I want to tell you about my favourite email this week.
It came from an accountability client. Last week he’d had a task to
“Rule in / out” a certain project. Should he take it on? Is it the right thing for him to focus on?
On Monday this week he sent me his weekly update and it included: “Ruled out for now“.
That’s it. Simple. But peel it back a little and there’s wisdom in it.
We often take on too much. This can lead to stress. Overwhelm. Being a busy fool. Working hard – but perhaps not on the right stuff. Confusing activity with achievement.
But what happens when you surgically remove something from your todo list?
Less stress.
Less overwhelm.
Working more on what’s important.
Hey presto – enhanced focus.
Perhaps this idea isn’t anything new to you. You’ve heard this before. You understand it in an abstract way. And you might even think that it’s easy for me to say this. But harder to actually do.
And you’re right.
A wise man called Jim Rohn once said: “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day“.
How can you become disciplined? Is there an app for that? Some technique? A book? Is it in your genes? Or in your socio-economic background? Or through overcoming adversity?
No.
It starts with a decision. By you. Internal to you.
Without that decision it doesn’t matter what other ideas are swirling around. The type of discipline you need can’t be bought or harvested from anything outside you.
If you’ve already disciplined, or you’ve made the decision to become disciplined, brilliant! Well done! The next step is to regularly decide what to do. What will have the most positive impact. And what not to do. As that same client of mine said, “this is becoming easier with you B, as I am getting more ruthless in preventing opportunities drawing out, or allowing others to mess me about / prolong actions unnecessarily!“.
If you could do with the sort of help I’m giving him, have a look at this.
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