I write this article on a sunny beach of Greece with a bottle of water on my left, a short espresso and a salad just started. I'm in a two-week break that I gave her for relaxation and inspiration. The last month was great for me in terms of workload.

The break that I gave myself - and which most people would call a "vacation" - is an energy re-calibration and vision. I need fresh forces and a clear mind.

Even in these moments of relaxation - I have kept certain habits I do not leave except in exceptional cases:

I continue to take a reflection in the morning, while looking at the agenda and writing elements related to my personal vision
I still read for personal education books that help me move forward (I read in parallel James Patterson's book of fiction in order to understand the way a story is built, and a book marketing and copywriting - which helps me to better understand the patterns behind some stories, characters and promotional messages)
I'm still writing a fixed number of words per day on the book I'm going to launch by the end of the year and which, for me, is a huge bet
I continue to check the emails and the status of the projects that partners and their own employees are doing on a limited time.
The difference is that all of these things take place in a much smaller unit than normal. We are talking here for two hours that I take to do all that described above.

Otherwise, I enjoy the sun, the food, the people, the water - I travel around and connect me to the history of the places I visit.

Why did I give you all this detail? Because I want to emphasize an attitude that, in the long run, has brought me a lot of results. An attitude we have not always had and "stolen" from people with far greater results than me, people who manage tens / hundreds of millions of euros of business or people who are constantly performing on their field of activity.

We only want the results, not the back work

Then, for the first time, I noticed a major differentiation between people who thought they were born to get results, and those who felt more and more hindered, and looking for reasons to quit, despite the motivational noisy discourse.

The typology of this man - which is quite common - is that of the desert who has just dropped out of college and wants to fall directly on the manager's chair for the pompousness of the title, but without taking the necessary work of an executive manager.

And then I saw "hunting" - titles, results, goals. And escape responsibility, work, prioritization, renunciation (sacrifice).

We want epaulettes, but we do not want the way we can get them.

We want the title of CEO, but if we can lose nights through clubs while we get this title, it would be better (or laze in front of the TV for hours and spend time on Facebook constantly)

We want a million euros, but without working at all at us, as entrepreneurs, but rather being "offered" somehow (by a tip, by an angel business, by any relationship).

I have exaggerated this attitude, just to find in your mentality the aspects of this attitude. We all have it to a greater or lesser extent.

Most workaholic people - suffer from cognitive paralysis

On the other side we have the man who works to exhaustion. It is usually a person who suffers from "myopia" (metaphorically speaking), which goes so deeply in what he does, that he forgets what he is doing.

It is the traction donkey and an extraordinary sacrifice animal.

A working-attitude specific to the workman we always had. When working on funding programs, we sacrificed the weekends or nights for the projects I was involved with. I often locked myself in my office or in the house, and I only went out there the next morning, when my pregnancy was finished.

Now I remember with melancholy the evenings where my friends called me to town and I refused, because we had deadlines that I did not want to break. I remember melancholy, including the eternal discussions where people around me judged I did not have "personal life".

Now I understand that all the replies received over time have in fact been justifying my friends for their "laziness": if they accepted that what I do have a good part, they should have explained why they did not I do what I did. It was simpler to criticize someone because he worked hard than to work, even you, at least, but dedicated.

The workaholic gene can be easily explained - in terms of childhood and the survival attitude it had to adopt. I come from a financially modest family and, quite early, I realized that if I did not work I had nothing to eat.

But this attitude has not helped me all the time: I have evolved very hard, from my point of view, and with almost superhuman effort. For me, the greatest lesson in all these years was to understand how I get out of my box and understand that the level of work you are doing does not even define the outcome you have at the end.

When you work at a quantitative level (because that's what makes a workaholic) - the effect is the one that really gives you any addiction: a low decision-making ability, prioritization, and at least 10% fewer IQs than you have natural.

