Why Most People won’t Achieve Greatness (it’s Madness)

 

You probably don’t want success.

Sure, you are ambitious.

But it’s one thing to have big goals, and another to have an obsession.

Obsession drives you crazy.

If you don’t have that drive, I say you don’t want success.

You’re just teased by the idea of becoming great.

I respect people who can be honest with themselves. So if you don’t have an obsession, have the humility to acknowledge it.

There’s still hope for you.

To create obsession, create urgency

The key to become great is “urgency”.

Obsession and urgency go together.

When your back is against the wall, you are obsessed with finishing the tasks

It’s when the deadline is here that you are the most productive

Urgency makes us want to work harder.

Here’s how to create that urgency:

Remember that you will die

Here’s the practical tip you can implement right now to transform your life:

Think about death.

It’s only when we notice we don’t have much time left that we see how much of it we’ve wasted.

If you had almost no time left, what would you want to do?

Write, talk, explore?

What task would bring meaning to your life?

Reflect on that.

And stop wasting so much time by being half-invested in your “passions”.

Remember, there’s no guarantee that you’ll live long enough to do another task.

In other words, the task you’re doing right now might be your last one. This is the truth we don’t want to hear.

Are you proud with that in mind?

If not, what y’a wanna do?

 

Last words

As humans, we thrive on deadlines.

So let’s use death — the deadline of all deadlines — to push us into the direction of greatness.

It’s the only way.

Greatness is an obsession. Not a weak commitment.

You have to do X.

There’s a sense of urgency to it.

So think about death. Often.

It’ll keep you in check.

***

There’s an article on Medium about Memento Mori, which litteraly means “remember you will die” in latin.

I highly recommend you go check it out if you’re interested in how to think about death.

Do you have any suggestions or advice? Write them in the comments!