{"id":739,"date":"2023-01-13T15:46:22","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T19:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/productivity-starts-with-courage-steve-pavlina\/"},"modified":"2023-01-13T15:46:22","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T19:46:22","slug":"productivity-starts-with-courage-steve-pavlina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/productivity-starts-with-courage-steve-pavlina\/","title":{"rendered":"Productivity Starts With Courage \u2013 Steve Pavlina"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Profit<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

\n

I recently starting developing a new deep dive course, which I expect to launch later this calendar quarter. It\u2019s called Engage<\/em>, and my intentions for it are ambitious.<\/p>\n

Engage<\/em> is about optimizing personal productivity and creating a powerfully engaged life. It\u2019s going to be unlike any productivity course or book you\u2019ve ever seen before. This will be our 6th course, and I want it to be our very best one \u2013 helping a wide range of people experience major productivity breakthroughs. I\u2019m framing this as our one course to rule them all<\/em>. I want this to be our #1 flagship course.<\/p>\n

These are the big rocks that will form the backbone of Engage<\/em>. These function as a productivity alignment sequence, which we\u2019ll work through in a mostly linear order.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Courage \u2013 invite it<\/li>\n
  2. Clarity \u2013 feel it<\/li>\n
  3. Intensity \u2013 claim it<\/li>\n
  4. Integration \u2013 own it<\/li>\n
  5. Harmony \u2013 be it<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I intend to make this a deeply honest course on productivity. In that regard it\u2019s not going to be sterile or gentle. It\u2019s going to delve deeply into the motivational and emotional side of productivity since that\u2019s where real productivity is born.<\/p>\n

    I want to show you how to connect the productivity dots from top to bottom \u2013 all the way from creating a sense of life purpose down to deciding which specific tasks to do on a Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

    As I\u2019m exploring the Engage<\/em> concepts, I\u2019m really liking how simple and direct they can be for making sense of intentions, goals, and projects. There\u2019s a level of honesty that makes engagement problems really clear when using the 5 principles as diagnostic tools.<\/p>\n

    What\u2019s really interesting is seeing how people avoid the obvious by asking the wrong questions about productivity, such as which apps to use or how to organize everything in Notion. Yet they\u2019re doing uninspired work that doesn\u2019t engage the heart and most likely never will. They really have no chance at being consistently productive till they get their heart engaged. Without strong emotional engagement, they just won\u2019t have access to their best thinking, creativity, and flow.<\/p>\n

    Instead of fussing over apps, these same people ought to be asking why their emotional and motivational standards have been so low for so long \u2013 and what they can do to raise those standards permanently and keep them high for life.<\/p>\n

    Heart Engagement<\/h2>\n

    When I was going through college in 3 semesters<\/a> and getting tons done every week, I didn\u2019t have or use any productivity apps. I didn\u2019t have a pocket computer or a phone except for a land line in my room. There was no web or social media. My main productivity tools were a small notebook to record assignments and a pen. I had a paper calendar on my desk, but it always stayed in my room, so I never took it to school with me. That was all I needed to be highly productive and to stay well organized, even with up to 13 classes to juggle each semester and extracurricular activities too.<\/p>\n

    I can see that I used these core productivity principles very well back then. My heart was fully engaged, and I kept my motivation high (by making high motivation a priority). My goals were crisp, clear, and personally meaningful, and I centered my life around them. I said no to misaligned people and invitations. A strong heartset supported a fully engaged mindset, which enabled me to sustain an intense period of productivity. I ended up exceeding my original goals by earning two degrees instead of one. And the process to get there was rewarding.<\/p>\n

    I had a similar experience with doing contract game programming work during my last summer and last semester of college. The room where I worked had no phone and no Internet. I had no productivity apps. I used a spiral notebook and a pen to track my to-dos. I mainly just used one piece of software on the computer, Borland C++, to do the actual coding work. Most days that was the only program I opened. I got so much done during that time.<\/p>\n

