The Power of Focus (Category I)
Your Habits Will Determine Your Future
“Its very hard when contemplated in advance, and so easy when you do it.” - Robert M. Pirsig
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Life doesn’t just happen to you. Its all about choices and how you respond to situations. Habit of continuously making bad choices often brings disaster. However. life never completely closes the door to opportunity. Consistent choices lay foundation for habits.
What is habit? Simply stating, a habit is something you do so often it becomes easy.
Let’s say you want to become financially independent, doesn’t it make sense to check your money making habits?
Your habits will determine your quality of life.
The results of your bad habits usually don’t show up until much later in life.
Successful people have successful habits, unsuccessful people don’t.
You can turn your negative consequences into positive rewards, simply by changing your habits now.
Developing successful habits takes time.
Up to 90% of our normal behavior is based on habits.
Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
Once a habit is well developed, it becomes your new normal behavior.
By systematically improving one behavior at a time you can improve your overall lifestyle.
If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you will keep on getting what you’ve always got.
Be aware of habits that are not working for you.
Your outward behavior is the truth, whereas your inner perception of your behavior is often an illusion.
Your habits and belief systems are a product of your environment.
The Successful habits formula:
1. Clearly identify your bad or unproductive habits.- When you examine your own bad habits, consider long term implications. Be totally honest. Your life may be at stake.
2. Define your new successful habit. - The more vividly you describe the benefits, the more likely you are to take action.
3. Create a three part action plan. (Action plans in 3 halves are more attractive). - Remember nothing will change until you do.
Its not about hocus-pocus, its all about focus.
You must invest most of your time every week doing what you do best, and let others do what they do best.
Focus on your natural talents. When you focus most of your time and energy doing the things you are truely brilliant at, you eventually reap big rewards.
Discover your brilliance. Everyone is blessed with natural talents. A big part of your life is discovering what these are, then utilizing and applying them to the best of your ability. The discovery process takes years for many people. Then Practice, Practice, Practice.
Priority focus works. Make it part of your everyday plan and you’ll experience dramatic jumps in productivity and income.
Your level of brilliance will determine the size of opportunities in your life. Brilliance is the set of activities you do effortlessly, that give you energy, and produce the greatest results and income for your business.
A simple reality check is to list down all activities you do at work in a typical week. Then you will know if you’re time is invested or wasted.
Are you a starter or finisher? Do not accept/start a work unless you really want to do it. Once started, finish it. If you don’t like doing some work, identify who can do it. Hire them. Remember, do what you are good at. For other things, find people good at them, and get it done.
Learn to let go of the “stuff” in your life.
Important mantra of delegation is: delegation of work is supposed to free your time. People delegated with work are not there to increase your work, rather they are supposed to get the job done. If the job is not done properly, direct them. Be patient. Don’t focus on minute details. Focus on overall quality. Ultimately, if you have to touch their work, your communication is not up to the mark.
To get work done by supporting people, selection of key person is important. Otherwise, they can become a liability.
Few tips to get the work done by other people
Make a list of all the tasks you want your assistant to be 100% responsible for.
Discard these items from your own weekly list.
When you interview, have the top 3 applicants complete a personal profile evaluation. Prepare a profile of ideal candidate. Match 3 applicant’s profile with ideal one.
Be careful not to select someone just like you. Remember, you want this person to complement your skills, not a competetion.
If you are a controller, someone who won’t let go of things easily, it is essential that you surrender to your personal assistant. You may think that nobody can do these things like you do. That may be true. However, what if your assistant could do these tasks at least 75% initially? With proper training, and good communication every week, your well-chosen assistant will eventually do these activities as good as you, and will outperform you in many of them. So, give up the need for total control - it’s holding you back.
Just in case, you are still hanging on the notion that you can do it all, ask yourself, “How much am I worth per hour?” Think what you can do in given time, and do what you do best.
It is absolutely imperative that you schedule time each day or at least once a week to discuss your agenda with your personal assistant. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate! Make sure your assistant knows what you want to spend your time on. Allow reasonable time for your partner to learn your systems. Setup screening methods with your assistant that protect you from all the potential distractions and interruptions. Be open to all input and feedback.
