One More Step (How To Continually Progress Towards Your Goals)

April 16, 2024 | Daymion Alvarez

Stagnation (noun):

Slow Death.

The time is coming where your rate of progression in life will no longer outweigh the rate of hardship in life.

How prepared are you for this moment?

Do you have your priorities straight? Do you know the path forward?

Are you simply relying on your job to hopefully give you a good raise or a promotion? Are you exploring other ventures?

It’s okay if you’re not, because in 2022 I wasn’t either. Let me bring you back.

In June 2022, I started my internship with my current employer. It was essentially a 10-week training program to prep you for the full-time position.

In August 2022, I completed the internship and was offered full-time employment with the company. Score, right?

As an intern, I was hourly making $22 (~$45k salary) an hour. Pretty good.

After the internship, I was guaranteed a raise and to be put on salary. No more time clock, even better.

I was also guaranteed a plethora of full-time benefits such as annual performance reviews & bonuses, faster PTO accumulation and a better package, more status in the company, etc.

When I was promoted in August 2022, I was instructed to stop using the time clock as I was now a salaried employee. Sure thing, works for me.

Salaried employees get paid on the 15th and 31st of every month at my company.

The 15th rolls around and there was no direct deposit. Weird, but I gave it a few days.

After a couple of days with no signal of a paycheck, I reached out to my manager. She said it was super weird and requested an emergency check from the finance department.

She said she’d reach out to HR and get it figured out, but to expect my next check to come on time. It took a little over a week to get to the “emergency check”, just in time for me to be able to pay my rent.

The following week, my manager reached out and asked if I had a second to chat. Weird, but okay.

We got on a call and she explained that there had been a mix up with the promotion. There was no salaried position on her team and all entry-level associates were meant to be kept on hourly.

I explained that the agreement I signed stated I was on salary with all the benefits of a full-time employee, but to no avail. I was still an hourly associate.

Now, my manager had ensured that the salary I was guaranteed had gone into effect, so I was given a $10 raise to $32 an hour to compensate for the difference.

However, the PTO accumulation and package was only for salaried employees, so that was revoked.

My manager apologized profusely and promised to get it cleared up and to figure out a way to get me into the higher-tiered and salaried position.

Moving forward, I asked a few times a month about the status of my package and when I should expect to be “promoted” again. There was always a reason as to why I wouldn’t be promoted immediately, but I kept being told that something will happen soon.

It wasn’t until January of 2024 that I was officially a salaried employee.

That’s a full 16-months after I was promised the position of a salaried employee. I was also given a raise of just under $5,000 to my annual salary.

However, my rent was higher, my groceries costed more, and life overall got more expensive.

The mistake I made was not looking for anything to do in the meantime and solely relying on my company’s word to “take care of me”.

This is a poor frame to live in and gives you no control over your future. You’re simply relying on something that you hope will come true.

I wish that upon none of you and I hope you can take the lesson I learned without the same scar I have.

The Spiraling Belief System

The most common belief I see among the people around me is that they believe that they will continually progress in their chosen career paths by default.

They believe that “time will tell” and experience is the main thing they need to progress. While that’s certainly true, “progression” by climbing the corporate ladder is synonymous with stagnation.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but progression via corporate ladder is simply put in place to ensure that you can keep up with rising market costs.

Think about it.

When was the last time you got promoted?

How much was your raise?

How long did it take you to advance from your original position to the promoted position?

Now couple that with your increased responsibilities. How much more are you responsible for?

How much more are you either working or thinking about work?

How much better is your life?

Chances are the raise was either just barely enough to keep up with inflation, or didn’t even meet the rate of inflation.

Chances also are that you have a ton more responsibility and are spending a lot more brainpower in this new position.

Nothing about your life has increased in a positive direction. You’re still in the same apartment, eating the same food, going out with the same people, and taking the same vacations every year.

But, at least you got to post about your promotion on LinkedIn and got a few shares and comments, right?

As you read earlier, I was had adapted the same mental frame.

Work hard, get a raise/promotion, keep climbing. It’s all I was taught as a kid due to having parents that weren’t college educated and didn’t know what that life was life.

