How to do the work that you know you need to do (EVERYTIME)

This isn’t going to be an “Oh here’s 1 secret hack to do the work” newsletter.

No, I’m going to be delving deep into concepts that will reframe how you view yourself and the world - because you’ve gotten enough hacks and tricks and shallow advice already, you know what you need to do and how to do it, but yet, you still can’t do it.

And that’s because what most people giving you the advice don’t realise is that you can tell someone to do something but until you change how they view reality and make the thing they need to do the most obvious and easiest path to take, they won’t take it.

You cannot change your actions until your perception of reality and yourself has been changed.

That’s what we’re going over in this email - so strap in, and take notes, because this isn’t going to be some surface-level bullshit feel-good advice, we’re going over how to create a fundamental internal shift in your psyche, the change is going to be hard and it’s going to take time, but you have your whole life to live and this is a something that you need to do if you want to live a fulfilled life on your terms - so strap in, this might be a long one.

The Greatest Skill You Can Develop

The greatest skill you can build is the ability to do what you know you need to do regardless of how you feel in the moment.

Because work that creates progress and generates results that move you toward your goals is challenging and hard, it involves you putting in effort, energy, sacrifice and time.

You won’t just randomly stumble across these tasks and find yourself doing them, no, you have to make a purposeful conscious decision to go down the harder path of doing the work.

And if you don’t, the work won’t get done.

You won’t move toward your goals.

You will stay stuck where you are.

And you will feel anxious and guilty.

The work needs done, there’s no avoiding it - you putting it off doesn’t change the fact that you need to do it, all it does is make your life so much more stressful and worse in every way than it needs to be because you are avoiding something that you know you need to do

So if you want to achieve your goals, whether you want to make $10k a month, get a 6 pack, or whatever it is, and if you want to live the life you want to live, you need to face the work, you need to do it regardless of how you feel in the moment because that is what separates winners and losers.

The Reason You Can’t Do The Work

Now with every problem, to fix it, you first need to know what the cause of the problem is - there’s no point doing some hack or trick just for a quick fix and for it to stop working next week.

You need to attack the cause of the problem and solve the problem.

So this creates the question of why can’t you do the work? Why do you keep putting it off, despite knowing you need to do it?

Well, to answer that, you need to understand a fundamental law of human nature:

And work is hard - obviously. You know this.

It requires effort, energy, time, commitment, sacrifice, and dedication.

It requires you to avoid the path of least resistance because the path of least resistance is the one you’re currently on, it’s you putting off the work in favour of doing something else.

Fundamentally the problem with this path is that nothing worth having is easy, you don’t just get good things.

You don’t just get jacked, you have to earn it by working out and eating right for years,

You don’t just build a successful business, you have to put in the work and earn it.

And the path of least resistance is the path that requires you to put in no effort or energy - and if you don’t put anything in, you don’t get anything out.

So if you want anything worth having, you have to get off the path of least resistance.

Once you understand this concept of human nature, you’ll see it everywhere, in your life and in other peoples lives.

But by understanding it, you can act against it and ensure you go down the harder path that requires effort and energy and therefore produces the results you want to get.

So, you put off the work because doing the work is not on the path of least resistance and instead, it’s on the harder path.

So why don’t you take the harder path? Well, it’s because of 1 of 2 reasons;

1. You don’t have a reason to

2. You don’t understand the reason

To do the harder thing which goes completely against our bodies in-built survival system, you need a reason, you need to understand why you have to put yourself through this effort and turmoil.

And that reason always comes back to meaning.

If you want to do the work you know you need to do, every time, without putting it off, you need to know and understand the meaning behind the work that you have to do.

You need to know why you’re doing it.

Because with meaning comes responsibility.

When something has meaning to you, it’s because you fundamentally value it; therefore, it’s your responsibility to live in alignment with that thing you value and to procure it.

And humans, especially men, love responsibility, we thrive on it.

But that responsibility must be voluntarily shouldered - we don’t like people throwing responsibility onto us, but we love taking on responsibility.

It’s why we get dogs, why we start families, why we constantly look for promotions and of course, there are other reasons we do these things - from a biological drive to keep the species going, companionship and status, but the voluntary shouldering of meaningful responsibility is what will cause us to rise to the level that’s necessary of us to do the things we have to do to meet these situations to the best of our abilities - to get the promotion, to raise the family, to get jacked and build a business - you can’t do any of these things without taking on the responsibility of doing them.

So if you want to do the work that you know you need to do, you need a reason. To have a reason you need to know and understand the meaning behind the work that you have to do and you have to want to take on the responsibility of fulfilling that meaning and rising to the level that’s necessary of you to do the work that you have to do

Because you’ll not always want to do the work, even with a reason and with meaning - you’ll have to push your limits and be on your edge, expanding into your potential and fulfilling the responsibility and meaning that you took on when you created this work for you to do.

