You are better than you think — what you can achieve if you really want to

This is not gonna be the type of article that will try to encourage you to find the best version of yourself, telling you how good you really are and why you should never give up on things.

This is gonna be an article focused on my personal experience from a few years ago, when I decided I need to challenge myself to create and learn more, in order to make progress.

I want to talk about what I discovered about me, and probably about anyone out there, I want to talk about how much progress I made in just a little bit of time, how I did it, and most importantly, why you can do it too.

So, let’s start.

Realizing where you are and where you want to be

Two years ago I have to admit I wasn’t in the best spot in my life. I just finished high school, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to college, I wasn’t sure about what I want to do with my life, and the only thing I was interested in wasn’t something I was good at.

The only thing I cared about back then was freelancing, and nothing else. I wanted to make money from my bedroom, using my computer.

I wasn’t interested in one certain freelancing area, because everything seemed interesting to me but while I was interested in many things, web design & development was something I really liked back then.

I learned HTML & CSS while being in high school, on my own, and just a while after that, I started learning JavaScript & jQuery. The only thing keeping me from becoming a good web designer or/and developer was the lack of experience and time.

However, after finishing high school, and after deciding not to go to college right away, I decided I needed to get good at something, and since web design & development was my thing back then, I wanted to learn more about that.

I knew I had at least one year of free time, and I needed to get better at what I was doing, so I wanted to make sure I use all the free time I had to improve and learn as much as I could about everything.

I wanted to get from not knowing a lot, to being an expert, in only one year. That was my goal.

Make sure you have a plan, and learn how to manage your time

I had at least 16 hours each day that I could spend in front of my computer, and I needed to find a method to spend all that time working, having a little bit of fun, exercising and eating healthy.

So what I did was create a simple plan, that would assure my progress and would let me have enough time for myself. The plan was pretty simple:

• Wake up at 7–7:30 AM, exercise for at least 60 minutes, eat fruits and vegetables, drink some tea or coffee.
• Shower, get dressed, turn on your computer, get your notebooks, your pen and open up the browser and the text editor.
• Work & learn for at least 4 hours, then start exercising again for at least one hour. Then work for another 4 hours.
• If everything went well, I would have finished everything by 5 or 6 PM. The rest of the day I could’ve spend playing video games, reading, watching movies, etc.

That was pretty much my schedule. I was also walking at least 10 KM every Saturday, going to the nearest city (I live in a village), to drink coffee with a friend, and I was also making sure that every Saturday I had enough money to get fruits and vegetables for another week.

That schedule helped me make a lot of progress, in everything I was doing — work, exercise, learning. And I wasn’t always respecting the schedule — sometimes, after 6 PM, when usually all my work was done, I refused to play or do anything fun, and I kept working or learning. I was dedicated.

Track your progress & make sure you keep moving forward

When you have such a schedule there are times when you want to take a break, and just relax for a day. But I did everything I could to avoid that. I did my best to keep doing things the way I had to, until I was an expert in my field.

I was determined to spend my next year working and learning, and while that did not happen (I’ll talk about it in a few minutes), I kept doing everything incredibly well for 3 months.

I tracked my progress, and I managed to get from being able to barely build a simple website using HTML & CSS, to working with JavaScript & Bootstrap to make interactive and responsive websites, and I was able to look and edit other people’s code easily.

I made sure I kept myself going in the right direction. I tracked all my progress every single day, and I made sure I didn’t stop.

What did I achieve? I got way, way better at writing and understanding code, I learned how to build more complex websites, I managed to read over 10 books, I exercised every single day and that made me feel awesome, and full of energy. Overall, I was making progress.

Keep creating and make sure nothing stops you

Now, this is the most important thing, and here’s where I failed.

When you decide you need to make a major change in your life, and when you decide to become a person that focuses completely on his or her work, you need to keep creating, and you need to make sure nothing and no one stops you.

I made sure I was creating. I made sure I was either making something new every day, or I was learning something new every day. If I was stuck with something related to web design, I would give up and start reading about something else that interested me.

And it gets easier. After 3 months I was feeling great about absolutely anything — my life was perfect. Things were so good, I did not even feel like I had to follow a schedule any more. I got to a point where productivity was my second nature, and I was spending entire days working and learning new things.

Until something made me quit.

Don’t give up.

Here’s where I failed.

After finishing high school I completely refused to go to college. I knew going to college would not bring anything but misery into my life, and I will waste a huge amount of time trying to do something I do not want.

Yet, I decided to go to college. My parents insisted and insisted and insisted again that I would go, and one day an aunt that I really liked started insisting as well — and I gave up. I accepted.

A few days later I was with my aunt, at the college, trying to get accepted. And I did.

Worst 3 months of my life.

I spent 3 months surrounded by people that had nothing in common with me. They were not interested in making progress, they were not interested in learning new things, and they did no spent 3 months of their life being as productive as a 19 years old can be.

College took so much of my time that I had to give up on my schedule. I had to give up making progress, I had to give up exercising, and I had to focus on learning the things the teachers told me to learn.

I never had any regrets. I don’t regret anything that happened to this point— except giving up that awesome period of my life for college. That was, by far, the worst decision I took. And I regret giving up on what I had, for something I didn’t even want.

So, what’s my point?

Some of you may be confused by now. That’s fine, I’m confused as well. I started this post with an idea in my mind, and I finished with something completely different… but that’s okay.

Here’s my point — no matter who you are, no matter where you are, and no matter what you are doing right now, you can get better at something, and you can do great things.

I don’t say this to encourage you, I say this because I did it two years ago. I say this because I made huge progress in only 3 months, following a schedule and working as much as possible.

In those 3 months I discovered that humans have an immense capacity of doing great things, as long as they are willing to do so.

We are able to get from nothing to everything in a short period of time, as long as we’re dedicated and as long as we’re willing to eliminate all distractions from our life and focus on our goal.

Now I understand why people who made their dreams reality say that anyone can do it — because anyone can. All it takes is dedication, and a lot of work.

If I managed to do all that when I was 19, I can’t think of any excuse why anyone shouldn’t be able to do it. That’s all it takes — dedication, and work.

We are all capable of creating incredible things — we just don’t really want to.

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