Take a look around.

We’ve become distracted out of our minds. When you visit a cafe, it’s not uncommon to see people scrolling their time away on phones, tablets and laptops. Though they seem productive, a closer look would indicate otherwise.

Modern times have brought unimaginable power to the individual. Through technology we have access to all the world’s knowledge at our fingertips. Every subject you can imagine is accesible as images, videos, tweets & inspirational quotes, just a few swipes away and you can easily become embedded in any subject if you wish. That’s not to mention podcasts, magazines, streaming platforms and mobile games.

All this information should make us smarter, more productive, entertained, informed and more clear on what we want from life. But the opposite couldn’t be more true. We are inundated by distractions, its unlike anything we’ve ever seen before and our brains weren’t ready for it. Beyond technology, distraction manifests itself in many ways, one challenge we all face is recognising it for what it is.

Unfocused attention has taken away many people’s ability to set and achieve their goals, here are some examples we can all relate to:

• You’re working a lot, but can’t find the motivation to pursue the one thing that would make you happier.

• You have the underlying feeling that your life could be better in many ways, but don’t have the time to put things in motion and move towards an ideal that you would be proud of.

• You’re uninspired by the work that you do, what started out as a step in your career has stagnated, and you don’t feel creative in your professional work anymore.

• Over time you’ve become a consumer of tv shows, podcasts & social media, your relationships no longer feel authentic and you’ve lost the spark that makes you stand out.

If any of these scenarios sound like your life, then you’re not alone. Where do we go from here?

Well, the first step to changing learned behaviours is self-awareness. Deep down, everyone has a sense of their bad habits. We’ve all found ourselves watching one too many TV shows on weekends, only waiting for another long week of anxiety-inducing work to pass by.

We’ve watched our friends and loved ones bail on their plans to become healthier, more social, more creative or whatever goals they set themselves when the New Year begins. It’s there for all to see, self-discipline is in short supply in today’s society.

Self-awareness is the first step to change, but it’s not the answer. To start moving towards your ideal, you have to imagine your life in 5 years if you continue to stay distracted. What does that look life for you? You have to build a vision of the worst possible life you could be living, if you let the worst parts of your character continue to rule over your life.

Passive inaction kills more dreams that failure. For me, the worst version of my life 5 years from now would look life this:

• I’m still talking about finding financial freedom but haven’t done anything to move towards that goal.

• I pay my gym subscription every month but don’t turn up, so I’m unfit and losing money every month.

• I have an idea of where I want my life to be, but I continue to distract myself and never take the steps to action.

• I’ve lost influence in my professional community because I stopped creating value for the world through my work.

• I’m working with the same stale clients because it’s safe, pays the bills and doesn’t require me to move out of my comfort zone.

This is the high price you pay for staying distracted.

A vision forward

Discipline is defined as: orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behaviour. Or in other words, self-control.

We’ve laid out the worst that could happen if you continue to numb yourself with life’s many distractions. So what can we do to become more disciplined and built habits that move us closer to our ideal?

Step 1 - Self-Awareness and Mindset Shift

Awareness is the first step to changing a bad habit, they often manifest themselves in the quieter moments of life, which make it even harder to spot them.

• When you’re walking between rooms in your home & quickly take out your phone to scroll. Before you know it, you’re comparing yourself to an old school-mate who just got a promotion, or a new car, or is on holiday in Venice.

• When you’re in the supermarket shopping for food and decide to pick some cookies and ice cream for desert that evening. Even though you promised yourself you would eat healthy this month.

• When you’re accepting yet another birthday party invitation on the weekend, knowing full well that you planned to finally start that blog that you’re putting off for months.

These seemingly innocuous moments come and go everyday of our lives, when you start to pay attention to them - you start to see how much time is taken to tasks, events & actions that don’t align with your goals. They’re distractions masquerading as life. They make up the bulk of what constitutes your habits, and the day you realise this is the day you take control of your focus.

When you become focused on a goal, a vision or an ideal - you can run these decisions through a filter and ask yourself “does this serve my goal?” You’ll be surprised how a simple question to one self can change your behaviour for the better.

