When you are hesitant. When you are debating on if you should keep going or if you should stop. When you do not know what to do. You have options. You can stop and be done with what you are trying to do. Not finish. Once again, the only reason we start something is to finish it; whenever you give in or stop before you reach that goal, you quit early.
Another option that you have is to attack the event harder. Put more work into the event. When you do not know if you can continue, this is the best time for you to continue. This point would be the time when most other people would stop. When they are hesitant, they will stay in their comfort zone. They won't push forward because they like the familiarity of where they are at that specific moment.
What Is Doubling Down?
Doubling down allows you to put more effort into the product, causing you to become a stalemate. Whether this is about a topic for an exam at school, a product you are trying to design, a meeting at work, or any other problem you are trying to find a solution for, you can act like most people would act and walk away from the problem. Let it go because that would be the simple solution.
This mediocrity is the problem that people face. The average person will do the average amount of work on their average day. The average person will then make an excuse for not getting something done and have a valid reason. This point is where the problem can occur. Since everyone else is doing the average amount of work, they find that sufficient for the amount of work they need to do.
That is the difference between what you can be and the other people around you. The other people around you will be doing the average amount of work, the work to pass by. This is the moment when you have options. You have the options to fall to their level. Or, you have the option to realize what is happening and realize that people very often conform to the people they are around the most.
This point is where you can break through. You do not have to lock these people out of your life. You may not see them quite as much, but you can still catch up and hang out occasionally. When you realize this, you can put these people behind you so you do not fall to their level. And you can be better.
When you start to make yourself better, you double down. You can sit down, think to yourself why this problem is a problem in the first place, and you can systematically attack the problem, conquering one part, one section at a time, until you look back and see that you have completed the whole problem that anyone else would walk away from.
How To Start
So how can you double down, you may ask? There are different ways to go about this. And if you are looking at the top of the mountain, at the people who have learned to double down over decades and decades of practice, then you will beat yourself up. If you are doing this, you will not make it very far.
To be able to double down, you need to start small. It would help if you had an achievable goal to reach. Now, you can still think of the long-term goal of being able to double down for everything you do in life, of pushing yourself to the absolute best. But if you try to do that too soon, you will realize that you will fall short. You won't be reaching the desired outcomes that you want. You will start to talk down on yourself and stop following through with what you want to accomplish.
For this to not happen, for you to become a doubling-down master, you need to start doing it with one thing, one day at a time. With the end goal of the top of the tallest mountain, you can get there by taking one step after another.
Take one step at doubling down. Find one area, one topic, that you usually procrastinate on, one topic that you want to work on to better yourself with, and double down. When you realize that you are procrastinating away from your goal, make yourself stop. Put the phone down, and tell the person that came to your space and started talking to you that you need to work on your project. Tell them that you need to reach your goal, that you are doubling down.
Utilize In Your Life
For example, I would have options when I would be in school with classes I did not want to learn as much. I could procrastinate on the topic because it is uncomfortable, and I do not know it. I could talk to people and go on tangents instead of doing my work. Or, I could do something else.
If I was in a class I did not want to learn that much, I could block off a time, with no distractions, where I could double down on the topic. Instead of running away from the topic I did not know or felt too intrigued with, I would sit down and study it. I could study it, just the littlest bit of information, until it made sense to me.
Then I could study it a bit more, with a slightly different topic in the unit or the class. When I do this, double down and keep my head down, I can soon look up and see the lot of progress I have made in that time period. I do not need to utilize an excessive amount of time, just enough each time block where I can learn a little bit, have a little bit of double-down action, and get to work.
When you are first starting anything, it will be challenging and hard. It may be uncomfortable, but this is the tipping point.
To progress and get better, you need to double down, put your head down, and do something, one part at a time, to get to the point you want to get. Instead of looking up the tall mountain, being scared, and stopping, you can look at the next rock in front of you, step over it, and continue your journey.
Doubling down allows you to do this because each time you look up at that tall mountain and get scared or worried, and you want to back away and be done, you can double down and go through the challenge.
When you do this, you will be surprised. You will realize what you are doing is working, and you are progressing yourself farther than you ever thought possible just because each time you want to stop, you put forth more effort and continue to grow.
Your health matters. Your mental health is at the root of it all. Strengthen it, and you can strengthen your life.
