How I Stay Productive 365 Days A Year (I’m Not Even Joking)

You don’t become the HIGHEST version of yourself imaginable.

You become the LOWEST version of yourself acceptable.

So in this post, I’ll teach you how to be so productive that a “bad day” for you is the most productive day of someone else’s entire life.

(If you didn’t already know, this is the second post in a series of 3 posts I’m making on the concept of ruts and stagnation)

In my first post, I talked about what a rut even is, what causes it, and how to avoid them. (If you haven’t already, go back and read that post)

In this post, I’ll be covering how you can manipulate ruts so that your “ruts” are so productive that they’re better than most people’s highs.

And in the third and final post, I’ll be covering a few of the best tactics I’ve curated over the years to immediately get out of a rut when you do find yourself in one.

Follow me if you want to be notified when the next one drops.

Anyways, I’m not going to waste your time, the first thing we need to do is get crystal-clear on EXACTLY what a rut looks like for you.

“What gets measured, gets managed” - Peter Drucker

So below I’m going to ask you a series of questions and I want you to answer them on any notes page of your choice (Docs, Apple Notes, Paper & Pencil, etc)

And the point of the questions is to get clarity on what a productive and lazy day is for you because awareness is the first step.

If you skip this step, this entire thing is a waste of time. Please, do this. It’ll take you a couple minutes and save you years off your life.

And after we finish this, I’ll teach you some powerful techniques on improving your standards so that your “ruts” are extremely productive.

Note: Whenever I say “great day” below in each question, don’t think of the best you’ve ever done in your entire life. Just a number that’s the best you’d normally do in a week.

Alright, so copy and paste the below questions into your notes page and start answering.

Be completely honest when you’re answering. If you lie here, this entire thing is useless.

And don’t answer with what you would like to be true, answer with what you’re CURRENTLY doing.

How many hours of deep work do you get done on a great day?

How many hours of deep work do you get done on a bad day?

What’s the most important task you could be doing in your business?

What is the most amount of that task you get done on a great day?

What is the least amount of that task you get done on a bad day?

How many hours do you sleep on a great night?

How many hours do you sleep on a bad night?

On a scale of 1-10, what is your diet on a great day?

On a scale of 1-10, what is your diet on a bad day?

What’s the most amount of times you’ll work out in a week?

What’s the least amount of times you’ll work out in a week?

What’s the most amount of times you’ll meditate in a week?

What’s the least amount of times you’ll meditate in a week?

What’s the most amount of times you’ll take cold showers in a week?

What’s the least amount of times you’ll take cold showers in a week?

What’s the most amount of water you’d drink in a day?

What’s the least amount of water you’d drink in a day?

What’s the most amount of screen time you’ll have in a day?

What’s the least amount of screen time you’ll have in a day?

We’re almost done. Now I want you to add the bad habits that you normally fall into when you’re in a rut.

It could be video games, porn, drugs, watching tv shows/movies, etc.

Add them to the doc and add your highest and lowest amounts for those as well.

(By the way, we’re going to come back to those numbers later so don’t close that doc yet)

Alright, so here’s where the cool part comes in.

What we’re going to do with those numbers is drastically improve your standards.

Because it’s not about how good you are at your best.

It’s about how bad you are at your worst.

So you want to set standards so that the version of yourself that you want to be is actually the worst version of yourself that you can possibly tolerate.

The rest of this post will cover exactly how you can do that.

The first thing to improve your standards is understanding that you must kill your old frequency.

Your old frequency is simply the collection of all your beliefs, thoughts, identity, where you’re placing your attention, and emotions.

And your frequency is directly aligned with the quality of your reality.

So you have to ascend to an improved frequency and solidify it so that you can enter your desired reality.

And you can only do that by first killing your old frequency.

And there’s only 2 things you can do that will keep your old frequency alive and ensure you never achieve your goals

1 - Giving in to the mental resistance you feel towards the work and avoiding doing the tasks you know you need to be doing.

2 - Giving your problems emotional reactions. (You give energy to whatever you put your emotions towards. Emotions are Energy in Motion. E-motion)

And that’s exactly why you’ve been viewing hard work and your problems the wrong way your ENTIRE life.

The more work you don’t want to do and the more annoying problems that come up in your life, the more opportunities you have to exercise mental resilience, and thus the faster you kill your old frequency and solidify your new one.

So you should WANT as much resistance, painful work, and problems as possible.

LOVE resistance. LOVE work. LOVE problems. They’re your biggest ally. Without them, you couldn’t manifest your desired reality.

That’s the first thing to understand. Problems and resistance = Good.

The next thing that plays a pivotal role in your standards is satisfaction.

When you’re satisfied, you get complacent.

If you really want to get to the next level, you can NEVER be satisfied. You can never be proud.

You do absolutely phenomenal and still feel disguised and angry that you’ve still not entered your desired reality or not had the impact you have to have on the world (your purpose).

You hit a milestone or get a huge client, and you DO NOT CELEBRATE.

Instead, you just sit in pain. You CANNOT celebrate.

Because whatever you celebrate becomes your new best.

If you celebrate $10k/month, you put it on a pedestal and unconsciously limit yourself at that checkpoint, and thus it’ll be hard to ever grow past it unless you build dissatisfaction again.

