I learned about goal-setting from Brian Tracy’s audiobooks: I would write down every goal in the present tense, with a specific date, and clearly and visually define it. Breaking down goals was vital.
As a school kid, I started writing annual goals, which I broke down into quarters, months, and weeks. I used the “eat-the-frog” tactic to tackle unpleasant and disliked tasks first to avoid procrastination.
Brian Tracy’s audiobooks helped me break away from my Soviet-influenced parents’ mindset that if you’re rich, you’re a thief or that to earn money, you have to work hard for someone else. These audiobooks emphasized the importance of a mindset toward goals, success, and achievement.
Becoming wealthy doesn’t necessarily mean taking away someone else’s happiness. I also learned that money is abundant in the world, and it belongs to no one. You simply need to create value and benefits for others to claim them. There’s enough for everyone.
I agree with any successful author’s books that first, you need to become a person with the right mindset capable of earning a million, and only then will you earn it. I’m glad these changes began early, although, along the way, I got stuck in some phases and lingered a bit longer in some growth stages. Some mistakes were definitely made.
In any case, around 2008, along with Brian Tracy’s new insights on goal-setting and changing my mindset toward success, I read blogs focused on maximizing productivity. The blogging community opened up more opportunities, provided more knowledge, and reinforced my personal development, time management, and organizational skills.
The articles introduced various techniques, now quite common, like the Pomodoro time management method, where you dedicate 25 minutes or your own set time to work, and then, when the alarm goes off, you’re forced to take a break.
Bloggers even developed a quick sleep methodology that allowed you to go without sleep for 24 hours, relying only on “power naps.” If I remember correctly, you could get by with 2 hours of sleep daily, supplemented by short 15-minute deep sleep naps at specific intervals. Maximum efficiency.
During this period, blogs on productivity by Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss, and David Allen became popular. For example, Seth Godin was an ordinary blogger with one of the most popular blogs and only later turned it into a book, which remains on bestseller lists today.
All of this was a trend, and now, for those manifesting or seeking balance, it might seem strange, as one manager put it, to engage in midday yoga or dog walking sessions.
So, what was my day like? I learned to work hard from the age of 16, so when I now hear more and more advocacy for balance, the 4-hour workweek, and similar concepts, I can’t help but reconsider these ideas with some skepticism.
I’m not saying it’s terrible. But for me, balance sometimes means working 12 hours a day, then going to a nightclub to have fun until 3 am in the morning, and spontaneously heading to Riga for a walk and covering 16 km on foot the next day. After that getting back on Sunday and spending at least 6 more hours just working and preparing for the next week. And I still manage to get everything done.
It’s like when employees say they don’t have time to learn or improve. I always counter with the question: How do I manage to read 30 books a year, go on 5 short business and leisure trips a year, sometimes work three roles for 12 hours, and still enjoy other things?
Probably the only thing I’d still like to add to my routine is regular exercise, but that would mean giving up something else. I’ve been living at this pace since I was 16. Apart from occasionally reaching my physical limits, I don’t see a problem with it.
Like Arvydas Avulis, I never considered myself talented; I rely on Brian Tracy’s 10,000-hour rule and aim to reach those hours as quickly as possible in areas that matter to me: programming (then), project management, analytics, and business management.
It all started when, at 16, influenced by blogs and audiobooks, I structured my daily routine, waking up at 6 a.m. After a quick breakfast, I would head off on a half-hour bus ride to school with earphones in.
At school, naturally, there wasn’t much else you could do. On the way back, the same audiobooks, and once I got home around 3 p.m., I had my schedule planned down to the half-hour:
The most important habit I developed was dedicating personal time to learning and improving. Nowadays, daily routines and operational tasks sometimes consume so much time that I can’t read as much as I’d like. But this was probably the most impactful habit I developed.
I don’t believe in balance and having it all at the beginning of your career. I understand that new generations, influenced by Instagram and living in ideal worlds, don’t see the need to sacrifice to achieve something, but that’s the price that sometimes must be paid. Brian Tracy called this the principle of delayed gratification.
Are you sometimes surprised by how a car manages to hit one single pole on the side of the road when there’s nothing else around? According to Brian Tracy, race car drivers (unlike regular people) are trained to think differently, so they never hit that pole.
When an average person faces a car skid, they only see obstacles and, like it or not, focus on them and hit them. Meanwhile, race car drivers are trained to focus on finding a way out and see not the obstacles but the path forward. Everything depends on where your focus is.
Today, I can only reaffirm that all the goals I set at the age of 16, whatever they may have been, I have achieved in one form or another. With the correct focus, constant time dedicated to growth and learning, the 10,000-hour mindset, and the time management techniques shaped by blogs, I am where I am today.
As I’ve mentioned, I don’t believe in all this balance talk. My advice to those who are into manifesting would be to remember to take action. The part that’s often missing is actually doing it and, most importantly, wanting it. When you really want something, you find the time and get it done.