Stop Copying Their Routines, Copy Their Vigor.
No, you don't need to wake up at 4:00 to be successful.
Videos like the ones above commonly float around the internet and garner millions of views collectively.
And, I find the appeal of them clear: people often procrastinate to a fault, therefore, they look for a solution: a digestible and easy one.
Watching these videos, we all feel like we’ve accomplished something by simply consuming them: like we’re doing something taking energy and effort when, in reality, oftentimes the fruits bared from viewing these are non-existent: we call it a day after the outro and don’t apply anything we’ve learned whilst patting ourselves on the back for trying.
Instead of finding a personalized solution (which is undeniably the best remedy) to our laziness, we look to broader solutions made for a broad audience rather than putting in effort ourselves to fix our own unique circumstances with procrastination.
We might look to the famous routines of the world’s most successful for inspiration on curbing our procrastination: Michelle Obama’s 4:30am wake up time, Jack Dorsey’s (former Twitter CEO) fasting and ice baths, Warren Buffet’s daily, and apparently profit-making, Big Mac, etc.
Yet, I feel we often ignore what’s at the heart of these powerful people’s prosperity: hard-work, consistency and an undying pursuit of innovation.
Behind the blinds of their meticulous, and sometimes religiously followed, routines is that spirit of ‘getting shit done’—everything else they do is an extra that might slightly propel them to more.
I doubt many of the world’s CEOs kept to, or even thought of, their famously odd or obsessive daily regimens during the inception of their success.
Even if they did, they wouldn’t attribute their achievement to a cryo-recovery chamber or a round of mini-golf every day before 4:00 am, rather, they’d mention their commitment, drive, and true captivation with what they were doing as the key to their success."
As Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck, points out, he drank and ate an ungodly amount of sugary snacks and sodas, woke up at 11:00 each day and spent 2 hours of his first waking hours doing nothing but meandering on his laptop before starting on his blog which ultimately gathered more than 400,000 subscribers.
He details (here) that the key to him gaining such a large following was certainly not the way he started or ended his day, but that he went to work each and everyday: copying the actually important characteristics of billionaires: again, their commitment to their jobs.
What I take from this is that anyone and everyone could be the next Bill Gates, all that matters is that they have the right amount of determination to innovate and commitment to ensure incremental progress each day.
With that being said, are all the routines and videos I’ve mentioned bad to watch or replicate? No—in fact, the ones that I showed initially are great, (as long as you implement their solutions) although, do be weary of videos branding themselves as having the fix for procrastination inside a 5-step morning routine.
But you must recognize that at the core of doing anything is doing it, no matter how much we’d like to believe that high-class, or intentionally low-class, routines are the catalyst for people to achieve success.
No amount of early-morning workouts and kale diets (nor McDonald’s diets) can change the fact you’re avoiding something on the to-do list.
However, what can change the status of that item is facing it: head-on, and tackling it with determination and commitment—not ice-masks or skin-care.
Also I feel like people who have crazy extreme regimes are usually only billionaires who can afford to do all that stuff
Please don't attack my "5am ice mask + chicken nuggies" routine... ಠ_ಠ