When you make this subtle change, you inhabit the mindset of a proactive person, with intention and direction - rather than a distracted one who follows the whims of their desires at any given moment.

Step 2 - Setting Clear Goals and Habits

When you become aware of your distractions, you can start to set goals that move you in the right direction. Goal-setting doesn’t have to be a complicated or difficult task. Some of the biggest goals I’ve reached in my life have been the result of writing down my ideal life, and breaking down the steps I would need to take in order to achieve those goals. It’s really that simple.

Step 1 - become aware of the bad habits that are holding you back

Step 2 - replace them with positive ones that align with your values

Let’s take a moment to write your goals, preferably without distraction and in a place that makes you feel clear and calm - your home office, at the park, or a cafe - and just write. Write whatever comes to mind with regards to what you want from life. A list of goals could look like this:

• I want to improve my skills and level up the quality of my professional career, so that I can work with bigger and better clients who better align with my values as a person.

• I want to work less, so that I have more time to develop my hobby and enjoy more of what life has to give with my family.

• I want to pay more attention to the quality of my thoughts, so I can be more present at home and work.

When you have these goals written down, you can break them down further into daily and weekly habits. This way you can start to imagine the type of life you would have to live on a daily basis, to get you closer to the goal. That can look like this:

• Improve my skills: I will enrol into a weekly 2-hour course to improve a specific skill in my professional work.

• Work less: I will charge more to my favourite type of clients, and ignore the rest so that all my work relationships are high quality and focused.

• Have quality thoughts: I will read ever morning and evening, and limit my social media to an hour during my lunch-break.

These are just examples, but you can see how setting daily habits can translate to big changes in your life when aligned with your values. Imagine where you would be in 12 months if you subscribed to your ideal way of life, without distraction from the goal.

James Clear wrote the best book on this subject, called Atomic Habits which I think every university student should be prescribed as part of an introductory curriculum.

I’ll leave you with this quote for now.

“Success is the product of daily habits — not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”

Step 3 - Overcoming Common Obstacles

At this stage, you’ve done the bulk of the work, self-awareness and and solid goals will get you far. However, there’s one aspect of life that will trip up a lot of people in pursuing their goals: obstacles.

Life throws obstacles all the time, though they are common and expected, they also act as a massive distraction from your goals. Say you’re being consistent, self-aware and doing everything right towards reaching your goals - then you have to put out a fire (albeit, a proverbial one) that knocks you out for a week or two. This will undoubtedly take you away from your focus, and getting back on the horse is really really difficult - it’s a slippery slope down to a distracted life if you don’t take steps to get back on track. Let’s explore how you can do that when you inevitable find yourself off-track.

Overcome Perfectionism

When we get focused on a goal, we set high standards. It’s natural, after all nobody wants to create substandard goals because a goal has to be aspirational, that is to say, it has to be something hard to achieve otherwise it wouldn’t be worth the energy or accomplishment.

But equally important to setting high goals is allowing yourself a degree of flexibility. It’s not the individual instances of focused action that will get you to your goal, but the many weeks and months combined. You have to allow yourself to be less that perfect on some days, its a natural part of the process, the ability to turn up every time and finish the task is what will get us there in the end.

Perfectionism kills more dreams than you could imagine. We tell ourselves that until we can execute at such a high level, we can’t possibly put anything out into the world. This is mental gymnastics designed by your subconscious to avoid starting the job. The solution is repetition, just do it over and over and over again - every time you finish a project you shorten that gap between your vision and your skills. There’s no shortcut to success, the only way is through.

That’s it for today. By practicing a little self-awareness you can see trends in your behaviours that no longer serve your mission. By envisioning your future, you can take actionable steps to steer yourself away from that version of yourself through positive daily habits. By letting go of perfectionism and allowing obstacles to pass through you, you can stay focused on your ideals in the longterm.

Distractions are here to stay, but we have a choice in how we let them affect our lives on a daily basis.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the rest of your week!