one reason why your life feels like such a drag is because you've got a completion mindset rather than a maintenance mindset Let me explain When I started this YouTube channel in late 2023 I didn't care about views or subscribers Yes I know that's a bit of a virtue signal thing to say And yeah sure it was nice to see those numbers increase over time but the whole reason why I started the channel in the first place is because I'd read so many books that I just wanted to share them all with people not because I wanted views But at the beginning of 2024 after watching one too many videos about the importance of setting goals I strayed from my initial purpose of starting the channel and set the arbitrary goal of reaching 100,000 subscribers by 2025 I hit that goal by August of 2024 But I felt lost and depressed the day after I achieved it Yes seeing the numbers turn from 99,999 to 100,000 was great But as soon as they turned to a 100,000 I was then struck with the existential question of well now that's done what do I do now it took me 6 months to fully recover and finally answer that question But I was only able to answer that question after going on a walk one day and talking to myself out loud and then realizing I had a completion mindset That's why I felt miserable Look the bottom line of this video is this What is it stop looking at your life as if it's something that needs to be completed and instead see it as something that needs to be maintained Because the greatest trick the human mind plays on us is to convince us that if we try hard enough at something we can complete it forever For example if you go to the gym enough one day you'll have the perfect physique and never have to work out again If you improve yourself enough you'll complete the game of self-improvement forever and you won't have to self-develop anymore If you get into a relationship with the right person you'll finally escape the worries of relationship problems And if you do enough meditation one day you'll never have to take care of your mental health again But completion is an illusion It's the worm that gnors away at each of our hearts and causes life to feel like a drag a drain and a defeating blow as we slug ourselves towards the release of our tasks But then wake up the following morning and think "Really I've got to do all that again." To put it simply the illusion of completion causes disaster because it's just not how life works After all it's an illusion mental health skills habits hobbies productivity progress money relationships social skills and spirituality life in general These are all things that cannot be completed They can only be maintained So herein lies our solution to completion From now until the day you die your job isn't to set goals but to create a lifestyle you would still follow even if you were to live forever Let's call it a lifestyle of maintenance A lifestyle of maintenance is a collection of habits you want to wake up to and never want to complete A lifestyle of completion however is a collection of habits you dread waking up to and you'd do anything to complete For example having a maintenance mindset is what would cause you to work through conflict with your partner because you want to continue to be in a healthy relationship follow an enjoyable workout program because you want to continue to work out every day regardless of results Whereas having a completion mindset would cause you to slack off and become a neglectful partner after you achieve your goal of getting into a relationship Stop training in the gym and return to your sedentary lifestyle after you achieve your goal of getting a six-pack But let's quickly zoom out here to consider the bigger picture Take one of the most popular books in recent years Atomic Habits by James Clear Have I got it no It's in my nan's loft It's been translated into dozens of languages and it sold millions of copies worldwide But why is the book so popular well in my opinion it's so popular because it offers us a relief from this constricting mindset of completion More specifically in the book James Clear argues there are four reasons why setting goals i.e having a mindset of completion sucks Number one winners and losers have the same goals Number two achieving a goal is only a momentary change Three goals restrict your happiness Yeah Four goals are at odds with long-term progress But the book doesn't just offer the alternative of well never set a goal and just spend the rest of your time just relaxing on a beach No it offers us an alternative that is rooted in a mindset of maintenance Habits Habits are how you create your lifestyle of maintenance because they force you to do away with your idea of completion and something in Zen Buddhism known as your gaining idea Here's a little excerpt from one of my f favorite Zen Buddhist books Zen Mind Beginner's Mind Shinru Suzuki He says "As long as you think I am doing this or I have to do this or I must attain something special you are actually not doing anything When you give up when you no longer want something or when you do not try to do anything special then you do something When there is no gaining idea in what you do then you do something Habits also frame your attitude towards action as liberating rather than constrictive To use a quote from Joanna Macy action isn't a burden to be hoisted up and lugged around on our shoulders It is something we are The work we have to do can be seen as a kind of coming alive As soon as I had set the goal of reaching 100,000 subscribers on this channel I had signed a contract with myself to be unhappy until I achieved that goal happy on the day I achieved that goal and then miserable again as soon as the feeling of celebration died down Not to mention it distracted me from my initial reason for starting the channel in the first place which was simply reading books and sharing the knowledge with you guys so we can all improve our lives How funny the problems we create for ourselves In the words of Alan Watts you make your troubles and you put yourself into a trap You confuse yourself and forget that you did it and then you ask how to get out of it So on a more serious note my life only started to feel meaningful again when I began waking up to a lifestyle I never wanted to end A lifestyle in which I wasn't setting goals but I was occupying my time doing things that I wanted to do forever like making content with no there's a bloke on the roof Like reading things from my favorite books and then going out into the world and applying that knowledge to see what works coming back making a video on it to share it with you guys and having no expectations of how that video does and otherwise just maintaining my mental health like doing a workout every single day and going on a walk at 9:00 each night to talk to myself out loud and all of that stuff because I know that if I don't if I don't do the maintenance of my mental health and my social skills and my language skills whatever those things are going to die So that is where the meaning of life comes from It's the things you do that you if they ended your life would be meaningless It's by the very nature that there are things we have to do every single day that life is meaningful The point is to do the thing as the ends not the means to an end Not you don't want to complete the thing You don't complete your mental health You don't complete your social skills You you maintain all of these things And that maintenance is where the meaning of life is found in your daily action forever What is going on okay I I've just completely deviated from the script there cuz I got a bit passionate But to finally make this as practical as possible here are some things for you to really run this point home because you're going to have to introspect on this for it to sink in Have a think about these Think of a pursuit in your life you've convinced yourself you can complete Money working out relationships or just any goal that you've set Now ask yourself how would my relationship with this thing change if I knew I could never complete it but I still chose to pursue it Would I feel lighter might I approach it differently would I still want to pursue it or would I want something different how could I incorporate a sense of achievement into my everyday life rather than just when I achieve a goal and then ask these questions to help you build your lifestyle of maintenance How could I create a lifestyle I want to wake up to every day what habits would that lifestyle include how could I make those habits as easy as possible to do how could I make those habits as attractive as possible and what beliefs actions and pursuits are currently keeping me trapped in a completion mindset how could I let go of them and instead embrace a maintenance mindset now the final caveat to this whole process is your mind will always desire the completion of something That's where this problem has stemmed from in the first place is that the mind the familiar culprit But the key thing to remember is you cannot control whether your mind will desire completion or not It's going to You have no control over that The only thing you have control over is the maintenance of your mind of course So your only job is to become aware of those times when your mind wanders off on that familiar path of imagining the beautiful bliss of completion and to catch it with awareness and simply bring it back to the idea of maintenance by asking yourself this question How can I not just achieve this thing I want but also maintain it because remember you don't want to get into a relationship You want to continue to be in a relationship You don't want to get ripped You want to continue to be ripped You don't want to get wealthy You want to continue to be wealthy You don't want to improve your mental health You want to continue to improve your mental health So remember catch the brain when it's being a pesky burger and trade your completion mindset for a maintenance mindset and create a lifestyle you never want to end Thank you very much for your time and attention Check out this book as recommended reading on this topic Zen Mind Beginner's Mind Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice by Shinu Suzuki There he is lovely Vella If you want another video from me related to this check out this video which is a full guide on how to set habits It's a full summary of Atomic Habits the book Anyway I'm waffling Thank you very much for your time and attention Stay disciplined playful and dangerous Bloke on the roof Because the biggest trick that the human mind plays on us is to convince us that if what [Music]