Stop Looking Back, Start Looking Forward: Reflect, Reframe, Refocus!

Last month, I didn't feel great.

I had no money to go to the hairdresser.

My shaver was broken, so I couldn't groom my beard, and I had no money for a new one.

I literally trimmed my beard with scissors and cut it all clean with a cheap razor blade I had lying around.

Also, I barely had money for food, so I lived almost the whole month on crackers with dip.

At some point, my girlfriend came to my house to bring me 2 liters of soup so I could get my vegetables in.

That is not the nicest position to be in, worrying and thinking about if you will make it through the last month.

So, I worked.

I did not see myself as a victim.

I looked for ways to get around.

I sold some stocks and took some extra shifts at my job.

There are always people who have it worse than you or me.

Everyone has their amount of issues they need to deal with.

It is the way of dealing with it that will help you go forward, help you push through.

Life is not always fun and life is not fair, that is part of life.

If you're unable to accept that, you are going to be lived forever until you do.

If you really want something, you need to keep on going to get it, no matter how simple or hard it may be.

It is your want and therefore your job to get it.

In this article, we are going to zoom in on the power of pushing through to get out of your situation, or to deal with it a bit better.

We talk about:

• Where you are now and how did you get there

• 3 variations of spending your time

• Viewing forward

Read along.

If you're not even able to finish this article, you can question your own capability of pushing through in general.

Where You are Now and How Did You Get There

Where you are now is the effect of the choices you made and the way you handled situations.

For this step, it is important to honestly assess where you currently stand.

On one sales shift, everyone was making sales except for me.

Most people were at 7 or even 10 sales, and I was on 3.

That happened two days in a row.

The way I dealt with that was by looking at myself and asking what they were doing that I was not.

I performed much better the next day.

You are the one who needs to be accountable for your own results, your own actions, your own choices.

See where you are now.

I was in a bit of a slump with the numbers I wrote, that was where I was. What did I do that put me in that position:

• I was too energetic

• I wanted it too badly

• I didn’t tailor my pitch enough to the person

• I was too grumpy over the fact that my results were not good

• I blamed myself during the day instead of at the end of the day

If you know where you are standing now and how you got there, you just do more or less of something and you probably do better.

That is what I did with my sales shift and it went better.

Do not stop if it is going bad, improve even though I earned the least on those 2 bad days, I learned the most.

3 Variations of Spending Your Time

How you spend your time is a valuable thing to be conscious of.

Why?

It's really simple: time is the only thing that is fair in this world.

Everyone has 24 hours in a day, and how you use those hours is what matters.

In life, you always need to trade time for money and money for time.

If you do a job, you trade your time for money.

If someone does a job for you, you trade your money for the time it would cost you to do something.

Work with what you have the most of to go forward.

In my case, it's time.

I created a way of looking at time that helped me spend it better.

If you want to create and grow, this is a perfect method to consciously spend your time.

• Work Time

• Me Time

• Wasted Time

It's good to know this works for me because I can categorize this time based on my values, principles, and priorities.

If you don’t have those straight, maybe that could be a good first step.

Work Time: This is the time you use to create. For me, for example, writing my articles, editing my videos, teaching, or my sales job. This time is dedicated to building towards the future I want.

Me Time: Time that contributes to my well-being, like going to the gym, spending time with my girlfriend, spending time with friends. This time is dedicated to my health, relationships, and also to live towards the future that I want.

Wasted Time: Time spent with people who bring me down, time spent on things that do not contribute to my values, goals, and the future I want to live and work towards. Time spent on TikTok, Instagram, or other platforms that fuel me with brainless content.

Seeing my time in these three categories makes it easier to organize my thoughts.

Think of it from the perspective of the campfire effect.

The closer you are to the fire, the hotter it gets.

If you are really close to the fire, spend a lot of time in the right direction.

No matter what, if you keep spending your time in that way, you will grow.

As long as you push through, you will stay warm.

Looking Forward

You now know how to spend your time, and how to reflect on your journey.

Now, we're going to talk about looking forward.

The lessons I am about to share may sound a bit harsh, but if you embrace them, they can be really valuable.

Strive to move forward with your vision and expect no one to support or understand you—it's your vision.

If others shared your vision, they would support you and think along similar lines, but never expect them to push your vision through as their perspective, because it is yours.

Nevertheless, always respect other points of view; they're not necessarily bad just because they want to go in a different direction.

The next point about looking forward—if you're too busy worrying about everything that's wrong in your situation, you're not busy enough building the future.

Whatever you give the most attention to becomes more real.

There will always be people who have it better, and there will always be people who have it worse.

What you make of your situation is what counts.

Always push through to get to the life you want.

The balance between good and bad, happiness and sadness, calm and anger, is that they are all part of life and living.

Accept the emotions you have and enjoy all spectrums of life because that is life.

A key point of happiness is consistent improvement, but you cannot improve if nothing is going wrong.

For now, I would advise you to think of something that you stopped doing and consider how your life would be now if you had pushed through, if you embraced all emotions, if you spent your time differently, if you pushed through with your vision and goals.

For me, I was always busy making YouTube videos as a kid.

What if I never stopped?

Than I never had to start over again like I am doing now!

Let the message be clear: push through to create.

At every point where you think of stopping, someone with a similar journey stopped.

If you never stop and let time be your friend, you will succeed.

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That's it for now.

I wish you a good day - Job Baltes.