And without a reason, meaning or responsibility you will never do the damn work. You’ll put it off and continue to stay where you are, never moving forward or progressing.

How To Create Meaning Behind The Work

So how do we create this meaning behind the work?

Well, you have to link the micro (the day-to-day, the work) to the macro because without the macro, the micro doesn’t matter.

If you want your work to be meaningful, you need the work to push you toward something meaningful, something that you value, something like a vision for your life - how you want to live.

So you need to figure out 3 things;

• what your dream life looks like

• what your dream schedule looks like

• what impact you want to make on the world

and then ask yourself this;

If I could be all I could be, what would that look like?

These 4 things will create a vision for your life - now they won’t just come to you, they’ll take a bit of effort to figure out but it’s worth doing.

And then once you have this vision, set a goal that pushes you toward it and then break that goal down into daily actions.

This way your work is meaningful because you have a vision for your life, which arguably, there are few greater responsibilities than achieving that vision - because you get 1 shot on this earth and it would be a massive disservice to yourself not to live it or at least try your damn best to live it how you want to live it.

But since this vision is meaningful, the goals that push you toward that vision will be meaningful and the work that pushes you toward those goals will be meaningful - so you have a reason to do the damn work and to avoid the path of least resistance

Plus, there is no greater meaning or responsibility than the pursuit of becoming all you could be because you are a human and another fundamental law of human nature that you need to understand is that you will always be setting goals and striving for progress.

And since a goal is something you do not already have and that you have to level up to achieve, then you will always be in the pursuit of improving yourself which extrapolated over a long enough time span, of goal after goal and improvement after improvement, is the pursuit of becoming all you could be.

Now of course, most people will never make any great progress toward their potential or even their goals but that is because they don’t voluntarily shoulder this responsibility.

They don’t consciously say to themselves “this is what I’m going to do” and therefore they don’t have meaning in their life or their work and so they take the path of least resistance which is the path of regression, not progression and so they never move forward.

If you want to do the damn work that you know you need to do, you need to figure out what you want in life, what you want your schedule to look like, what impact you want to make on the world, what the best version of you looks like and then set a goal that pushes you toward that vision and work that pushes you toward that goal

By consciously setting and creating these visions, goals and work you take on the responsibility of rising to the level required of you to achieve them, taking on meaning and giving yourself a reason to do the work and not to put it off.

And this is all based on 2 fundamental laws of human nature;

1. You will always take the path of least resistance unless you have a reason not to

2. You will always be setting goals

Momentum, Self-Respect And Entering The Arena

Now this isn’t going to be easy.

Even when you have meaning and responsibility there will still be a part of you that wants to drag you down the path of least resistance, that wants you to take the easy option.

You’ll never be able to get rid of this voice - it’s always going to be there, this feeling of resistance to doing hard things and doing the work is a natural part of being a human - but you can significantly dampen that voice.

The quieter the voice, the easier it is to ignore and the easier it is to do the work you know you need to do.

To dampen that voice you have to build momentum and self-respect.

Momentum is powerful.

An object in motion will stay in motion whether it’s going forward or going backwards.

Your self-respect is largely linked to the level of momentum you have, not entirely, but largely.

If you’re in a cycle of negative momentum where you’re going backwards, you’re in a downward spiral of self-respect.

If you’re in a cycle of positive momentum where you’re going forward, you’re in an upward spiral of self-respect.

So why is self-respect important?

If you don’t respect yourself, you’re not going to do the things you know you need to do, you’re going to go down the path of least resistance and give into vices and bad habits because fundamentally, if you don’t respect yourself, you don’t value yourself and you don’t see the potential impact that your actions could make.

And so you’ll never do the work that you know you need to do.

But luckily, self-respect is relatively simple to build when you understand its link to momentum.

If you can build your momentum, you’ll build your self-respect because to build positive momentum you have to take purposeful and conscious actions that are positive and beneficial.

This, remember, won’t happen mindlessly and will require effort and energy, hence since you’re purposefully choosing to do the right thing and take beneficial actions, you’re valuing the impact your actions have.

Or in other words, you’re valuing yourself and therefore you’re respecting yourself, building your self-respect up over time as you build up your momentum.

And with more momentum and more self-respect, you’re capable of doing more beneficial actions and less likely to do mindless, negative actions.

With more self-respect you value yourself and you dampen the voice that tells you to go down the path of least resistance and devalue yourself.

So the easiest way to build momentum and it’s fucking cliche is to make your damn bed in the morning.

Now brfore you think “what on earth is Ross talking about” and click off, let me explain because this will change everything for you.

Momentum is hard to build, especially if you’re in a negative cycle of momentum - because an object in motion will stay in motion and it doesn’t want to change direction.