The impression you leave behind, if you are honest with you, is a seemingly stupid (or rigid) appearance. In reality, work-related addiction paralyzes your cognitive system and abducts your ability to evolve professionally, financially and rela- tively. You do not see beyond the tip of your nose, because you are too busy working.

More than half of those who recognize themselves as workaholic - are proud of it.

But we are talking about a defect, not a quality.

Workaholics are willing to pay the price - but I do not know what that price is

If the two attitudes do not bring you results but punctual, what makes the difference?

There are three elements I found in the people I worked with individually and who have, over time, had the greatest results and the most important personal development.

Determination (ability to make constant, daily actions toward an objective or vision) - unlike ambition
Introspection (the ability to analyze your work, yourself, your feelings, your direction, the vision you have) - unlike self-sufficiency
Pleasure (the ability to generate positive emotions in your work) - unlike incarnation

1) Determination

What it means: to act constantly, dedicated, daily in small portions

What it does not mean: act long, with long breaks

Reversing the Medal: Being "Ambitious"

Many people confuse determination with ambition. There are major differences and different implications.

An ambitious person is not always determined. Ambition is often short-lived and reported to a short-term outcome, implies great emotion and effort to achieve that outcome and the main need is to demonstrate that it can achieve that result.

Determining the long-term plan, dosed. Why do you do day by day. Who are you.

An ambitious person does not stand a defeat because it is focused on the spot result.

A determined person accepts a defeat, being focused on the process and who gets it.

An ambitious person consumes a huge amount of energy for the goals he proposes.

A determined person does not focus on quantity but on constant, which is why he uses his energy.

An ambitious person increases his or her emotional positively or negatively artificially to give better performance. (they are overly excited or frustrated too much to get moving).

A determined person does what is necessary to reach where he proposes, without involving emotional excesses.

An ambitious person needs to recover after getting a result, which is why he loses a lot of time.

For a determined person - a result means an organic step - and nothing more.

Determination is the most powerful sensor that tells you if you will be successful or not, if you reach the goal you have or not, if you come to the personal vision you want or not.

How can you tell if you're determined or not?

Simple enough:

- First of all, think of a goal that is important to you

- Then answer the following questions:

What did you do today for your goal?
What did you do yesterday for your goal?
What did you do this week for your goal?
What have you done this month for your goal?
If things worked at the same pace as before, how much would it take you to get where you want?

... at this moment my request for you is to do this little exercise of imagination and to continue the article after answering the five questions ...

If at the first two questions you answer "nothing", no matter the excuse you invoke, you already have the answer - that you are missing the determination to reach where you have proposed.

If the answer to the next two questions is "nothing" - the problems are already much deeper and you will most likely not arrive too soon where you want.

The last question - it's a time sensor that tells you how you're doing your effort. A determined man dips his effort gradually, in small portions, in the long run.

Determination can be obtained, trained, increased. From my point of view it is a continuous goal - to do what your upgraded version would do. Independent of one-off negative emotions. It is the image of a performance athlete, regardless of weather, of distractions that inherently appear in a human life, of the emotional state - equips and train for several hours a day (as a "main course").

2. Introspection

What it means: to analyze what you do, your feelings, the direction you are heading for after each action you do

What it does not mean: to live in theoretical without acting

Reverse of the medal: to be "self-sufficient" (to have answers - the one who has answers - no longer looking for others)

It is the ability to constantly ask you questions about yourself, what you are doing, the direction you are heading. The quality of these questions constantly, as you act, brings you clarity about your future.

Careful! Asking these questions without acting - has no effect, on the contrary - turns you into a passive person who lives a vision that will never happen. A lunatic.

Who are you? Who do you want to get?
What are you doing in this direction now? How can you do more than that?
How far can you reach?
What do you want from your life?
How do you want to remember others about you?
What do you want to leave, after all, behind?

To have different responses and more relevant to you, they have to come up with a personal will to advance, to achieve short-term goals as well. Without having to travel professionally and personally, without gaining new and new experiences without acting - these questions will be as harmless as a bow with arrows in front of an ultra-modern combat aircraft.

