We are always solving something

Balancing all the responsibilities we have such as our family, job, religion and passion is not easy. But what I'm learning along the way is that not managing these core responsibilities would make my life very meaningless. So the realization I have is, there are always going to be problems I'm going to have to solve. Because that's what life is, we're always solving problems and that is what makes it meaningful, once we solve one problem we are then met with another, then another, then another and so on

Knowing this, what could potentially be the next right thing to do? according to me it should be to expand your knowledge base, because your actions cannot be wiser then your thoughts and your thinking cannot be wiser then your understanding, but if you're like: "Well, thank you Hashim, that's a very revolutionary idea, what should I do about it then?" I'm very much confident you'd already know what you need to do, such as which book to pick up, which social media to limit yourself from, which bad habit to cut down on, what next step you should take for your passion etc. My advice is do something, yes, do something and forget about doing it very perfectly. Chasing perfection or the right time, or the right mood, or the right energy is what makes us continuously keep putting off our plans. The most successful people we all know, didn't do everything because of some out the world will power or because of making and executing a flawless plan right of the bat. We can't rely on that occasional motivation burst we get which pushes us to get a gym membership, where we start picking heavy weights up, thinking we'll become Batista very soon if we keep it up.

We need to fix this "putting plans off for the right moment" illusion and get some things straight. we usually wait for this loop before actually doing something: Get inspired, motivation kicks in, we then finally take some action, Mark Manson in his incredible book "The subtle art of not giving a f**k" suggests us to reorient this mindset, instead of the above, we should follow this pattern

"do something" = take action first, action will naturally spring inspiration for more, which will eventually motivate you do to more action

This is the key to getting stuff done: Action -> inspiration -> motivation -> action and the loop starts

As Manson suggests: Action isn't just the effect of motivation, but it's also the cause of it

We are all way to scared to live, to pursue what we want, to do what we want because we are drowned in social media where only the best gets broadcasted. Everyone starts from somewhere. No one has that perfect start, and since it doesn't sound very exciting, it's not very common on social media to see someone doing something boring

My goal is to tell you that you have one life, the things you do everyday steer your life, what you do everyday, the small daily habits and routines, those are the driving force of your life, now whether these are poor habits or routines or great, they will be steering your life. In Atomic Habits, James Clear suggests that every action you do every day is like a vote, now just like in traditional elections, one party doesn't need a unanimous decision to win, they just need the majority, that is exactly how you can achieve your goals as well, just by doing the right things the majority of the time.

We usually think we need to have unwavering commitment or sheer will power to accomplish the things we want in life. The reality is that even the most successful people we all know don't push their will that much.

We all probably have heard many times that knowledge is power, I'm realizing now how true that actually is, the kind of knowledge atleast that I've learnt in school just messed my mindset up. I used to be annoyed studying physics, chemistry, and hardcore mathematics because it didn't really give me much actionable takeaways which I could implement in my own life. Starting from childhood, learning these kind of subjects messed my concepts up about the power of knowledge, not the kind of knowledge we just spoke about but real meaningful, practical, and actionable knowledge which I've found so far in some books which you can view in my resources tab

In James Clear's book, Atomic Habits he talks about environment design. It's one of the most powerful yet simple methods I've learned which we can use to steer ourselves towards the habits / actions which will put us closer to our goals without having to push our will every time.

This is the habit loop:

This is a loop our mind makes us go through in seconds hundereds of time everyday, we first see something which acts as the cue, then a craving kicks is which makes us want to take action / react, then we respond by taking the action and get rewarded by the fulfillment of our action

This is simple yet very powerful. Now imagine you want to get on a better diet. If you let cookies or brownies or pastries sit in your fridge, your brain will trigger the habit loop every time you "See" these items in your fridge or anywhere where you spend most of your time. You want to ensure you get these distractions out of the way. You don't want to be challenging your "Will" of not picking a cookie up after looking at it, you just want to make sure it's not in your view.

A fun example: Whenever we bring a new snack home, I'm the one who has the biggest appetite and I finish it like it was never there in the first place. One day I just asked my mother to tuck the snacks away in a kitchen cabinet without telling me which cabinet it is. And the results? We both forgot about those snacks for weeks

We think, whatever we don't know is not important. But I am seeing knowledge has become so underrated because of the poor education system we go through. We think we've been carrying 80KG heavy books to school everyday to learn Chemistry, Science, Mathematics and Physics so there's no way more knowledge should be the goal

I'm currently working on this, email me at connect@hashimmahmood.com if you have any feedback, thoughts to share or if you'd like to discuss anything related to my blogs at anytime

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