And so what most people do when they try to make a change is that they try to change their life overnight, they try to overhaul everything and reach for the very top of the ladder, but the problem here is that they’re not even on the damn ladder so they inevitably fail.

All those massive changes you try to make fall apart either after a day or after a week and guess what, because you failed to make the changes, you lose some self-respect, build more negative momentum and make it harder to change in the future.

What you need to understand is that progress is progress, it doesn’t matter how small that bit of progress is, progress is progress.

So when you’re not even on the damn ladder, you can’t be reaching for the top rung, you have to reach for the first rung, and you have to take the smallest step because the smallest step requires less energy and effort than the biggest step, yet it is still progress and you are not above progress, no matter how small it is.

So start by making your damn bed each morning.

With each rung of the ladder that you grab, with each small bit of progress you make, you can take a slightly bigger step next time because with each bit of progress you create positive momentum and self-respect.

So you start by making your damn bed, that’s a win, a small win, but still a win, and then you have momentum and you can do something else that you know you need to do - maybe you need to work out, maybe you need to file your taxes, maybe you need to do a certain task, and because you have momentum and self-respect, you can do it.

How literally you take this step of making your bed is entirely dependent on you and your position in life.

But really, the idea here is to build momentum and start small.

Again how small depends on where you are in life and how well you can take the right actions and do the right things.

But no matter what, you need to build momentum and that’s momentum over 2 time scales;

• The day

So waking up and starting your day on a win, so that you have momentum and can get another win and repeat and carry this through your entire day

• The day-to-day

So you do this every day, without fail.

There’s no point doing something positive today and then ruining it all tomorrow.

So if you want to do the work that you know you need to do, you need to respect yourself enough to be able to do it and you build that respect by building momentum, by valuing progress, no matter how small that progress is, and starting your day on a win, every day.

You do the right habits every day.

You follow the right routines every day.

You go to bed on time every day.

You wake up on time every day.

And of course, depending on where you are in life, maybe you start by just waking up on time every day and then after a week you add in going to bed on time every day and then after a week you add in following the right routines every day and then after a week you add in a habit and repeat.

Take this as slow as you need to depending on your situation and how far away from the ladder you are.

Because that’s what will determine your ability to have long term success here, your ability to have enough humility to lower yourself to the level that you can reach so that you can make a start, build momentum, build self-respect and do the work that you know you need to do.

What I would recommend is taking 20 or 30 minutes to make a plan on how you’re going to do this.

For example, you could write down; this week I’m going to make my bed every morning

Next week I’m going to get up at the time I need to get up at every morning

The next week I’m going to go to bed at the time I need to go to bed at every night

The next week I’m going to do this certain task as soon as I wake up every morning

And so on and so on and as you build momentum you can make bigger jumps and take bigger actions and build more momentum and more self-respect.

Rewiring Your Identity

What happens as you build this momentum and build up your self-respect is that rewire your identity.

You go from seeing yourself as a bumbling idiot who can’t do anything to a person who can do something, to a person who values their actions and themselves - which is proven by the actions that you take.

You can also speed up this process of rewiring your identity by creating a stack of evidence.

So what you would do is figure out what identity you want to have (ideally in line with the person you want to become that you figured out from earlier when crafting your life vision).

And every single time you take an action that corresponds with that identity, for example:

If your goal identity is one of someone who is disciplined and driven, if you wake up early and make your damn bed or wake up and do your hardest task first

You would write that down in a notes document on your phone.

Over time, as you build momentum and take more actions, you create this massive stack of evidence that you are this person, which rewires your identity to see you as that person.

So you’re more likely to take the actions that type of person would take, building more momentum, creating more evidence, making that identity stronger and creating a flywheel effect which only results in you doing the work that you know you need to do, every single time.

Remember, you will not make any significant changes to your actions until you’re able to change your perception of the world and yourself - and the way you do that is through your identity.

You rewire your identity by stacking evidence which you do by building momentum and self-respect.

You build momentum and self-respect by starting your day on a win and making small bits of progress each day, which you can only do if you create meaning behind the work and take on the responsibility of doing it.

So you see all of these interlink? How all of this comes together to help you do the damn work?

Because you don’t need any more hacks or tricks, you need a fundamental internal change and this is how you do it.

You create a life vision, you set goals to move you toward that vision, you create work that will move you toward those goals.

You take on the responsibility of doing that work and achieving those goals.

You build momentum and self-respect by starting your day with a win and aiming for the next smallest bit of progress that you can make.

You stack evidence that you are who you say you are and rewire your identity to be someone who does what they need to do.

And that my friend is how you do the work that you know you need to do, every time.

I go into more detail on these concepts as well as the other strategies, systems and steps you need to build and follow to stop procrastinating and maximise your productivity in FOCUSED.

If you’re tired of your lack of productivity, click here to check it out.

— Ross

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