How To Achieve More In 1 week Than Most People Achieve In 1 year

Why is it that some people can get more done in a day than most people can do in an entire month?

In this newsletter I want to teach you not how to get the most out of your time. Cuz you can go to videos on productivity advice.

Like a lot of productivity advice just teaches you how to be busy.

Like “how to be a better robot at executing these tasks”.

Do you ever zoom out and wonder am I focusing on the right tasks. Cuz who cares if you're productive, if you're productive on the wrong things.

Busy vs. true productivity this is what we're talking about in this newsletter. And man if you just focus on these four questions I'll give you.

I mean this is literally the difference between you having 5 years of busy work vs. 5 years of going towards your purpose.

So with that let's get into it.

Here we have age 0 to 80 years old.

Now if you take your life and divide it up into three major stages you would have something like this:

Phase 1 we could call Young.

0 to 25 years old.

You're in college you're in school. You're learning, you're soaking in information preparing to get into Phase 2 the adulthood.

This is you in a career, this is you working, this is you grinding it out all while hoping for last 20 years the Old season.

This is the narrative that people pass down to you through school. They say “oh you got to go to high school you get out when you're 18 years old. Then if you go to college if you're smart so you can get a job that you can work for 40 years with the hopes of retiring the last 20 years of your life”

That is the standard narrative that's been passed down for probably the last 100 years that everybody subconsciously believes.

That's life and without questioning it most just accept that's how it is.

In other words most people are sleep walking through life.

This is the point I want to get through your head.

That if you want to get more done in one week than most people do in a whole year fact I would say an entire decade maybe even a lifetime.

You just wake up.

Ben Franklin has one of the hardest hitting quotes. He said:

Now here's what's crazy.

Let's add a few more points here…

The average life expectancy is right around here 83 years in Switzerland.

When I looked it up before writing this newsletter one other stat that just breaks my heart:

When surveyed up to 54% of Swiss People don't like their job. 

They literally say they're dissatisfied.

Now most people are retiring around the age of 65. Life is expensive inflation, cost of living goes up. So we have this fantasy in our head that “okay you know once I'm done working then I can start living”.

Like “once I push through this career and my kids are out of the house then I can finally start living for myself then I can finally follow my passion or then I can travel the world or sit on the beach sipping pina coladas or whatever that like fantasy is in our head”

But the sad reality is that if you don't love Phase 2, you're missing out on a majority of your life.

You’re sleep walking through it.

Most people are dying at the age of 25 and we don't bury them till the age of 75.

So what what is my point here?

There's a light at the end of the tunnel. It is not over for you.

In fact it's far from over and in fact the sooner you read this and the sooner you're able to wake up to the illusion of what people have planned for you, and the life that others are subconsciously programming you to live, the sooner you can actually start living and waking up.

Sleepwalking through life is the number one thing you have to avoid. 

Most people who show you this are like “and that's why you got to start a business. If you're not Dropshipping you're wasting these years”

Most people aren't cut out for that to be totally honest and that can cause them the Sleepwalk through life just chasing this one day, one day, one day and it prevents them from actually living.

You don't have to start a business to love your life.

Getting rich isn't the only thing. It isn't the only way to feel like you're a somebody.

In fact the feeling of, you have to be a somebody that can be the very curse that's holding you back to begin with. That can be the thing that makes you fall asleep and sleep walks through life, saying “oh yeah when I'm finally successful when I'm finally there when I'm there when I'm there…”

I don't know man not to go like too deep and tangental here cuz I sometimes I wonder how much of our improvements is us just preparing to live vs. actually living.

Cuz those are two different things.

Like you preparing and learning how to live. Even watching videos and reading these books isn't actually living.

This is preparing you to go out and live.

But if all you're doing is consuming information like this and consuming content like “just preparing okay that's how this person says to live the good life and this person…”

At some point you got to get out of the house. You got to live live your life.

At some point you got to realize: “what do I actually want?”

F*uck what everyone else says. F*ck what the guy on YouTube who's jacked and has a nice car and a business. Like is he happy? I don't know, we'll never know.

At a certain point you choose, to wake up for yourself and at the moment you wake up for yourself and choose which will give you four questions here next, that is the moment that you get more done than most people do in a year, in a decade.

Because you're waking up. You're not sleeping walking. You're not waiting till you're 75 years old to get buried and you died at 25.

Is this first part making sense?

So now I have a question for you:

Who are the best people at helping you level up?

Are they the ones with the answers. People telling you what to do?

I don't think so. I think it's a very lazy childish way. We go looking for the answers in school, our parents “is this okay?”.

That's the reason you're stuck.

Because you're looking to other people to decide what should you do.

The best coaches don't have the answers they have the questions. 

I know you're thinking: “Well how how do I actually apply this?”

I want to give you 4 questions and I don't want this to be another newsletter that you, you know forget about and say okay that's on my to-do list for later.

I really want you to write down these 4 questions and promise me that tomorrow morning you're going to go to a coffee shop, you're going to order the biggest freaking coffee they got, you're going to sit down at the journal and you're going to answer these four questions.

You do that I promise you, this week you will get more done than most people do in an entire year. Because this is how you wake up from the narrative that is subconsciously just pounded into you from society, from school, from your parents.

We got a deal all?

Let's do it.

These questions are ranked in order of importance where I would spend and allocate a majority of your time.

Question 1: What would I do if I was fearless and could not fail?

You have to answer this question in that specific syntax fearless and could not fail.

There's only two motivators for human beings pain and pleasure. 

You're either working towards something you want or you're running away trying to avoid something that happen to you or that's painful.

Often times we have these dreams and these seedlings that perk up in your mind and watch how fast you shoot it down.

