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Image by Pitsch from Pixabay

This is part of my series on Decluttering Mental Models.

I love starting new projects. I might start writing a new story, enroll in a course on conversational Italian, or order a slow cooker cookbook. The first 20 minutes of any endeavor is incredible. My imagination runs wild with endless possibilities.

But my imagination is where the trouble begins. In my mind, there are no obstacles to overcome. Projects have no boring parts. I simply think of an outcome, and BOOM, it’s there. I picture myself conversing in Italian with new friends in a café in Rome. I see my short story published in a prestigious literary magazine. And I enjoy amazing slow cooker recipes, never want to eat out again, and as a result, lose 20 pounds.

Imagining fantastic outcomes is exciting and requires zero effort. In contrast, achieving just one goal requires prolonged effort. Learning Italian takes hundreds of hours of tedious memorizing, listening, and practicing. Writing a new story includes many periods of tedium and feeling stuck.

Consequently, people who actually achieve long-term goals are the ones who tolerate boredom. They see tedium as something to push through instead of a reason to give up. And they resist the temptation to drop their current project, which lost its luster and start something brand new.

James Clear wrote about this idea in “Atomic Habits.” He’d asked a weightlifting coach what separated the best athletes from everyone else. Here’s what the coach said, “At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.”

And that’s my problem: I crave novelty and have a low tolerance for boredom. I frequently start new projects and create new goals.

But in my old age, I learned something important: any long-term goal will require hundreds or thousands of hours of work. It’ll be filled with drudgery and monotony. And the secret to success is finding a way to be OK with this.

I want to end this blog post with a quote from “Atomic Habits”

People talk about getting “amped up” to work on their goals. Whether it’s business or sports or art, you hear people say things like, “It all comes down to passion.” Or, “You have to really want it.” As a result, many of us get depressed when we lose focus or motivation because we think that successful people have some bottomless reserve of passion. But this coach was saying that really successful people feel the same lack of motivation as everyone else. The difference is that they still find a way to show up despite the feelings of boredom.

More Decluttering Mental Models:

Top 10 Favorites

  1. How I answer the question: “What if I need this later?”
  2. “The Container strategy” will simplify your decluttering
  3. Selling clothes is for suckers (unless you earn $15/hour)
  4. Wait 48 hours before buying stuff
  5. 21 questions to ask before you buy
  6. The radical way to measure wealth, part 1 and part 2
  7. We’re trained to be dissatisfied with what we have (and how to fix this)
  8. Clear clutter by zoning your home
  9. How screen time kills your motivation to declutter
  10. Dear car dealers: I don't want a "free" T-shirt with your logo

Get started

  1. Clear clutter by zoning your home
  2. How I answer the question: “What if I need this later?”
  3. “The Container strategy” will simplify your decluttering
  4. Hold each item and ask, “Does this spark joy?”
  5. When the “Does this Spark Joy?” fails you, ask these 6 questions
  6. Create your “Discard by Feb. 2022” box
  7. Decluttering yearbooks? Ask these 8 questions first

Shopping

  1. 21 questions to ask before you buy
  2. Wait 48 hours before buying stuff - version 1 and version 2
  3. How a grocery shopping list saves me time, money, and pounds

Manage your clothes

  1. Selling clothes is for suckers (unless you can earn $15/hour)
  2. Dear Dude with too many T-shirts: no one wants to buy them—just recycle/trash them
  3. Don't be like my friend Giorgio with his 400 Hawaiian shirts
  4. None of my clothes "spark joy"—so what do i get rid of?

Happiness & satisfaction

  1. Limit pleasurable things so they don’t lose their novelty
  2. We’re trained to be dissatisfied with what we have (and how to fix this)
  3. Craving never stops and my potato chip addiction
  4. Reminder: happiness levels stay consistent

Get motivated

  1. Want to boost your motivation to declutter? Immerse yourself in decluttering videos, podcasts, & books!
  2. How screen time kills your motivation to declutter
  3. Imagine your ideal home… Imagine all the clutter is gone…
  4. Feeling unmotivated? Declutter with a 5-minute time box

Manage your money

  1. The radical way to measure wealth, part 1 and part 2
  2. Save money by controlling aspirational identities
  3. I wasted so much money starting projects (and how I fixed it)

Manage consumption spirals

  1. How consumption spirals work
  2. Buying a house led to an enormous consumption spiral
  3. How craving completeness drives my consumption

Shift your Paradigm

  1. Change your environment, change your consumption
  2. 3 thought experiments to adopt a decluttering mindset
  3. Your home is not a storage unit for other people's crap!
  4. Before you buy stuff, do this little mental exercise
  5. Less space, less stuff
  6. That’s right, you and I pay for the privilege of seeing viagra ads
  7. Your home is an expensive container for your stuff. What’s your cost per sqft?

Manage your emotions

  1. Can you tolerate boredom?
  2. Fill the void with a long term goal

Control the Clutter

  1. Dear car dealers: I don't want a "free" T-shirt with your logo