For routine tasks like gardening, cleaning, etc. hire people. Remember, you only have limited time. If you enjoy doing household things, then you go ahead doing these things. You need to be honest with you on this.
The 4-D Solution
Whenever a choice to do or not do something has to be made, use the 4-D formula to help you prioritize.
Dump It - Learn to say “No, I choose not to do this.” Be firm.
Delegate It - If someone else can do it, deligate without guilt or regrets. Simply ask “Who else could do this?”
Defer It - If task doesn’t need to be right away, schedule a specific time at a later date to handle this type of work.
Do It - If task doesn’t fit any of the above, do it now. Don’t make excuses.
Priority focus is all about setting boundaries that you do not cross. First you need to decide very clearly what those boundaries are: both at work and home. And then communicate them to important people in your life. You would need their support to keep on track. Stick to what you know best, and keep refining these talents. Do not waste your time on things you don’t know. (This is especially true when it comes to investing your money).
Be aware of old habits that may be pulling you away from your focus. There are no magic formulas.
Priority Focus Action Steps
List all business activities at work that use up your time.
List all non-critical activities at home that use up your time.
Describe 3 things that you are brilliant at doing in business.
Name the 3 most important activities that produce income for your business.
Name the 3 most important activities that you don’t like to do or are weak at doing.
What is the biggest loss that can happen to you if you don’t do what you don’t like?
What one time consuming activity are you going to say “No” to or delegate right away?
What immediate benefits will result from this decision?
“The life which is unexamined is not worth living” - Socrates.
When Peter Daniels was asked on what turned his life from triple indebtedness to unprecedented success, he replied “I scheduled time to think. In fact, I reserve one day a week on my calendar just to think. All of my greatest ideas, opportunities and money making ventures started with days I took off to think”.
My personal thought is, Peter is lying. To me, thinking is a social process. The more you talk to people, the more you discuss ideas, the better ideas you get. It is very rare that someone is hit with idea as lightning in mid of a lonely desert. Idea itself evolves. Once you have a brilliant idea, you may want to give yourself a handsome amount of time to think and plan its execution and materialization.
A goal is the ongoing pursuit of a worthy objective until accomplished.
The Top 10 Goals Checklist
Your most important goals must be yours. - Don’t let your company, or your industry or your boss or your friends or your family or your bank to set your goals. Don’t let other people or society determine your definition of success. The media defines success as clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the homes we live in, and vacations we take. What is your definition of success? one understood, stop worrying about what the rest of world thinks.
Your goals must be meaningful. - Ask yourself “Am I prepared to give up everything else and make this happen?”. Something is meaningful only if the answer is “yes”. Because once you are into it, you should do whatever it takes to reach the goal. This new course of action gives you the drive and energy to get up in the morning, even on days you don’t feel like it. Master philosopher Jim Rohm astutely observes two major pains in life: One is pain of discipline, and other is pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces, and regret weighs tons when you allow your life to drift along unfulfilled.
<note tip>Remember, its your choice. Ultimately, you are responsible for every choice you make. So, be wise. Commit yourself to your goals now.</note>
- Your goals must be specific and measurable. - Most people loost at achieving goals because they never accurately define what they want. “My goal is financially independent doesn’t mean anything”. It means different for different people, $50 for someone, $50 million a year for someone, debt-free for some, what is it for you? what is your number?
Just stating “I need more time with family” doesn’t cut it. How much time? When? How often? What will you do with it? With whom you want to spend time? Refine your requirement.
<note tip>Tip here is: When you set a goal, challenge yourself with “Be more specific”. Keep repeating this until your goal is crystal clear and measurable.</note>
Your goals must be flexible. - A flexible plan allows you the freedom to change course if a genuine and better opportunity comes along that you don’t want to loose. A word of caution, you don’t need to be involved in every idea on earth. You just need one or two good ideas to make you happy and wealthy.
Your goals must be challenging and exciting. - When you set goals, in beginning they would be challenging and exciting. But over time, the task becomes repetitive and boring. To prevent yourself from boredom, you must force yourself to jump out of your comfort zone. Challenge yourself to do things that you think are very hard to achieve or may even scare you off your feet. Create goals that get you so excited that you can hardly sleep at night.
REMEMBER, GOAL WITHOUT A NUMBER IS JUST A SLOGAN.