Like “hey that person's posting covers on YouTube why don't you post something on there or like you're inspired by them why why don't you do that and then you shoot it down with oh no you don't have the gear you don't have the skill you'll get laughed at it'll fail it's a waste of time you're too busy it's too expensive it's too saturated Bo”

Or wow that person just walks up to them and starts a conversation. He's attracted, he walks up and they're talking what if I did that.

“no you're going to get rejected, everyone's going to watch you, it's going to be embarrassing, you're going to be humiliated Etc.”

Every time you have the solution come up there's another part of you that's shooting it down out of fear.

So when you remove the possibility of failure what do you want to do?

You might question yourself and be like “I would not be working the same job”. If you would be working that same job or in that career congrats that's good data.

But if you're in the 54% I mentioned earlier who don't like their job and what they're doing, well then the reason they're staying stuck is out of comfort and it's risky.

And the reason they view it as risky is because they don't answer this question of like “let's just explore what could happen if you were fearless and could not fail”.

I want you tomorrow to list as many of these options as possible.

Question 2: What will I be most proud of one year from today? 

I think it's very important to use the word “proud of”. (I'm not talking about egoic part like “look at me I'm the man”.

Feeling proud of your character that's very different.

My point… what will you be most proud of a year from now? Is it getting in the best shape of your life and not just talking about it and saying it with empty words but like actually putting some focus and energy behind it? Is it committing in your relationship getting married getting engaged?

Maybe this is the year that happens. Finally getting out of debt, fixing the finances.

Is it transitioning jobs and making a big leap that you've been putting off?

Whatever it is I'm just throwing out ideas here… what are you going to be most proud of a year from now?

Man this could be its own newsletter, but one of the things I've been processing and playing with this year, is there's kind of two camps with self-improvement:

I've realized the 1. Camp is like very heavy and it's almost approaching self-improvement of self-hate and it's really toxic. Like take your shirt off and saying “you're fat, you're a loser” in the mirror and that should motivate you.

Like it's motivating you out of fear.

This other Camp is motivating yourself out of excitement and what's best for you and what you want to do. This is like I'm afraid to get in trouble and it's very childish.

But if you use them and let them be your North Stars and guiding principles you're going to end up with a life that you resist a lot of.

Friction comes when grooves are misaligned. You got two gears grinding against each other that's a lot of friction and eventually they're either going to grind themselves to where they fit and there's not a lot of friction or they're going to stop the whole machine and it breaks.

That's kind of what happens when you grind on yourself. You're going to have a lot of friction, you're either going to burn the heck out, you're going to stop everything or you're going to find a way to make it work and make it more effortless.

I hope that point makes sense…

So this question… I think that when you go after feeling excited, feeling proud, making things fun, these are ways you can tap more into this effortless self-improvement, instead of this just like heaviness in this grinding and forcing things.

You know?

But question 3 might be the most important one: what are the three things I need to stop doing?

I want you to identify three things that if you didn't do would help you get out of your own way and would be better for you.

Getting more done in one week than most do in an entire year by waking up choosing, what you want… Yes that comes from what you're doing.

But I found that success is equal parts about what you're not doing.

In the same way we could use dieting as an example.

“I got a few extra lbs on me trying to get ready for Beach season. Here tracking some calories. I learned very quickly how easy it is to stop eating 1,000 calories vs. how hard it is to try and burn 1,000 calories.”

You want to burn 1,000 calories go on a 2h run and don't stop. That's literally the amount of effort it takes to burn the 1000 calories

or

we could just not Binge at night and we don't need the 2-hour run every single day.

“Penny saved is a penny earned” kind of thing…

What are the three things detracting from your happiness? What are the three things that are robbing you of your energy?

And man if you can just find what three things you need to stop doing, I think this year is going to unlock a lot of growth for you.

But perhaps my favorite question that I want you to ask yourself tomorrow at that coffee shop my friend is question 4:

What advice would I give someone else in my exact same situation?

You right now in your situation, if you ever feel stuck, distance yourself from it take a step back, pretend it's not you in this situation, it's your close friend or a family member, what advice would you tell them?

“ah dude I just don't know what to do about this job like I don't like it I'm drained I don't like my boss I don't want to be here in the next 5 years”

Pretend that's not you. What advice would you give that person?

Or

“I don't know what to do about my relationship ship”

Pretend it's not you. What advice would you give to that person?

So why create a buffer between you and your problems or your confusion?

Well the simple fact is it's easier to give advice than take it.

I don't think this is the hypocritical thing, I don't think this is a malicious thing, I think that we always know every single detail and the same thinking that caused the problem we're trying to use to get out of the problem.

So the way you do that and step out of the show… pretend it's not your problem, pretend it's someone else's.

You're way more objective that way. Instead of your subjective experience “I feel like this is the right…”. Feelings are important… yes gut feelings and instincts for sure. But logically sometimes we're reading too much into things or we make things 10x harder than they need to be.

So what advice would you give someone else in your exact same situation?

To recap what you learned:

We went over how to get more done this week than most people do in entire year.

How do you do that?

You don't do that through some productivity hack or planning your day in certain increments.

All that can help.

But if you never wake up to the sleepwalking nature of Life, most people are going through and living in, it doesn't matter. It's straightening deck chairs on a Titanic.

The very thing you need to do to get more done and stop wasting your life is:

Make the choice.

How do you do that?

You ask yourself these 4 questions.

Make some time, take an hour, take 2h.

But please write these down and do these.

And if you don't do these no self-improvement video is going to matter, no book you read is going to matter, no life philosophy…

Like these are the most important things you can ask yourself if you truly want to get ahead this week and make it way more productive than most people spend an entire year avoiding.

Let’s get it!

Cheers,

Jonas