    I do use some productivity apps today which I like, especially Things and Bear, but I use them simply. My #1 productivity tools are still very tactile \u2013 spiral notebook, pens, index cards, and dry erase boards. The digital tools are nice to have, but I really don\u2019t need them to be very productive because productivity is primarily emotional.<\/p>\n

    Always Be Exam-Ready<\/h2>\n

    I don\u2019t use Notion, Evernote, Dropbox or other apps that essentially serve as clutter bins. I\u2019m fairly spartan when it comes to collecting and storing information. When I encounter interesting ideas, I do my best to apply and integrate them immediately, so they become a part of my thinking and doing. Otherwise I let them go if they don\u2019t fit.<\/p>\n

    Note that \u201cintegration\u201d is the #4 engagement principle on the list above. How well have you integrated the best ideas you\u2019ve encountered, such that you\u2019re applying them to good effect each day? When good ideas become your natural daily actions, you don\u2019t need reference notes to keep reminding you about what you should be doing.<\/p>\n

    This mindset aligns with what I discovered in college. I was taking too many classes to have extra time for studying outside of class. So I had to learn and remember what was being taught when it was being taught \u2013 during class. I tried not to leave the classroom till I had internalized the lesson. Sometimes that learning extended through the homework as well. I told my mind to learn the material well enough the first time that I felt ready to be tested on it immediately afterwards. That was a powerful and effective intention that prevented me from falling behind.<\/p>\n

    I love this standard of always being exam-ready. I can\u2019t be dumping ideas into a digital clutter bin for later processing and still feel like I\u2019m exam-ready with those ideas.<\/p>\n

    I know the concept of building a \u201csecond brain\u201d is popular these days. What a delightful sounding label for procrastination? It\u2019s like calling a clogged toilet a second sink.<\/p>\n

    What\u2019s the point of gathering and sorting info clutter if your first brain isn\u2019t on fire with motivation and focused with intensity? If you optimize your first brain, you won\u2019t need a second brain.<\/p>\n

    Apps can be nice, but only in service to a fully engaged heart and mind. The best apps won\u2019t fix your underlying issues, and they might just make matters worse by obscuring real problems under extra layers of complexity.<\/p>\n

    Emotional Intensity vs. App Propensity<\/h2>\n

    It ought to seem obvious that a person with strong heart engagement, sustainably high motivation, clear goals, and intense focus can be super productive without the benefit of any modern productivity apps. Pen and paper are sufficient. Contrast this with someone who gets really into apps but doesn\u2019t have their heart and mind fully engaged, committed, and focused. Which person would you bet on?<\/p>\n

    In the Engage<\/em> deep dive, the first principle that we\u2019ll start with is Courage, which is really about heart engagement. Most people don\u2019t even pass this phase successfully, which is the main reason they struggle with productivity and consistency. They tolerate partial matches and mismatches. They ignore and suppress the voice of their heart, which would scream at them if they gave it a real chance to speak.<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s our starting point. We\u2019re going to crack open this space and invite the heart to get really vocal and honest. For some people this won\u2019t be pretty, but it will be deeply honest.<\/p>\n

    This will not be a gentle course. Our primary focus won\u2019t be on creating a \u201csafe space\u201d like we did with the Guild course<\/a>. For this kind of transformation, we need to co-create a powerful growth space. We\u2019re going to cover a lot of rich and interesting mental concepts, but we\u2019re not going to retreat into the mind like most productivity courses do. We\u2019re going to delve into the realm of fear and doubt right from the beginning, and we\u2019re going to invite the heart to reveal the path of courage.<\/p>\n

    So from the very first principle, this is a journey that invites you to leave your old comfort zone behind. That\u2019s going to take courage. You\u2019ll be invited to form different intentions and to set different goals than you\u2019ve ever set before.<\/p>\n

    I have zero interest in watching people try to squeeze out more productivity from work they don\u2019t even want to be doing. I want to help people discover what truly lights them up. Help them amplify the voice of their hearts, so they can\u2019t stomach ignoring it any longer.<\/p>\n

