” to finishing?
Here’s my simple answer:
I wasn’t serious enough.
I mean, I wasn’t f-ing serious enough. One realization I made, or re-made, after coming back from vacation is this:
Life is too f-ing short to work on things you’re not f-ing serious about.
I was spending 7.5 hours a day on a project I had close to no faith in. It wasn’t bringing in any money, but most importantly, no one cared for it. Not the client, not the team, not me. For over a year, I would add new features, change some, and deleted some.
It was mostly a waste of time.
It might have mattered if I had put more heart and soul into it, but I realized I didn’t. Deep down, I didn’t believe in the project.
Are you or have you been in a similar situation?
On an f-level scale, how much do you really care about the things you are doing?
That project was low on the f-level scale, and it took me too long to realize.
Part of the realizations comes from the fact that I’ve been with my wife for over 14 years, and as you can imagine, she’s super ready to have kids. I’m maybe 30% there, which is a lot higher than last year!
There’s so much I still want to accomplish until that milestone arrives. If I estimate this is going to happen in the next year and a half or two (with pregnancy), that really doesn’t leave me much time to achieve everything I want until then.
Now, I realize I’m being over-dramatic and having kids doesn’t mean I won’t have a life of my own anymore, but to a certain point, I’m right.
All-in-all though, I love the idea of a big deadline like that.
Brendon Burchard, in his latest book, High Performance Habits, ranks Necessity as one of the top 6 habits to become a high performer.
Getting as much shit done before that deadline, for me, is a necessity.
For you, it might be something different. But all have deadlines; things we want to accomplish before a certain date. This one is mine.
While we’re at it, let’s just put a date on it! How about December 1st, 2020?
Alright, so by December 1st, 2020, here’s what I:
Will have helped 1M people thrive (succeed beyond what they think they can)
Will have innovated in the Education, Skill Development and Productivity spaces
Will have met at least one of my heroes
Will have released my video game
Will be financially stable enough to have a family in a large North American city
Will own a place I’ll call my home base
and a bunch more!
When is your deadline?
What is your list?
Guys, if you can’t even do this exercise, it might be the proof that you’re not f-ing serious about your goals.
I can’t stress that enough.
You can’t live a life you consider “meaningful” if you are not even aware of what you truly strive for.
And it’s not even that hard. Drop Instagram and Netflix for a minute, grab a piece of paper and a pencil and just ask yourself the following:
Why do I do what I do?
Freaking hard question!
If you can answer that for the first time without thinking, you’re either lying or you’re a genius. I still haven’t met anyone who could answer that in one go.
I do what I do because I love to see other people thrive thanks to my work.
Sounds simple, right?
This took me at least a whole afternoon to get to that conclusion. I’d it really took me a full week.
I was chatting with Brian Pennie about that an hour ago and he agrees, people are not self-aware enough.
You have the information right in front of you. You are aware of it. I mean, you acknowledged it, but do you really KNOW it?
I know many people who knew hard drugs were bad for them. Everyone knows that really.
Once you know the scale at which something is bad, that’s when you become truly self-aware. And once you become truly self-aware, magic happens.
Brian completely changed his life around 5 years ago after struggling with a terrible addiction for 15 years. Self-awareness may have been the number one key to it.
If you knew me 14 months ago, you wouldn’t know that Danny you’re reading right now. Heck, he barely knew how to write (little exaggeration here)!
So, evaluate what you’re doing right now (in the general sense). Evaluate who you are. Evaluate what you stand for. Evaluate your life goals.
And by “evaluate”, I mean write them down, damn it! Stop reading and do it. Come back after, I’ll wait.
…
…
…
Good.
Now, on an f-level scale, how f-ing serious are you on each of the stuff you just wrote.
If you’re not at least F serious (Medium doesn’t allow me to do a big f-ing F, but you get the point, right?), would you please just reconsider it?
Next time you’re about to say “yes” to a golden opportunity, ask yourself:
How f-ing serious will I be?
Think about this fabulous quote:
“If I’m not saying ‘hell yeah’ to something, then I say no.” — Derek Silvers
Right?
I killed a project I wasn’t enough serious about, so what you get from me for now, thanks to that, is this little story.
I hope it helps.
You can do this!
If you want to be prepared for a better tomorrow, then SkillUp! Check out SkillUp Academy!