Pressurized Gains

Why is it that when the pressure is insurmountable, we rise to the occasion? 

Growing up, I was notorious for procrastinating. 

In 6th grade we got a coupon slip every quarter to turn in an assignment late. If we didn’t use the coupon slip we were rewarded handsomely with one pristine, room temperature soda for 3 months of faithful labor. Let me tell you, we worked. 

What simpler times. 

Well, needless to say, I aimed to get one of these room temperature sodas each quarter. 

That is until an assignment pertaining to me finding information relevant to each of the 50 states that I’m sure I had a month to do but waited until 9:00 PM the night before to start. 

I cried. 

I panicked. 

My mom chewed me out for not doing my homework and told me to use my soda golden ticket so I didn’t have to stay up all night. 

What a tragedy. 

I busted my ass but fell short and had to use the ticket. 

I was pissed. 

But this didn’t change my behavior. 

I got much better at procrastinating. 

I would allow anxiety to build as I got older. Letting my assignment deadlines creep closer and closer - often typing full research papers the night before they were due in high school and into college. 

The thing is, they were good. I could submit a first draft that I busted my ass on for three hours, completely locked in due to the impending deadline, and put out great work that would almost always result in As. 

Truthfully, I still procrastinate. 

While there are times where I get out ahead and work on the projects that I am aiming to get done, if it isn’t something I enjoy, I feel like I need the pressure build up for the ultimate release of getting it done before some arbitrary time I have made up in my mind. But that pressure and impending release set me up to knock out work that may have taken me twice the time in a condensed period. 

As egotistical as I may be at times, I know this isn’t the top quality that I could possibly put out - but it gives me something to cross the finish line with. 

And I’m not the only one. 

Humans are driven by a feeling of lack and that drive is heightened in periods of perceived needs. 

While society ceaselessly progresses due to our inability to be satisfied with what we have - we progress many times faster in times of need. 

Reflect on COVID - which at the time of writing is somehow already five years ago. 

We had a viable vaccine to a pandemic in a period of less than 12 months, making it the fastest vaccine ever created. 

Without the pressures of global economic turmoil and widespread death, vaccines take years to be developed before eventual deployment.

The fastest predating this took four years. 

That’s insane. 

But we had looming pressure that necessitated this development. 

The purpose of this blog post is not to go on a historical tangent of how humanity has progressed over time due to periods of war, famine, or plague - so I’m going to stop myself after that one beautiful example. 

The purpose is to ask, what would happen if we could find a way to constantly put that pressure on ourselves? What could you accomplish as an individual if you were to find a way to replicate the pressure of COVID on scientists or by replicating the pressure created by effective procrastination? 

Riches beyond your wildest dreams? Impact that spans the billions of people in this world? A new cosmic discovery? The perfect, off-grid home so you never have to engage with society again?

I would love to give myself unrealistic deadlines on everything I do to push myself to get there but at my current state of discipline, I’m not there yet. 

I slip on the deadlines or brush it off as trivial if I am only disappointing myself. 

So how can you create accountability when you have previously sucked at it?

Afterall, if I am beholden to the commitments I have made to others - my follow through is much higher, regardless of my procrastination. 

What I am doing now is creating daily check-ins with myself. I have two commitments on my daily check-in excel sheet but really have a handful more across two sheets. 

That may not sound exact but I would lump the second excel sheet together as one commitment with… a few... Sub-commitments. 

The first two commitments are one blog post and one video recorded per day. No matter what, I post something to my blog and make a video - even if I don’t edit the video that day. 

The intention with these goals are twofold. One, get repetitions to improve. Two, build discipline by not compromising on a commitment that I have made to myself. 

The third commitment is my bodybuilding commitment, thus the sub-commitments. This goal is meant to make me do something challenging every day, also refining my discipline but it is a goal with which I can see my progress. I weigh in every day. I track my steps every day. I eat the same food every day. I lift five times a week, improving my form, bumping the weight, and increasing reps. I sleep every day. 

Okay the last one we all do - but I monitor it to make sure I am getting somewhere between 7-8 hours a day and am working on getting some semblance of consistency so I don’t die 40 years early. 

Although I haven’t had this structure long, my commitment to building discipline has enabled me to hold myself more accountable than I ever have. 

A word of caution here. If I didn’t have an internal crisis last year, I believe that I wouldn’t be so consistent right now. 

We lost both of our dogs unexpectedly and the loss threw me down an abyss questioning what life means to me. 

I had so much fear and so many regrets that I was able to make a commitment to myself that I would make something of myself and contribute to the world. 

This is a commitment I will not yield on and am making and will continue to make sacrifices for. 

Without having this experience, I am unsure that you will be able to do this as I was not able to before my awakening. 

But I’d love for you to prove me wrong.