Understanding how to progress in life is a pre-condition for living a happy life.

If you don’t make progress in your life and you’re not getting closer to where you envision yourself to be, you will inevitably have to settle for less and be less than fully happy.

No one wants that.

Sometimes all you have to do to make progress in life is to be honest with yourself. More often than not, you will realize that you have to put in the hours in order to progress in life.

1. Progress in Life or Illusion of Progress?

There are two kinds of people when it comes to making progress:

1. Those who know but don’t act.
2. Those who act but don’t know.

1.1 Knowing But Not Acting

People who know but don’t act are in a personal conflict. They know what steps they need to take to make progress, but they don’t want to put in the effort

So what do they do?

They lie to themselves.

They trick themselves into thinking that they are doing “everything” they can to launch that business, to lose weight, to become better writers, and to be overall more successful. Most of the time, however, these people are barely scratching the surface of what it takes to reach their goals.

They want shortcuts.

I honestly don’t believe in shortcuts. I don’t believe that good things will come on their own. But if you are one of those people who do, then you’re in for a rough ride.

I know a lot of people who lie to themselves about how much they put into what they do. They typically say things like, I am trying to work “smarter” and not “harder.” They are waiting “to see what happens” and then they hopefully “figure out what they are truly passionate about.”

I am not saying people should not search for their purpose. They are certainly entitled to do so. But that’s on them to do. No one will find their purpose for them. And they won’t find their purpose sitting at home or in front of their TV or by slacking off at their job.

So, if you are not investing serious, and I mean serious, effort into your goals, then you won’t find your purpose and you won’t make progress in life.

1.2 Acting But Not Knowing

There is a second group of people who, unlike the lazy archetype, simply don’t know what steps they need to take to make progress in life.

This group of people can be further subdivided into two groups: (1) people who lacks knowledge, (2) people who lack skill.

People who lack knowledge can start making progress by finding out what steps they need to take. To do that, they need to find a mentor, teacher, or coach and follow their instructions or modal their example. They can also make progress by doing the research and figuring out what they need to do.

People who lack skills are in a different boat. They can know of what they need to do, but without the relevant skills, they won’t be able to act on that knowledge. To act, one has to have knowledge and develop the required skills for action. So take relevant classes, enroll in an online course, join groups, etc.

Whatever you do, be honest with yourself about it. Know when you are putting in the work and when you are not. For this to work, everyone needs a healthy amount of self-doubt.

2. Use Self-Doubt To Make Progress in Life

Doubt has a negative connotation in today’s society.

It’s synonymous with second guessing oneself. It is also contrasted with having confidence in one’s thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

Doubt, as modern society wants us to think, is bad. It says you don’t have enough confidence. Let’s call this negative self-doubt.

Here I want to talk about doubt from another perspective. I want to talk about the idea of positive self-doubt. For me, positive self-doubt is the process of asking oneself critical questions about one’s performance and effort.

This is an important aspect of goal realization because you don’t want to act on your choices unreflectively. You don’t want to be directed by other people’s judgements, feelings, and moods. You want to be self-directed. You want your choices to be a result of a genuine process of continuous assessment and reflection.

2.1 What to Expect from Positive Self-Doubt

When you exercise positive self-doubt, you become able to identify the areas in your life where you need to improve yourself. You may need to improve your writing skills, managerial skills, speaking skills, money management skills, strategy skills, negotiation skills, etc. Positive self-doubt will take care of that for you. Once you recognize that a certain area in your life needs work, then you can start the process of deciding what you need to do whether to acquire knowledge or to acquire skills.

Now if you are aware that you need a certain amount of knowledge or a certain level of skill, and you have decided at some level that you “don’t have time” or “you will find a way without those skills” or “others have become successful without those skills,” then you will put yourself through a vicious cycle: you start with a lie, and then you will spend your time trying to justify it. Break that cycle and be honest with yourself starting today.

Please do not trick yourself with the illusion of progress. Stop wasting your time. Hanging out with your “business friends” is not progress. Reading one post about business is not progress. You have to understand that progress is proportional to the amount of productive work you put into your projects.

3. Measure Your Progress

It’s important to use positive self-doubt in your life. But it’s also important to measure your progress.

If you don’t measure your progress, then you are like a captain without a map or a compass. You will never know when you have reached your goals.

3.1 How to Measure Progress?

You have to create a word document. Okay, I know this is common sense, but because it is so obvious, people often dismiss this advice.

To reach my goals, this is what I personally do:

1. Create a word document and TYPE UP the relevant numbers.
   • If it’s a business; I write down the strategy I am currently using along with the profits, expenses, and costs.
   • If it’s losing weight, I write down my sets, reps and total calories. Yes, it takes some time, but using this method I have DATA. I have a very CLEAR picture of exactly why I am where I am.
   • This then helps me decide what needs to stay in my routine and what needs to change. Doing this has helped me save myself a lot of time, a lot of headache, and a lot of money.