Life is too short for running in no direction. When we are in survival mode, Our ability to navigate through the day vanishes. The whole goal of our day is to complete 24 hours. Survival mode happens when you forget the line between being busy and productive. You are just doing things but nothing actually is moving. Because your action is not coming from your own. But from others. You always feel the rush. And don’t enjoy the small moments. You are watching a movie but still thinking about 10 different things. It all happens because your subconscious mind is trying to tell something.
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What is Survival Mode?
In survival mode, you constantly try to avoid a lot of things. You feel that you are busy, But in reality, you are no accomplishing much. You start to procrastinate and avoid work, Your schedules get converted to reschedules. And you start to become cynical. But that’s just a small part of it. If you been in survival mode for a month, Then It will start affecting your creative and personal abilities. You start to lose hope about your goals. And think that you’ll never reach them. You become a reactive person than a proactive person.
The stress level increases significantly you become obnoxious. The only thing you do is try not to complete your goals. Your time with your family decreases and the sweetness in you; gets lost somewhere. You become fearful and make decisions that are not logical, But emotional. The work of yours becomes mediocre, Once cherished by great work. Today you find hard to even get past the basic task assign to you. After some time you acknowledge this behavior. And lie to yourself that this will end either tomorrow or till this weekend. But In reality, we all know that the day never comes, And you get stuck in this cycle.
5 steps to get out of survival mode
1) Accept It Completely
I would like to start this solution with a beautiful quote:
“Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles.” –Tina Fey
The very first step about solving anything is to acknowledge the problem. We live in a society of denial, Everything we do have consequences. But that shouldn’t stop you from taking action. Take a breath and say to yourself you are in survival mode. And believe that you are; Because you can’t treat a disease if you keep denying you have the disease in the first place.
2) Start With Pen and Paper
Brain Tracy a renowned personal trainer and motivational speaker, Once told, If I have only 10 seconds to advise you about the most important thing to become successful. It would be to write down what you want to achieve on paper. Wherever you are; grab a piece of paper and start writing your goals and things that you want to achieve in your life. Divide your goals into years, months, weeks. Plan your day accordingly. Because if you don’t plan your day by yourself, Somebody else will plan it for you. And they won’t want you to achieve your goals.
3) Survival Mode Never Ends Unless You Want To End
Have you heard about The placebo effect? Here a person is given a fake medication instant of real medicine, But still, he makes a medical recovery. Doesn’t that sound magical! Indeed It is, We have seen a lot of people use their brains to heal themselves without medication. How do you think those Himalayan monks live till the age of 100 years, It’s all; because they have conquered their mindset. If you really want to end this survival mode, Just tell yourself loudly I’m out of it. Keep repeating every day and before you know you’ll start living a happy life like before.
4) Become Productive, Not Busy
For many years we all build a perception that anyone, Who is rushing through their days is productive. But that’s a complete lie. Obviously, there is a clear difference between being busy as well as being productive. And to calculate It we make use of Efficiency Indicator. What is that you may ask; Its nothing but calculating how much work you have done through the hours. for i.e, Jano has work 5 hours and created three chairs, And Mano has work 3 hours and created four chairs. Even though Jano has worked for more hours than Mano, But if compare them both, Mano is more productive than Jano.
5) Let Go Onto things
When we start to make a to do list, It stretches beyond borders. But we have only 24 hours, And as humans, we can only do enough. So we need to make sure that our day is filled with important things and not useless activities. If you are a graphic designer, Stop focusing on accounting and other small aspects of your business. Delegate them to others. Only focus and fill your day with your core competence skills. In your case creating graphics. In today’s age when we have information at our fingertips, we want to do everything. But we can’t do it.