    Engaging with Engage<\/h2>\n

    One thing I love to do when developing courses is to use the principles of the course to help create the course. I\u2019ve done that with all of the previous courses so far, and I\u2019m doing that with Engage<\/em> too.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m working to develop a course that feels courageous and edgy; that offers crisp, clear, and actionable ideas and processes, that\u2019s intense to develop and experience, that integrates its ideas into a coherent and sensible structure, and that maintains a beautiful and elegant internal harmony.<\/p>\n

    Creating Engage<\/em> is a big challenge, and I love working it. There\u2019s so much productivity information already in existence, and now I see a path forward to create and share something truly unique, different, and personally meaningful.<\/p>\n

    Codifying these ideas is already helping me make some productivity upgrades in my own life. That\u2019s what gets me especially excited about the development process \u2013 when I\u2019m able to identify and immediately implement upgrades I didn\u2019t recognize before. These upgrades stem from deepening and simplifying my understanding, especially in terms of how different ideas connect with each other. For instance, I\u2019m gaining a much better understanding of how critical courage is and how it fuels clarity, focus, and intensity. Just setting the intention for Engage to be our #1 flagship course creates ripples of extra motivation. Sharing this intention publicly also raises the stakes. But internally this kind of intention really lights me up inside and makes me want to do the best creative work of my life. It makes working on Engage<\/em> feel even more engaging.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m also boosting my understanding of the tail aspects of long-term productivity \u2013 integration and harmony. One reason I\u2019ve been vegan for 26 years now (most of my life) is that I fully integrated veganism into my life and harmonized with it. Same goes for doing personal development work for 18+ years and still feeling highly engaged with it. These fit into my life harmoniously, so they aren\u2019t vulnerable to being wedged out, and I don\u2019t need to lean on discipline to maintain them.<\/p>\n

    Note that self-discipline isn\u2019t one of our Engage<\/em> principles. Self-discipline is for the people with clogged toilets. Let\u2019s see how long they can hold it.<\/p>\n

    \u201cEngage!\u201d<\/h2>\n

    Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em> may also recognize that Captain Picard loves to say \u201cEngage\u201d to get the ship moving towards its next destination after laying in a course. The name for the course actually popped into my head spontaneously while I was thinking about it one day, so I didn\u2019t consciously choose it because of that. But I immediately thought of that association afterwards. That made me like it even more. When I think of Picard flicking his wrist and saying \u201cEngage,\u201d as the ship and crew boldly warp off to go explore some new alien world, I see it as a succinct way to grasp what a highly engaged life feels like. It feels like you\u2019re warping off to a bold new adventure that\u2019s sure to keep you on your toes.<\/p>\n

    Is that you feel about your work, life, relationships, and lifestyle most of the time?<\/p>\n

    If not, you haven\u2019t even accepted the invitation of Stage 1 yet. Just imagine how much more is possible when you\u2019re regularly flowing through and aligning with all 5 of these principles.<\/p>\n

    Moreover, when I looked up the dictionary definitions of Engage<\/em>, I saw just how perfect it was because all of those meanings are relevant to this journey. An engagement<\/em> can even refer to a battle or conflict, and that\u2019s how many people experience their struggles with procrastination and distraction. They\u2019re trying in vain to win battles with their mind that their heart could help them win with ease.<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s still much to be worked out before we\u2019re ready to begin the Engage<\/em> journey together. I think this will be especially rewarding for people who really want to experience something fresh, new, bold, and intelligent. The first place we\u2019ll explore together will be Planet Heartspace, which is sure to seem like an alien world to those who\u2019ve been stranded on Headspace for most of their lives. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

    Why Wait? Let\u2019s Get Started Now!<\/h2>\n

    How about a tip to get started with the Engage<\/em> principles right now? I recommend setting and holding these kinds of intentions:<\/p>\n