Image - A Death-knell to Your Future Goals...

Lethargy.

Procrastination.

The lack of personal success.

Society begs for over-productivity in the workforce, but once we come home from work, we secretly dream of wanting more for ourselves, but end up doing less to nothing about it.

Is this a universal truth? Time and culturally tested?

Or is this a by-product of an over-stressed populous?

We rush to get through work.

We rush on the freeways to get home.

We rush to make dinner for the family and to tidy the house.

Only to rush to our easy chairs to do nothing for ourselves but stare into a screen - play station or TV tube.

In past decades, when there were less time-saving devices, and when there weren't any home screens at all, somehow there was more time, and here's a twist: more energy to boot!

I think the key to all success and failure is an ideal that should have be made into the 8th Deadly Sin eons ago, and that's Image - how we want the world to see us.

In past eras, poverty was more the norm rather than the exception. Everybody lived within their means because they had no alternative. They paid by cash for everything they purchased, and if the money wasn't there to participate in some pleasurable past-time, you simply stayed home.

Now, the middle class, of which there was none pre World War II, seeks to look like they live the caviar life, dreaming the champagne dreams of the rich and famous...all on a beer budget with a half dozen credit cards to pick up the slack that they can't possibly pay off in two lifetimes.

That pay-cheque to pay-cheque existence over time creates stress, and long term stress creates lethargy, procrastination and ultimately depression, none of which give birth to a positive and productive energy flow. You're, in fact, pretending to "live the dream" that will in the end exhaust you to the point that actually achieving that dream will never materialize.

If a societal solution is to be found, we must get real with ourselves, live within our means like our grandparents did, and be bloody content with what we have, so a positive energy flow is there to produce better results for us tomorrow.

I once knew a couple who in their latter years were multi millionaires, and the wife, when she waxed emotional, always said her and her husband had more joy in their lives when they had orange crates for end tables...think about that!

It's not what cars you drive.

It's not how big your home is.

It's not the clothes you wear...

As long as you are content and confident in your own skin.

That takes some doing if you are part of the self-conscious majority today, erroneously believing what you possess defines who you are.

My advice on how to gain productivity freedom:

Get off that useless treadmill and rid yourself of that elusive public Image, and when you do, you may find your free time far more energetic, far more enjoyable, and far more productive.