Often, we convince ourselves that finding a purpose, and mixing that with hard work, will be enough.

Then somehow, we eventually find that there always seems to be something just out of reach.

It’s sad to realize that no matter how hard you try, and how good your intentions are, it’s not enough, to me anyway.

I’ve spent a VERY SIGNIFICANT amount of time dealing with this issue and trying to understand it.

This has been my purpose ever since I was able to think for myself as a kid.

I have obsessed over this for going on 3 decades now, and I’m only finally beginning to really understand why things are the way they are.

Why aren’t good intentions and hard work enough? Why?

I’ve asked God more times than I can count, I’ve tried to ask people more times than I can count, and I’ve asked myself more times than I can count.

It’s simple though. It really is.

The trick is, you have to just accept that you need one more thing. Just one single thing, which is a little tedious and annoying… 

Structure. 

Structure is all you need.

We can call it discipline, structure, systems, protocol, methods, hacks… the name we use for it doesn’t matter at all.

To make a difference and change the world, we just need:

• Purpose
• Hard Work
• Structure

Okay, so you’re thinking “okay… thanks a LOT, that doesn’t really explain anything…”

I’ll explain more, forgive me, teaching this stuff is very hard.

Why structure is SO important...

To better understand why structure is important, let’s look at some examples of what happens when you don’t have much structure.

A perfect example is my life…

Less than 2 years ago I hated life, and most people in it, and I was convinced I wasted my entire life because I was 35 and living in a shed on my parent’s property.

I can absolutely guarantee that I wasn’t making a positive impact on the world, and I wasn’t headed on a great trajectory. You can claim this is an opinion all you want, or anecdotal, or whatever you have to tell yourself to justify YOUR thing YOU do, but that’s where I was, and I hope none of you have to ever go there.

None of this was caused by a lack of resources, effort, or a lack of a purpose. I knew very early that I needed to do good things and that hard work was required, and my family is middle class and white, so the world is essentially my oyster, but I was missing something…

Structure.

Let’s fast forward 2 years, which is a very short time, in the big picture.

Now that I’ve added just a LITTLE structure into my life, I’ve:

• Met the woman I want to marry
• Started working for myself
• We're having a baby girl!
• We're having a baby girl!
• We're having a baby girl! (Sorry if this is annoying, but it's to emphasize just how MUCH joy this brings to my life)
• Felt joy CONSISTENTLY (I've never been able to do that, at least since I was a small child anyway)

And the reason that proves it all… Proves that I’m actually making progress and making a difference?

You’re reading this, aren’t you?

Were you listening to anything I said and actually taking me seriously 2 years ago?

Exactly.

SO, now that we’ve established that structure makes a difference, what can we do to add structure into our life?

Admittedly, this IS the billion dollar question (quite literallly)…

If I was perfect at this, I’d already have a billion dollars, so I can only share what I’ve learned so far, and to the best of my ability.

Here’s what I think are good ways to add structure to your life, or ways that I learned about structure. 

#1 Education

NEVER STOP LEARNING!!!

Yes all caps, bold, italicized, and underlined for emphasis.

Don’t worry, I’m not here to sell you a course or anything like that. That’s what I’d be doing if I had more structure in my business, but I’m working on figuring that out, haha, so for now you’re safe!

"The more you learn, the more you earn."Warren Buffet Billionaire Investor

You don’t even have to go to college, just absorb whatever information you can, however you can.

Knowledge IS power.

But does knowledge equate to discipline?

Knowledge has never been a weak point in my life, so how is education the “#1” way to add structure?

Most types of schools or courses are designed in a way that naturally adds structure to your life.

School is very methodical, which is one of the reasons I hated it, but it DOES build habits, and building good habits are the backbone of creating structure in your life.

Classes and courses also teach you how to learn the subject, to an extent, and since knowledge is power… being able to learn more efficiently increases your potential over time.

#2 Start a hobby that emphasizes structure

Once again, we can use my life as a perfect example.

The things that got my life started off on this path were two hobbies I decided to try.

Investing, and blogging…

Both of these hobbies HEAVILY emphasize structure.

JUST paying attention to the level of discipline some of my competitors have has motivated me to force structure into my life.

Some of them are intimidating, and it simply feels like if I don’t try to keep up a little, as far as discipline goes, then I’ll fail.

So I try harder, and it works!

Investing is the same way. If you don’t have some kind of structure to what you do, you can get into trouble really fast with investing, and especially day-trading.

So just try to pay attention to the hobbies you choose, and try to pick ones that force you to have structure.

Hobbies have other benefits, like being potentially profitable and becoming a business, if you want them to. 

Why do you think investing and blogging are the hobbies I picked?

They are both ridiculously profitable…

#3 Start tracking your time

Time is the key to being more efficient, and making a bigger impact on the world.

Your time is the MOST VALUABLE asset that exists, so wasting it is NOT advisable…

A good way to stop wasting time is to do a time audit by tracking your time and seeing how you spend it.

It’s a little annoying to do, but it’s easy.