So by celebrating, you just unintentionally set a new limit for yourself.

Now, obviously, this is NOT in binary terms, it’s a continuum.

Meaning, I’m not saying to be sitting in pain 24/7, every hour of the day.

Because then you’ll just burn out and your relationships and mental health will take a huge hit.

And I’m definitely NOT saying that you should never be happy.

I’m not saying that you should hit the milestone and start crying because you didn’t hit it faster or some shit haha.

I’m saying to hit the milestone, tell yourself “Good job, but there’s more work to be done. More lives to change. Let’s attack the next thing”.

Because at the end of the day, progress will give you the most fulfillment.

And plus, by celebrating, you just mess up your dopamine and motivation levels.

Instead, doing the work itself should be the reward.

The process should be the celebration.

Note: Don’t tell anyone when you hit milestones because then they’ll also just give you positive reinforcement and you’ll feel a level of satisfaction and get complacent.

So like I said earlier, this is a continuum. 99% of the time, you should be on high vibrational emotions. Happiness, peace, calm, gratitude, just general positivity.

But that 1% of the time when you feel lazy and you think “You’ve been doing so good lately, let’s take a little break” and you feel a sense of satisfaction, immediately inject negative thoughts.

Inject thoughts comparing yourself to others ahead of you, remind yourself of something bad that happened in your life, remind yourself that you haven’t retired your parents, remind yourself of your purpose and the lives you’ve yet to change, etc.

Yes, I know. It’s a little dark. But it’ll give you a boost of energy and prevent you from ever feeling satisfied and complacent, and thus you’ll never stop growing.

Besides, it’s only 1% of the time. That’s a trade-off I’m willing to make everyday.

The third tactic I have to improve your standards is to simply improve your beliefs.

(You already know this, so I won’t go too deep into this)

But “As a man thinketh, so is he”

If you believe you are something, then you are.

A godlike self-image can only come from godlike self-thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and identity.

If you think negative, shit thoughts, then you’ll act negative and shit.

And then it’ll create a feedback loop where you feel like shit, so you act like shit.

Then, because you acted like shit, you feel even more shit, and the cycle keeps repeating.

So you need to constantly be in a state of meditation, catching all of your thoughts and beliefs, being aware of if they’re constructive or limiting.

There’s one more tactic I have for raising your standards and it’ll tell you at the end so it makes better sense.

For now, I want you to go back to the notes page with all your numbers.

Once you’re there, I want you to go back up in this post and copy all the questions from earlier and paste them at the bottom of your notes page so that they’re below your original numbers.

This is where you’ll map the numbers of your ASCENDED and improved self.

So once you’ve pasted it in there, go back and set new and improved high and low numbers.

I’ll do an example below.

(Your current self)

How many hours of deep work do you get done on a great day? 5

How many hours of deep work do you get done on a bad day? 1

(Your ascended self)

How many hours of deep work do you get done on a great day? 6

How many hours of deep work do you get done on a bad day? 3.5

Note: Put in REALISTIC numbers for your ascended self.

So if you’re currently getting 1 hour of deep work done and you set 10 hours for your ascended self, you’re obviously not going to magically start doing 10 hours, and you’ll get disappointed and give up.

So make a good improvement that you can realistically reach everyday.

And put more emphasis on improving the “bad day” numbers, the “good day” numbers don’t really need to improve much.

Because remember - You do not become the highest version of yourself imaginable, you become the lowest version of yourself acceptable

So go and map out your ascended self metrics right now.

Now that you've done that, we’re going to do something I call “Starting With A Storm”

It’s very simple. For 2 days, I need you to commit to hitting all your ASCENDED self’s “GOOD DAY/High” numbers in every area.

Meaning, you’re going to have to do better than you’ve EVER done in EVERYTHING for 2 days straight.

It’s going to take commitment, and it won’t be easy. But it’s 100% worth it.

Because this is what’s going to happen after you’ve finished this challenge.

You’re going to fall. Because “What goes up, must come down” - remember the first post I made in the series.

BUT, you’re going to fall to your ASCENDED self’s bad day/low numbers, which are almost as good as your current GREAT day numbers.

You’ll have done so good for those 2 days that you’ll feel the EXACT same emotional reaction and feeling of dissatisfaction when you fall to your new “low” numbers that you currently do when you fall to your current low numbers.

So, in summary, here’s what you need to improve your standards:

1 - See hard work/problems as good

2 - Never celebrate

3 - Inject negative thoughts when you feel complacent/satisfied/lazy

4 - Ascend your beliefs/thoughts

5 - Start with a storm

If you do those things, you’ll easily be able to shift your standards and drastically improve your life.

And my last point is to never compare your improved self to your old self.

So anytime you hit your new lows, even if they were your old highs, you NEED to feel the pain and shame. Don’t hide from it. Sit with the pain and let it hurt.

We do extreme things when we're in extreme pain. And that pain and dissatisfaction is what’s going to allow you to push back up to your ascended high again.

So don’t cope and say “I’m doing bad right now, but compared to a month ago, I’m doing amazing”

Because that’s just going to create satisfaction and complacency.

So that’s everything I have for you in this post.

In the next and final post of this series, I’ll give you some tactical gems to instantly get out of a rut.

Hope you enjoyed reading.

Ascend,

Andrew

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