I am approaching the age in which Theodore Roosevelt became president, obviously my life is on a much lower trajectory than TR (which is a true statement when applied to any of us), and the older I grow the more amazed I am at what he accomplished and I, along with many other people, have been trying to figure out, crack the code, to his everyday greatness.
The same lament has occurred to us all: if only I could tap into fraction of what TR had I could finally achieve my long, outstanding life goals.
We all recognize we will not be president. We will not write 40 successful books on the side. We will not lead men in battle. We will not master a dozen different domains. We will not be Theodore Roosevelt. Only Theodore Roosevelt could do what Theodore Roosevelt did. But all of us are left with a nagging feeling that we could be doing so much more and that our current strategy in life is wrong.
We know, deep down inside, that we could be tapping into a much larger energy and mode of living, like TR, but we aren’t because we don’t know how.
If you’re like me, you’ve googled many articles trying to find the secret to TR’s success, and, if you are also like me, leave those many articles feeling like the author didn’t quite really put their finger on TR’s secret to greatness–every article will mention “deep work” but we all know there is so much more than that going on than that.
The man accomplished more in a day than most of us accomplish in a week. He accomplished more in a month than most of us accomplish in a year. How?
HOW? HOW? HOW? HOW?
Even if he wasn’t president, with massive resources at his fingertips, every one of us knows he still would have lived an extraordinary life.
How can we tap into what TR had and add it to our own lives?
These questions have been bothering me for a long time and intuitively I know that each of us possess the power to tap into something much deeper, like TR, I haven’t yet done so in life. I am not delusional, thinking that I can be as good as TR. Obviously, his intellectual level, his brain horsepower, was way beyond what I possess. But I know that I can still tap into something greater and deeper, and if I can learn to maintain a connection to this deeper way of living I will be able to achieve my more ambitious life goals, and, perhaps, goals that are over the horizon that I am unable to see due to my lack of motion in life.
I’ve reached the age that, if I am going to accomplish the goals on my to-do list, I have to get moving at a much faster clip than I am currently going. If TR was transported into my exact life, as it is now. We all know he would be out of most of my jams in about 2 -3 months and maybe 6 – 12 months for the figure jams I’m in, while I can’t figure out how to get out of them in 2 – 3, or never.
How do I adopt the mindset of Theodore Roosevelt and apply it to my life?
One line of his that has really hit me the last couple days is this: “Don’t Fritter Away Your Time.”
I don’t know if that hits you the same way it hits me, but man, this is exactly what I am doing.
Yes, I work hard at my day job. Yes, I engage with my family. Yes, I work hard at achieving my dream of becoming a full time writer…this is all true, until I realize it’s not entirely true.
How many unfinished writing projects do I have? I currently one novel at 50k+ words I haven’t worked on in months because it got too hard, I currently have a guidebook about a quarter done I started 9 years ago, and I have a guide book I did finish 10 years ago that I know I could update without too much fuss to make it relevant again and start selling again.
If TR entered my shoes…how long do you think it would take him to finish all three of these writing projects? Perhaps three months? Maybe four?
I have to admit something: I FRITTER AWAY MY TIME. Pointlessly looking at my phone is the biggest culprit. Another culprit is daydreaming about how great it will be when those three books are written instead of writing the dang books.
Hello, my name is Austin James and I am a fritterer.
First stage is acceptance, right? Second phase is to figure out how to not fritter anymore, which is harder than it sounds because even when I am actively trying to not fritter away time I still do without realizing it, it’s like I’m hypnotized. I can easily fritter away time for thirty minutes before I catch myself. The only solution I’ve had is to go easy on myself–once I recognize I’m frittering I immediately stop, forgive myself for the slipup, and get back on track to the task at hand.
In reading about TR, I’ve noticed that he is a notorious maker of schedules, from when he was a young man at Harvard to President and beyond. I have to wonder if that assisted in his staying on track? I readily admit that he was a nearly superhuman being and that a mere mortal like me cannot remotely expect results like TR achieved, but maybe being a notorious maker of schedules and to-do lists would help me better stay on track.
I’m very good about to do lists at my day job, and not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty good at staying on track and being a highly productive worker. But things begin to fall apart for me during the other hours of the day. Generally, like most people, about 10 – 11 hours of my day is job related. It’s the early morning hours and the evening hours that often go astray.
The morning hours are when I do my blog writing, but there is usually a pretty big gap from the time I target to wake up to when I am writing my first words. There’s opportunity for improvement there!
Then in the evening after work there is usually a solid 30 – 40 minutes of “unwinding” which is code for mindlessly scrolling X, and I usually regret it because I usually leave the app upset and frustrated: “I can’t BELIEVE what those politicians from the other party are up to now! It will be the end of America!” This is clearly a frittering away of time–I could just about finish an entire work out in this frittered away time! Don’t I always lament I don’t have enough time to work out?
Over the course of this blog we will explore more principals that made Theodore Roosevelt awesome–but I think “don’t fritter away your time” is a good starting point in striving toward being more like good old TR.
Now get to work!