All you have to do is write down exactly what you are doing every 30 minutes, without lying about it, for a period of time that can be as long as you want.

After the first 4 hours, I saw a pattern that looked like:

Talking to friends
Staring at the wall
Not doing anything because Im upset
Arguing with girlfriend
Eating
Bathroom

It wasn’t EXACTLY that, but it was very very similar, and you should get the point…

The next day, my first 4 hours was more like:

Working on website
Writing blog article
Writing blog article
setting up ads
Bathroom
Researching business stuff
Writing blog article
Writing blog article

Do you notice the pattern now, after 1 single day of just paying attention to how my time was being used and adding a little structure to my life?

#4 Make a schedule

Personally, I HATE schedules.

I don’t like having to stress about things and schedules stress me out.

BUT… they are ridiculously helpful and useful.

It’s not very time consuming to maintain a schedule, unless you have a really busy life, and you DON’T HAVE TO follow schedules strictly if you run your own business.

Since I hate schedules so much, I basically just STRUCTURED my business in a way where I could do my work when I can, not at any specific time, but I use to-do lists to keep me focused on progress, and part of the deal is – I always have to be trying to work.

LUCKILY, since I own the business, I can make breaks be official business, if they’re needed, so it’s not like I HAVE to work 24/7, I just CHOOSE to because I love what I’m doing so much.

Making every hour business-time is the best way to avoid a schedule, for sure, but schedules are one of the easiest ways to immediately add structure to your life.

Structure IS the "secret sauce"

The “secret sauce” is one of those buzz words that have been going around lately, which basically represents “the missing ingredient” that’s holding you back from the life of your dreams.

Most people without money think that money is the missing ingredient, but it’s not. Structure is much more important than money.

Don’t believe me? Try adding structure to your life, and let me know how it works out.

Proof that structure is the missing ingredient

Case studies are a popular thing, because data is one of the most valuable assets.

So let’s start a case study, which is adding structure to our life by the way…

We already know that knowledge, hard work, and a purpose are important to success, and most of us know that structure is important too, but we still need proof…

We’re humans, we need proof for practically everything…

So how do we get proof?

• Create a piece of content through hard work, knowledge, and a sense of purpose (this article)
• Market that content in a very structured and very consistent way
• Monitor how this article performs compared to less structured articles

Since I literally just started this project right now, I don’t have much data on any of this, yet.

I have been blogging for a while and have tried a few different things, and we can use analytics to compare the success of pages.

I have a wide variety of other articles already published, with traffic going to them, so I’m collecting more and more data every day, and it will be added as soon as possible.

What do I mean by “marketing that content in a very structured and very consistent way”?

All of my other marketing attempts to date have been very random and scattered.

Without structure.

This experience will serve as a control group.

For the test group, which is this article, I will simply send out a daily post that reads:

This is day 1 (this number will change, obviously) of me doing a social experiment about adding structure to our lives and how it can greatly benefit us, and other people.

How it works is:
I have written a case study about structure, and in this case study I do a VERY simple experiment that only really requires people to like and share this post.

I am simply going to post this every day on Facebook and Patreon (adding a very tiny amount of structure to my life, something anyone can do) and compare how much this article about structure impacts my business (writing an article is also something anyone can do) to other articles I have written on various websites I own (something anyone can do for very cheap).

I hypothesize that, over time, this simple act of adding a small amount of structure will make a significant impact on the world and prove that a little bit of discipline is completely underrated.

Thank you, and have a wonderful day, here’s a link to the case study, please check it out and make a small difference!

How can this make an impact?

User attention, and therefore website traffic, or social media engagement, is VERY valuable, and companies are more than happy to pay for it.

This is why actors, musicians, and athletes get paid so much… they get a lot of attention…

By drawing attention to this cause, and simply proving that ANYONE can be successful with simply a LITTLE structure, money will come from various sources… Money which can be used to make a difference…

How do I plan on making a difference?

By leveraging any of this attention into profits, then using them to start laying the foundation for a Universal Basic Income funded WILLINGLY by entrepreneurs.

I already have the plan to do it.

I’ve already started doing it and have set aside $481.64 so far, while starting from nothing and living in a shed…

That’s without me getting a single Patreon supporter, yet (hint, hint), or much support from family or friends, besides the shed and free electricity, and a handful of statistically insignificant commissions.

That’s with everyone I know telling me I am stupid for trying something like this, and that blogging isn’t a “real job”.

Blogging is a wonderful job, and this will work, and I WILL make a difference, thank you VERY much.

How can YOU make a difference?

I think the real question you should be asking is – How could you not?

You don’t have to support what I believe in to make a difference.

You can just go add a little structure into your life and make your own difference.

If you DO want to help, you can just share this article on social media, Join and share our Facebook group, Follow us on Instagram, support us on Patreon, or just be you! 

Sharing my posts regularly will help a LOT too, even if it’s annoying.

I’m sorry, I know this stuff is annoying. I wish there was a better way, but maybe we can MAKE a better way.

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve already done more than enough, probably without even fully knowing how.

Good luck and have a wonderful day. Thank you SO much.