Matthew Hussey says your to-do list feels hollow because it's missing the why. Try his "connection list": next to each task, write the master goal it serves. Link gym sessions or jobs you hate to the larger aim they're stepping stones toward, and resentment becomes gratitude.
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November 11–13 (year of recording not specified in chunk).
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Plenty of days I go to the gym, I don't find it enjoyable, but.
When I connect to what I'm doing it for, I see that it's valuable.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Love Life Podcast. This is Matthew Hussey. I wanted to do something a little different today, a short clip on what to do if your to-do list is overwhelming you. So this is outside of the normal realm of dating advice that I give and I share one of my essential daily practices to keep myself productive and not get burned out by a never-ending to-do list. Check it out.
Do you ever feel like every day is just a to-do list that is never ending? You go to bed having not accomplished everything on your to-do list, wake up the next day, it rolls over and now you start again. And it becomes daunting because now it's like, what is life all about? Is this my life? I just wake up and have this long to-do list of things that I just need to tick off. Life is just one big ticking off exercise. there must be more to it than this. It's kind of like step one in life is to have a list, right? Some people don't have a list. Some people wake up, their day is aimless. They don't know what direction they're going in. They don't know what they, what to do today, and they don't have any structure. So, of course, the first step in having a better life is to have some structure, is to have a sense of what I want to accomplish today, to have some kind of a list. But I think that that doesn't get to a more advanced level, which is for every to-do on our list to recognize and to be very clear about what master this to-do is serving. I'll have my to-do, and let's say there's 20 to-dos for the day, or 10 or five, depending on how big they are. For each to-do, no matter how big or small, Next to it, I write why this to-do even matters. What master is this serving? What goal is it taking me towards? Because if we don't do that, then the to-do list is hollow.
It is devoid of emotion, of significance, of meaning, as Simon Sinek would say.
It is devoid of the why.
And when we don't know our why, it becomes very difficult to get ourselves to do things because we're not moved by emotion, we're simply moved by willpower. So try this for your to-do list today.
Look at every single thing on that.
List and next to it write down what master that to-do is serving.
Because remember this, your to-do list is there to serve you. You're the master, the to-do list is working for you. You're not working for the to-do list, it exists to serve my goals, my dreams, my hopes, what I'm trying to achieve in life, how I want to feel in life, what I want to get better at in life, what skills I want to develop in life, what relationships I want to make deeper in life. The list is my slave. I'm not a slave to the list. And when we understand that, we realize, ah, there's this next thing on my list that I was just groaning about.
I'm actually excited about it.
Or maybe I'm not even excited about it. Maybe I still don't like it, but.
I see the value in it.
And now what was resentment turns into gratitude.
Some of you will say, but on.
My list is going to work today.
And a job I hate. Okay, but how do you link that to your goal?
You better be able to. Maybe doing the job you hate is.
Leading you to somewhere you want to go. Maybe it's buying you the time to work on the project you really want to work on. Maybe it's a stepping stone to a position you really want to be in. Maybe if you prove yourself here and show people how able you are in this job you don't want to do, you'll end up doing a job you do want to do because people will offer you more opportunities, more responsibility, more power. So there you see, ah, there's a connection, there's a through line, there's a thread between this thing I don't want to do and the thing that I.
Do want to do.
So in a sense, this is a.
Thing I do want to do. Do you see that?
It doesn't make it enjoyable.
Plenty of days I go to the gym, I don't find it enjoyable, but when I connect to what I'm doing.
It for, I see that it's valuable.
And when I see that it's valuable, I go from resentment to gratitude.
And that is a huge shift.
I go from seeing it as something.
I have to do, as something that's for me.
This is a very valuable part of your daily process. Do not just have a to-do list, have a connection list where for each to-do you make the connection between that to-do and the goal, the master that it's serving.
Quick note before you go, the virtual retreat is coming up in November. If you want more than love advice and you want to work with me on your productivity, your ability to reach your goals in every area of your life and develop an unstoppable core confidence that helps you in every area of life, I encourage you to go and check it out. You can find all the information about the virtual retreat happening from the 11th to the 13th of November this year. at mhvirtualretreat.com.
