You Can't Kill Yourself, So Use It To Your Advantage

image: insidehighered.com

As an aside, I got the camera today. Not the Panasonic Lumix I hoped for, as none of the stores I went had it, but Canon Powershot ELPH 190 IS. It's got rave ratings/reviews on Amazon, I have never seen any product praised that much. And so far I am very happy with the camera and its pictures. I have take over 90 pictures with it today. It focuses very fast and has image stabilization. Pictures taken while in a speeding bus came out very clear and cool. You can't try that with a phone camera. And the picture quality is superb; Canon stuffed it with a very high technology that makes the auto mode of the camera amazingly good under pretty much all conditions. And it's very small. Tiny.

image: usa.canon.com

Maryland Mall, snapped from inside a speeding bus

Back to today's post.

We all know how we loudly proclaim "I can't kill myself" when we are under immense pressure. And always in the end we overcome the pressure and get some of the results we were seeking.

Well, today, I want you to start using it to your advantage. Don't wait for other people or work to pressure you. You should start taking on big goals and many of them so that you'll get to say "I can't come and go and die" more often. 

This is the approach I use in my personal and career development. I take up more tasks and goals than I logically can handle. I know I can't die from them and in the end I always get results that I wouldn't have gotten had I not even made an attempt. Most importantly, they help me to become better at time management and setting my priorities right.

If you often get home in the evening/night feeling very bad and annoyed because of how someone treated you at a random place -- mall, restaurant, bus-stop, while driving or at the bank. Then you need to fill your life with more big goals and tasks. If you have enough deadlines chasing you and a couple have already overtaken you, you'll miraculously quickly get over what any random person does to you (maybe even immediately give them back the heat, hotter, and move on completely). But when you don't have too much new and uncomfortable things to do each day, you'll start importing home complaints of how someone looked at you in a funny way and how the cashier ignored you and how the KFC girl was extremely rude (and oh yes they can be, especially the Ikeja Computer Village KFC ones).

However, once you load your day with many big tasks and manage get a couple of terrifying deadlines chasing you, in six months your life will never be the same. You will first almost die from the immense pressure and want to turn off some of the goals, but if you keep them on, after sometime you'll just find that you become better at managing the pressure and are seeing some nice positive results of some goals getting achieved.

Everyday, I get no less than five deadlines furiously chasing me. Then I always have two or three already overtaken me (tasks past their deadlines). I don't achieve everything I plan/hope to achieve but I always achieve more than when I had an easier to manage/visualize todo list.

There are just about 14 days left in this month but I have two training classes in Lagos, one training class in Abuja, one training class in Asaba, a volunteer job in Porto-Novo, my online MBA midterm exam and other things that don't give enough prior notice. Still I have a habit of reading, writing daily, working on some long-term projects, finishing the 2017 Data Industry Analysis whitepaper and have rest days. And that's how most of the other months this year have been activity-wise. I don't try to think through them as it results in analysis paralysis and low morale. I just take it one day or two days at a time. Do what I can do. I let the pressure energize me and the deadlines keep me going longer than I would ordinarily have. I still don't achieve all but way more than I would if I had played safe.

Some people find it amazing that I do so much and constantly trying to do more. Well, this is one of my main secrets. Aim for the moon, if you miss you'll still end up where you ordinarily wouldn't have gotten to. Activity-based pressure can't kill you, it is worrying and negative stress that can harm you. So go after all the goals you never thought you had time for and watch as the time will create itself and you'll achieve more.

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