4141: Speed Up by Steve Pavlina on Productivity

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[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_01] This is Optimal Living Daily. Speed Up by Steve Pavlina of StevePavlina dot com. And I'm Justin Malik. Welcome back or welcome for the first time if you're new here. This is where I simply narrate blogs for you, sometimes books. But in any case, always with permission from the authors or websites. And I'll see your Steve's post as we optimize your life. Speed Up by Steve Pavlina of StevePavlina dot com.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_01] Don't use the enjoy the process mantra to justify slogging along even more slowly and watching your goals die. It's a huge limiting belief to assume that going faster means you're doing something wrong and creating too much stress. Making goals happen faster is often a lot more fun. Fast tempo is how you enjoy the process. And some goals cannot be achieved slowly at all. So in many cases, faster means success, while slower means failure.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_01] If going faster makes the process of achieving your goals less enjoyable for you, you've probably chosen the wrong goals to begin with. If you don't want them sooner, you probably don't want them. On my first attempt at college, I tried going the normal student pacing towards graduation. I found my classes boring and uninspiring. The goal of graduating in four years seemed distant and too much out of my control. The whole experience was pretty depressing, despite the fact that I was attending the number one school in the nation for my major at the time.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_01] I did my best to enjoy the process by having more fun outside of class, getting drunk twice a week, shoplifting like crazy, and playing a lot of poker. That helped. I certainly enjoyed the process more. But it didn't help me on my path towards graduation. After three semesters, I was expelled, and rightly so. I took a year off, then tried again. This time I tweaked the goal to make it more fun and inspiring. To start over as a freshman and earn my four-year computer science degree in one and a half years.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_01] All I really needed to tweak was the speed. That brought many other inspiring elements to the table. The full engagement of my mind, motivation, focus, curiosity, different ways of thinking about education, a sense of control over the process, higher self-esteem, access to deeper resourcefulness, a powerful vision of myself as being more productive than ever, and so on. This was the inspired path. The energy I felt upon considering a serious speed increase

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_01] was a clear sign that I was onto something. It also worked. Speed made the goal fun and meaningful. It brought interesting challenges. I reveled in the time management aspect. Finally, I had a goal that felt worthy of me, not the mind-numbing snail's pace of my first attempt at a college education. After all, if 15 semester units equates to 15 hours per week of classroom work, the average for a full-time student, then where is all the extra time going? A serious full-time student can invest a lot more than 15 hours a week in classes.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_01] Homework alone isn't enough to fill in all the other hours of a week. Instead of making the goal more terrifying and stressful, the faster pacing made the goal so much more fun. I loved the experience. What I love about speed is that it pushes me not just to achieve the goal, but also to become a better person along the way. In order to achieve a goal faster, I have to change myself. I have to release more limiting beliefs. I have to become more organized. I have to focus better. I have to let go of more fluff.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_01] I have to cultivate new relationships with like-minded achievers. I have to get better at avoiding distractions. Since I love personal growth, goals that challenge me in this way are so much more fun than goals that don't. The speed aspect is what helps me enjoy the process. Without sufficient speed, the enjoyment just isn't there. Imagine playing your favorite game at one-tenth the speed. Does that help you enjoy the game more or less? For some, maybe it does help. Chess can be enjoyable at a very slow pacing.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_01] I'm not suggesting that all goals need to be sped up. Just don't rule out speed as being negatively stressful. Not all stress is bad. A fast tempo can create a lot of you stress. Positive, beneficial stress. It can also mean the difference between achieving a goal and failing to achieve it. Going so slowly that you fail to achieve your desired outcome usually isn't much fun. You can always justify such failure in retrospect with a well, at least I learned something or I still enjoy the process mindset.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_01] And that can help. But wouldn't it have been even better to gain the lessons and to achieve the goal as well? How much faster is better? I'm not talking incremental speed increases in most cases. I'm suggesting that you consider a 2x increase in speed at least. Even think about a 10x increase. Look at one of your goals and ask yourself, how could I achieve this goal 2x, 5x, or even 10x faster? I love the 10x question because it really gets me thinking in new directions.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_01] Going fast is one of the things I love about writing. It's why I've written so much. If I wrote as slowly as many other writers do, I'd be underground with a bullet in my decaying skull by now. Going too slowly is a creativity killer for me. I have to write fast to enjoy the process. These days, I can write a 2,500 word article in about 2 hours flat. That includes the time from when I get the initial idea to when it's fully written, edited, and published on my website. Many writers I've talked to consider that very fast.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_01] I consider it fun. This morning, I got up at 5am. I got an idea for a new article at 5:20am. And now this 1,100 plus word article is published a little after 6am, less than 45 minutes from idea to publication. That pacing is fun. I enjoyed those 40 odd minutes. I could have taken all morning to write this piece, but why go slow? Fast is fun. At a higher speed, I'll make more mistakes. I may not be as elegant or polished, but so what? I can be blunt instead.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_01] I'll get the ideas shared and moving. Some people will benefit from them. That's what matters. Keep the energy moving and flowing at a pacing that feels exciting. Go too slow and the ideas shrivel and die. Today, I decided to take on the challenge of writing for about 12 hours straight, fast, just to see how much content I can create and how quickly I can create it. I intend to keep writing throughout the day with only brief breaks for meals and mental rest as needed.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_01] I'll publish the articles produced over some weeks, not all at once. A challenge like this is a way for me to enjoy the process of writing even more. Note that going faster doesn't mean working crazy long hours necessarily. It means thinking differently about your work, focusing yourself, and having more fun. Would you enjoy the process of achieving your goals even more if you doubled, tripled, or 10x your pacing? Pick a goal and ask yourself, how can I 10x the speed?

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01] See what fresh ideas bubble up from your subconscious. See if you feel any added energy or excitement from the speed. Then go. You just listened to the post titled Speed Up by Steve Pavlina of stevepavlina.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary. Support for today's episode comes from Square, the business platform that helps sellers become neighborhood favorites.

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[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_01] Head over to superpower.com and use code OLD for $20 off your $199 superpower membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about superpower. Tell them OLD sent you to support the show. I agree with this mentality. I tend to be on the side that speeds up. I get motivated fairly easily when it comes to work, so I have a tendency to overwork, which I don't recommend. But speeding up can help. That's how I started this podcast and all five of our shows actually.

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_01] It was a random idea that I had for a long time, but once I thought, yes, I really like this idea and I got a few authors on board, then actually creating it only took like a couple of weeks. Might have been less than that. Whereas other podcasters plan, plan, plan. I just wanted to create something, put it out there and see what people had to say about it. I didn't have to make too many changes after launching actually. It's definitely evolved over the years as anything will, but it just shows that you can speed up and just go for something without trying to line everything up perfectly.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_01] And that exercise sounds awesome. Just try it. Think about how you can 2x or 10x a goal and who knows, maybe they'll open up some possibilities for you. All right, I'll leave it there for today. Have a very happy Wednesday and I'll see you tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.