How to Make More Money, Have More Energy, and Have FUN doing it!
Humans are intrinsically "bad" bored. We are always searching for the next best thing to do. We're always looking for something to fill the time. I highly encourage you to find ways to be "good" bored. Boredom and solitude have so much potential I can't even begin to pretend how much it matters. Just look at JK Rowling, she wrote Harry Potter over 5 years beginning with a train delay. She could've been bad bored and used to the time to seethe or be upset, but she took an opportunity to create one of the largest, if not the largest, fiction empires in the world to date. They say every person has 2-3 "million dollar" ideas in their head. Imagine if you acted on it.
I've been accused, maybe that's harsh...told nicely? talked to? Whatever, I've been confronted in the past that I do not take time to relax. In all honesty, there was a period in my life where I willingly never took a vacation day to have fun. I used my PTO to work. But I was doing work I wanted to be doing. That took some people a while to get used to, and some never got used to it. I would work on things while out on walks mentally that would transform into what I have become now.
However, that said, I will be bluntly honest. I will recount the negative side of working constantly here. For the longest time I thought that was because taking time away from doing something to make money, or be productive, or because there's too much to do and not enough time, was making me lazy. I believed the "lazy" lies for a long time. But the reality is, I think much more clear when my schedule is full, even if it's me just going off to capture a sunrise, there's hardly any money in that, but there is mental clarity which leads to profit potential and most definitely energy potential. After my first brush with honest to goodness Bad Boredom, anger and irritation gone too far, it took me approximately 4.5 years to realize when I have daily goals to check off I am so much happier. I used to think I was super go with the flow, whatever floats floats, but I look back and realize how wrong I was. It turned me into a functioning alcoholic, a depressed person comparing his life to those online, complaining constantly about why I wasn't getting a silver platter handed to me. Well let's look at the facts, I was filling my time with Bad Boredom activities. And doing it willingly and surrounding myself with situations that encouraged it. There is so much more happiness, productivity, clarity, in to do lists, and goal setting. No matter what the list or goal is! Any person at any time in life can do this. From a young child to parents with a newborn, to a person who wants to retire early.
I often think about the days in society when there was no "social media", no TVs, no radio, nothing to provide adequate instant distraction. Queue "Little House on the Prairie"...Was society more productive back then? Were people actually doing more with their days? When was the turning point in time when productivity went down the drain, or has it always been down the drain?
We LOVE distractions, until....we LOATHE distractions.
We live in a world of distractions. We live in a world where most of us work far more than the prescribed 40 hours a week (*slowly raises hand*). We leave work only to bring work with us. We dream about work, we don't want to do things when we get home. Because, why cook or clean, what's the point? It's just going to get dirty again. Our energy levels are spent. We can't even think. So what do we do? We pop on the media, social or streaming, or both, and find something to watch, then find ourselves hours later upset that we didn't do the thing we wanted.
The solution as I see it to making more money, having more energy and having fun doing it is removing distractions. One at a time. However works for you. I for one need music in my life to function, but when it's distracting, I turn it off. Listen to how easy that removal of distraction is! I more often need background noise to drown out the incoming thoughts and whatever. Silence has it's time and place, surprisingly more often than you might think too. If you can manage your distractions you going to win at everything, you may not win first place at everything, although you will certainly be farther ahead than where you could've been if you had been a distracted driver. When you start removing distractions one at a time, in slow increments even, as slow as you want so long as you're making progress you're ok. Don't rely on others validations or approval to know it's working for YOU. It took this long to realize your addictions are actually addictions, problems actually problems, that those frustrations are actually real founded frustrations, not just petty disagreements because you're Bad Bored. This frees your mind to fill the space with things that matter. I'm not even trying to be meta here. I'm literally telling you remove one thing that is a distraction that is filling and creating a Bad Bored space, do it for a day, then do it for another day, then do it for a week, then a month, then two months. You get the point. Here's a plain simple fact, unless someone is dying on their deathbed, you're waiting on a very important phone call, or message, you likely don't need that cellphone turned up. You don't need to check your emails 50 times a day. Heck turn OFF that autopush. Turn OFF the badges. Turn OFF the damn phone if you have to. Turn the computer off so that when you want work you have to wait for it to boot up, and all the apps can open without the memory bogging down.
Let's take it to daily life, chores are work for me. When I was working full time in the traditional sense and trying to run my photography business, and trying to be a musician, I was working 2.5-3 jobs in any given week, 40 hours at the day job, 6 hours a week for band practice, up to 20 hours in a weekend for shows when you consider travel time, maybe a photoshoot, if nothing else working on photography related things [at least, if not more during editing phases] 2 hours a night on non band nights, and we're at a minimum of ≈75-80 hours a week. To some people, suicide seems more appealing. To me it was how I functioned, and how I still function, only with 1-2 jobs. Bad Boredom kills me. I also during this time rarely took the time to clean. The dishes would pile up, the clothes would pile up, the floor would eventually look so dirty it I didn't realize how dirty it was until I cleaned and be disgusted by my lack of cleaning. Grocery would go weeks on end without us actually buying food, and so I'd eat out every day, basically I'd buy small bits of food every other day. Just enough to sustain for a few days at a time. That adds up! Then I realized it's OK to turn off the message notifications, the email notifications, the badges, the whatever else, so long as you remember to check them at least once or twice a day. I can almost guarantee that 99% of life can be distraction free if you learn how to manage it. I guarantee if you remove distractions and start doing one thing you want, whatever it is, you will become a more profitable person. Both monetary and mentally. It may take some time, and the first thing you need to do is accept that it will take time. The second thing to do is be honest about the timeframe in which you want to succeed. The third thing is doing it. Before long you may even want to turn this hobby into a career.
Follow your heart, not your head. They may be 1 foot apart, but they are miles and infinities if you allow it. Want to make and save more money? Start doing what you love and you won't work a day in your life. Want to find more energy, utilize any energy you have to do something that makes you feel better in the end, and I'm not talking ice cream as tasty as it is. Think 30 years from now ahead, what do you want you in 30 years to be like? Remember, it took you this long to realize, open your real eyes. Peace, Love, Rock N Roll,
Chris