Limitless Monday: Life Can Be Full Of Repetition – Focus On Your Purpose Instead

Limitless Monday – Repetition isn’t as dull as it sounds

I was speaking to my 16 year old son the other day. I could detect he didn’t sound his normal chipper self. He explained to me that life felt repetitive. Every day seemed the same. He couldn’t see an end to this repetition, and he had no immediate solutions to break out of it.

That interaction got me thinking. Repetition isn’t only a problem for my son. I would suggest that we all have an element of repetition in our lives, even the President of the United States!

When I was rich and successful, managing multiple businesses with numerous homes dotted around the world, I somehow still detested Mondays.

Although I could choose if I went to work or not, the idea of taking a Monday off was never an option. Other people relied on me, and I led by example. If the boss didn’t show up for work, then I am sure the absence rate on a Monday would have been far higher than it actually was. Repetition was part of my life then, as it is now. Rise at 5am, go to the gym, hail a taxi to work, work until 6pm, wave down a taxi home. Play with the kids, watch TV, go to bed.

On the face of it, summarizing your life in such a simplistic way gives the impression that life is deathly boring. However, that is only on the face of it. Mostly, anyway.

We all need repetition in our lives. We are creatures of habit. We like and look for routines. If we have a change of environment, moving to a new country or city for example, one of the first things we do is establish a routine. Find a job, a gym, a laundry, a good bar etc.

The glory of life is achieved by what you decide to include in your routine, the method by which you carry out that routine, and, significantly, establishing a purpose.

Let me explain those three factors with an example. Let’s say you are in a humdrum job. You have no hobbies to speak of and no specific goals. Your daily routine is going to look very basic.

Get up late, rush to work, go home, cook dinner, watch something on Netflix, go to bed. Repeat. Without a goal or purpose, you are going to find it very difficult to break out of this routine.

With a purpose, however, you are able to build new routines, more exciting ones, around your purpose. Let’s say you work as a telemarketer. You set a goal that you want to run your own sales business that will allow you to earn $500,000 a year within 10 years.

That’s a stretch but achievable. However, it is not achievable if you continue with your current routine. It becomes a possibility as soon as you start adding meat to your skinny skeleton of a current routine.

Change get up late to get up early – 5am is a good hour to start kicking ass when most are sleeping. Do some exercise, enroll in an online sales course, make 200 calls a day, close at least 5 deals, and so on. This is how you transform your routine. Successful people have routines, just like you. But they have a purpose that gets them out of bed every morning, ready to take the day by its neck.

Having a purpose or goal is one thing, but what is as crucial as having a goal is remembering your goal when you are living your routine. If you are doing a job you dislike, but you realize it is a means to an end, remember that when you are washing those dishes, mopping the floor, or pouring a pint of beer for a drunk customer. Have faith that your goal will arrive, your purpose will be achieved, and your current situation is a learning experience.

You can’t achieve success without a few good war stories. The better the war stories, the greater the learning experience. Once as I was scrubbing the oven in a Russian kitchen I was working at, rather than think how my life sucked, I thought, I can’t wait to tell this story when I am rich again!

Whilst writing this article I came across the following quotation:

“The hardest thing to teach a student—and the hardest thing to believe consistently—is that there is nothing ‘out there’ to go and get. There is no part, no career, no opportunity for which you should be searching and scrounging and coveting. All of the preparation is within, and you keep yourself mentally and physically fit; you remain generous with yourself and others; you stay deeply in study about your craft. Whatever is yours will then arrive.” 
— Marian Seldes

This quotation follows on from what I have been saying above. If you have a purpose, you are able to build your life around that purpose. That means when the opportunity you have been patiently waiting for arrives, you will be ready. And arrive it will, but before it does you have some work to do.

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Today, I want you to remember or find your purpose, and start to develop your life around that purpose. Success is not built on a shallow foundation but on a deep one. Get digging!

Happy Monday!

Banner Image: Focus on the destination not the climb.  Image Credit – Jukan Tateisi