I’ve always had this idea in the back of my head, but never knew how to act on it.

I tweeted about this in February 2018. That’s over 8 years ago.

Not having role models in my young adulthood was the biggest challenge I faced.

I had no one to look up to who was doing what I wanted to do. No wealthy friends or family, no one to learn from.

Hell, I didn’t even have relatives that ever went to college. They believed that college was the way out, so I went to university, got my degree, and got a safe 9-5 job.

That’s when I realized firsthand all the problems that came with that.

There’s a different way.

You can chase seemingly impossible goals and achieve whatever you want in this life.

There is no man/woman that has something you don’t.

The only difference between you is simply a different mindset.

They think about things a lot different than you and I.

If you want to achieve what someone has done, don’t look for step by step instructions from A-Z; look at the way they think about things.

A single paradigm shift can change the trajectory of your entire life. That’s all it takes.

That’s what I’m trying to do for you. I’m not rich, wealthy, or living a life of luxury, but I firmly believe the mindset I’m adapting will get me there one day.

I’m doing my best to help you adapt a similar one so we can get there together.

Here’s my take on how to stop living a life of stagnation and continually progress towards the lofty goals you have for your life.

5 Tips To Stop The Stagnation

1) Aim high

The higher your goal, the more each “baby step” will get you. Think about it.

If your goal is to make $1,000,000 online, each “baby step” might get you $100,000.

Compare that to if your goal is only $1,000, each “baby step" may only be $100.

It’s an arbitrary example to visualize the principle, but you understand what I’m getting at here.

2) Set measurable milestones

Without a way to measure progress, you’ll be walking through a dark forest with no flashlight or map.

You need to have pulses of life that indicate you’re going in the right direction.

Make sure you set measurable milestones to ensure you’re consistently making progress.

For example, if you’re trying to lose weight, make sure you’re weighing yourself at the same time every. single. day.

Without this data, you have no idea what’s happening and have no indicators of success.

3) Focus on inputs rather than outputs

Develop a list of tasks whereby completion of this list would make it unreasonable you do not achieve the thing.

This is a frame developed by Alex Hormozi that has lead the way for every single thing I do in my life.

Instead of focusing on making the money, what actions would make it unreasonable that you do not make the money?

If you make those actions the goal, you have concrete feedback on whether or not you achieved your goal.

There’s a multitude of things that can prevent you from achieving the outcome, but you can 100% control the inputs that would make it unreasonable you do not achieve it.

4) Continually set new goals

You should be consistently raising the bar for yourself when setting goals.

This is something I do to myself when I’m doing cardio.

For example, especially on the days I do not want to do cardio, I start with a walk. Eventually that turns into a jog which will turn into a run.

Once I’m running, I tell myself that I can stop after 5 minutes.

When I round the 4 minute mark, I tell myself “okay, you can do 5 more minutes. You’re allowed to stop after 10 minutes”.

When I hit 9:30, I say “okay you got more left, 5 more minutes - I promise”.

I continue to do this until I hit whatever goal I had for the day, 30 minutes or whatever.

Even though I know going into it I’m going to do the full 30 minutes, telling myself I have the option to stop after 5 minutes and then taking it away when I’m about to hit it tricks my mind into doing my full cardio session.

Call it what you want - self-hypnosis or pure delusion - but the shit works.

I just used it today this trick today. Since I went to a UFC 300 fight party over the weekend and got drunk and ate like shit, I told myself I was going to do an hour of cardio today.

I didn't want to, but using this goal-setting system, I got it done. Look.

5) Focus on self-education

Constant transcendence of the mind is the #1 tip I have for you in order to constantly be able to take one more step towards your goals.

Opening up your mind and learning about nuance topics day in and day out will callous your mind into new ways of thinking.

I typically recommend any vertical of long-form content in order to learn: books, articles, research editorials, podcasts, YouTube videos.

Whatever suits your style of absorption is the one you should go with.

Adapting the paradigm of people that are smarter, more successful, and more educated than you will constantly expose your brain to new stimulus that will keep you on your toes.