I don’t believe in wishes and fairy tales. They disappoint me. There was a time when I wished that a million-dollar just drop out of the sky and I didn’t have to work anymore. As the days go by, I recalled constantly questioning myself how I am not a millionaire yet. I remembered waking up every morning feeling let down and unmotivated. The truth finally set in. I soon came to the understanding that if I keep working at this pace, repeat the same routine every day, and be comfortable with where I am, nothing will ever change. Today I am sharing a few tips that hopefully you can use immediately to improve your lifestyle, break out of the cycle of the tedious and unhappy life, and stay productive, and motivated.

Organize your schedule

Let’s tackle the easy one first: What is the thing that takes the most time out of your day? It is probably your full-time job. If you are just like me, working 10 hours a day, there isn’t much room left to do anything else. I sleep an average of 6 hours. My work commute consumes about 40 mins one way, which is very fortunate considering I live in Southern California. That’s left me with 7 hours to wiggle. Now, here is the crucial question: how do I want to spend that 7 hours.

Related: Saving Money While Living a Healthy Life Style: Is It Still Possible?

First, I dedicate at least 1 hour to work on my fitness. The gym is important to me, it helps me release the tension from work and keeps me happy.

I devote another hour to work on my blog and search for business ideas. During this hour, I told myself it is critical to stay focused if I want to get work done. It was difficult at first because all I did was surf the web and watch YouTube.

For the other 5 hours, I spend with family and friends because it is essential to invest in relationships. By structuring my daily schedule, I didn’t have to ask myself the question people often wonder: where did all my time go? For you my readers, you can start by figuring out what takes the most time out of your day and comment in the section below.

Look around you

You can’t pick family, but you can definitely choose friends. How do your friends and associate spend their time? Your friends always ask you to smoke weed: Leave them. Not that I am against recreational marijuana, but how can a person do anything else if they spend most of their time getting high and “Relax.” If your drinking buddies want to go out every weekend and all the discussion is about the opposite sex. It could be fun at first but eventually, become boring after a while.

Stop wishing and start doing

Finding a good mentor is one of the keys to your success. If you have friends that are doing really well, pick their brain out, ask about their accomplishments. Another way to find a mentor is through making a connection. One of the tools I use is Linkin. For example, I am in the field of pharmacy. By searching for the keyword “Pharmacist” in my area, I am able to make a connection with my peers and create professional relationships by exchanging knowledge about medicines and business. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is good. A few pharmacists that I know are doing great financially through different forms of money-making such as franchising a store or opening their own pharmacy. Their stories give me inspiration and allow me to expand my ideas.

Be realistic with your goals

It is essential to take a step back and evaluate your situation. For example, a young family with 2 kids and 12 hours/day shift might be a little difficult to have extra time after work. Being a parent is a huge responsibility. Complete that task first and if you have to stay up late to get your passion going, then do it. Success will not happen overnight.

Stay committed

If I set out 1 hour to write a blog, I will have to forget about everything else and just focus on writing. Identified distractions that are associated with you: reading the news, checking the score for your fantasy football team, shopping on Amazon, finding a good deal on Groupon…. There is no need for all of that. My goal is to produce 1 blog a week. So far it is going well, and my next goal is to create 2 blogs a week.

Fear

Here is the thought that scares me: Will I ever be able to get out of this rat race and enjoy life while I still can? The thought of me working 40 hours a week for the rest of my life has kept me up at night sometimes. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my retirement fund once I reach 65 years old. I am afraid that even though I do every financial planning correctly, I could have a fatal disease like cancer and spend all my savings on it. That’s right: FEAR is the thing that keeps me motivated

Eliminate the fear of failure

Who doesn’t like to succeed? I sure do. But listen to this: I am not afraid of failure. What I am frightened the most is the incapability to change, the inability to move forward. As I recalled, before I decided to give Amazon FBA a try, my biggest fear was that I would lose my hard earn money, and didn’t know how to stop. I had evaluated the business and believed that this was something I could definitely tackle if I were willing to put the work into it. I started it also because I also got tired of working 9-5 and I couldn’t wait to get out of it.

And yes, my worst fear came true: I lost 5 grand after my first year. I got so stressed out about the thing I couldn’t control such as Amazon’s associate fee, shipping fee, and competitor price. At one point, I got greedy and bought more products than I was supposed to. I finally made a decision to get out and re-evaluate the strategies to see what went wrong. In the beginning, my initial thought was the more I watch YouTube and applied all the steps they showed, the faster I would get to 10,000 dollars a week. Being inpatient was one of my biggest downfalls. I expected success overnight.

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