By Paul Hudson via Elite Daily
Life is difficult for one reason in particular.
Every single individual in the world, no matter how much he or she enjoys life, no matter how much he or she has to be thankful for, is always trying to do a little better.
It doesn’t matter if you’re homeless or a billionaire, you’re always trying to do a little bit better.
Sure, some of us have more reason to try and change our lives than others, but human nature follows a similar pattern, no matter your social standing or financial stability.
Now, while it’s important to strive for greatness, to strive to do, to live just a little bit better, it also makes life complicated.
Look at it this way: We are all trying to change our lives while we are living them — trying to change the direction of a force while that force is already projecting us in a particular direction.
Sure, some of us decide to cut all ties with our past lives, with our habits, jobs, friends, sometimes even homes or countries.
Most of us, however, either can’t risk losing everything in order to create the life of our dreams or realize that doing so — albeit a seemingly easier alternative — isn’t the wisest option.
Hell, most of us aren’t yet sure what exactly that ideal life entails — so leaving all that we have behind to travel blindly is a bit silly.
For this reason, we are forced to live the lives we are currently living, maintaining the life we’ve so far created for ourselves while simultaneously creating a newer, better future for ourselves.
It’s exhausting. I’m sorry if you were looking for better news, but the fact is that changing your life while still having to live it — even if only the main parts of it — is tiring.
More than that, it’s distracting.
You’re forced to divide your thoughts, your focus between the life you’re trying to leave behind and the life you’re trying to create for yourself.
Sometimes it may be better to jump ship and start from scratch, but more often than not, that’s the lazy way out.
More often than not, it’s wiser to gradually transition ourselves, making sure not to burn bridges or bite the hand that feeds us. But how do you do it?
How do you avoid becoming overwhelmed and choking on your own aspirations?
You need to wake up with determination and do all you possibly can to go to sleep with satisfaction; it’s the only way to keep yourself in the right frame of mind.
Failing to do so will almost guarantee your overall failure.
You should start your day off on the right foot.
The key to finishing the day strong is starting it off on the right note. Instead of hitting that snooze button over and over again, instead of burying your face underneath your covers, take a second to just breathe.
Take a moment to allow your mind to clear, to take in the reality around you, and then focus in on your goal.
Not those hundreds of smaller goals you have planned for the day, but the overall goal — it’s this goal that matters most, and it’s this we ought to focus on first thing each and every morning.
Allow yourself to envision how you will feel once you accomplish that goal and use that to fuel your day.
If you start your day off in any other fashion, then the life you are currently living will only drag you away from the life you wish to be living.
You don’t want to waste your day.
You need to get the things done you know you need to get done, or you won’t be able to hold on to the right reality. The reason changing our lives is difficult is that we are in the process of transitioning our personal realities.
We’re used to seeing the world in one fashion, are doing our best to see it in another and are stuck in this purgatory between two worlds, doing our best to work within one while trying to make our way to the other.
If you aren’t going to bed satisfied, then you obviously haven’t managed to keep your reality in check.
You allowed yourself to drift back into that old life of yours that you’re trying so desperately to leave behind. Which sucks because another day has gone by, and you’ve just wasted it.
If you aren’t waking up with determination and going to bed with satisfaction, you’re missing out on a better, more pleasant reality.
You need to wake up every day with momentum.
Without momentum, you’ll never achieve your life goals. Most people underestimate the importance of momentum — without it, it’s impossible to generate the necessary force to break through whatever barriers life and all those in it have placed in your way.
In order to succeed in life, you need to take every success along the way — no matter how small — and use it to fuel your drive, fuel your eagerness to succeed, use it to push yourself forward with more force.
You will fail along the way, but failure shouldn’t slow you down.
Every failure is an opportunity to learn and an opportunity to get reacquainted with exactly how much you hunger for the life of your dreams.
Sometimes our biggest failures can give us more determination than our greatest successes.
You might go to bed one day with regret and not wake up at all.
You never know when your last day on this earth has arrived. You don’t get notice. You can’t plan it.
All you can do is hope when that time comes, you will feel proud to have lived the life you lived.
If there is one reason to wake up with determination and go to bed with satisfaction, it’s this: If you live your life in any other way, you will regret it.
I don’t fear much in life, but I do fear regret. Because regret stays with you. It poisons you. It drags you down. And it’s the last feeling you want to feel when you have only one feeling left to feel.
Live the life of our dreams, even if it kills you. Eventually something will… may as well be on your own terms.