Turning Discontentment to Contentment (#054)

No matter how far along you get in life or how many successes and failures you go through, there's always a reason to be discontent. How do we combat that?

In this episode, James and Sean catch up on what happened last week and review how they did on their weekly goals. They discuss contentment in their day-to-day activities and Sean gives the latest update about Clever.

Key Takeaway

• Shift your perspective and find contentment by zooming out instead of zooming in.
• The path to success is paved with failures.
• Success is not about what you get done today. Success is what you do slowly, little by little, every single day. 

Episode Quotes:

Sean on having the right perspective when doing comparisons

You can't not compare, but you can also choose what to compare and what to compare it to. It's really about trying to find the right perspective. I think that's a muscle to exercise mentally. 

Sean on why people don't get to reach their yearly goals

People tend to overestimate what they can accomplish in a day and underestimate what they can accomplish in a year. That's the anxiety that I feel like a lot of people these days live with. They feel like they need to get so much done in a day, but then that anxiety ends up being detrimental. They don't end up getting that much done in a year because they're just paralyzed every single day.

James on how to build the habit of finishing tasks

I think the idea for creating a habit, or even creating a task for you to take care of, is that the task should feel so simple you know exactly what to do. It needs to be way more specific and action-oriented and you should be able to take that action without having to think about it.