Your personal vision is never "completed," but it is a perpetual introspection about your own person and the world you live in, the results you get and the actions you make, the lessons you learn.

3) Pleasure to work

What it does mean: enjoy every step you take in the direction you want

What it does not mean: to give up prematurely when something does not please you

The reverse of the medal: to be annoyed in what you are doing, without joy, just by thinking about the goal you have proposed

You can be determined and not like what you are doing. Batteries will be consumed very quickly. There are people who are determined and who are incensed in what they do (it is my example to one point).

When you act daily towards a goal or a vision, it is important to PLACE what you do. Pleasure pertains to a perception that you can train. You have to be the "person" who touches the result, which also involves positive emotions along the way.

In order to please you, you need to be aware of a few things:

when you have a new project, the greatest effort you make when you start;
to put a car in motion, the biggest consumption you get when you move it out of the way. To fly by plane, the biggest energy invested is in the take off.
when a project is in motion - the effort to keep the direction steadily is much smaller

Start a project and then quit immediately because it's too hard or because you do not like it - it's an emotional trap in which a lot of people fall. Tasks, especially those from the beginning, should be simply tasks without attaching negative emotions to them. They should be done as a "performance training" of almost a performance athlete.

The pleasure of doing one thing is overestimated in the first phase when you start a project and you risk giving up on it because you come to the conclusion that you do not like what you are doing. And then underestimated if you get through the first impact when you do things just to be done.

Of the three elements, it seems to me the most difficult to achieve. If you do not like the field in which you work, if you do not like the small, routine tasks that you do to get where you've proposed - then most likely, sooner or later, you'll be crashing.

I met entrepreneurs who hated the uncertainty of tomorrow - and they did not get far.

I met footballers who hated training camp and physical training - and they did not get far.

I met writers who hated the feeling they had to write a book from an empty sheet - and they did not get away.

I met people who worked in marketing and sales - and who did not like their customers, the product or the actual sales process - and they did not get far.

Performing people are people in love for what they do. And the question that you should put here is - how should I behave against what I'm doing to fall in love with what I'm doing?

And the secret lies in the little things.

If you find pleasure in the little things of your domain and you sink into what you're doing - losing the notion of time, then you're on the right track.

The art of enjoying what you do is more a perception than a truth, so it's up to you to play with this perception. If you enjoy when you plant a tree, then you can enjoy it when you make a budget for a project.

The third point holds more of spirituality and a profound way of seeing things than a real fact and a concrete answer: "I like" or "I do not like it."

Finally, when we talk about results, we talk about intelligent work, dosing (what determines determination), we talk about the ability to ask questions constantly about this path and what you do (introspective) and we talk about the pleasure behind what you do.

All three elements can be built from scratch.

When you are determined and constantly working for an objective - in the end people will confuse this determination with "talent" (a tennis player who has been kicking the ball for decades, day by day - will be perceived as a talented man)

When you are introspective and want to understand the lesson of each action you do - in the end, people will confuse this ability with intelligence (an entrepreneur who sells a company at the peak moment of its value, only to start from scratch another - who also has success - will be perceived as a smart and speculative man)

When you love what you are doing and you are in a state of flux, no matter what the nature of your work - in the end people will confuse this ability with spirituality and will consider you a deep person (any person in love with what he does, sales agent or painter, sooner or later will be seen as an artist on his field).

What can you do in this direction?

Regardless of your goal, work daily, in small portions at him ("Better baby steps than big but rare")
Asking yourself constantly about who you are and your role in the long term (I agree one hour a day in this direction, when I set up my beat plan on that day)
Enjoy everything you do in the direction you want (for those who fail, I remember a boxer with whom I worked and who told me when it came to heavy workouts on who supports them before a match: "Remember that you like it and then you really like it, because if you do not like it, it means you've already been fooled that you do not like it.")

Best regards,

Adrian