1. Am I focusing on the right things?
At every moment, millions of little things compete for your
attention. All these things fall into one of two categories: things
that are important and things that are not.
People never get more done by blindly working more hours on
everything that comes up. Instead, they get more done when they follow
careful plans that measure and track key priorities and milestones. So
if you want to be more successful and less stressed, don’t ask how to
make something more efficient until you’ve first asked, “Do I need to do
this at all?”
Simply being able to do something well does not make it the right
thing to do. I think this is one of the most common problems with a lot
of time-management advice; too often productivity gurus focus on how to
do things quickly, but the vast majority of things people do quickly
should not be done at all. (Read Getting Things Done
.)
2. Is my mindset in the positive or the negative?
Where your mind goes, energy flows. Which area of your life do you
tend to focus on: what you have or what’s missing from your life?
If you
scrutinize your habitual thoughts, what do you tend to spend more time
dwelling on? The positives or the negatives?
Rather than focusing on what you don’t have and begrudging those who
are better off than you, perhaps you should acknowledge that you have lots to be thankful for. Developing a habit of appreciating what you have can create a new level
of emotional well-being and strength. But the real question is: do you
take time to feel deeply grateful with your mind, body, heart and
soul? That’s where the energy to take positive action comes from.
So don’t let negativity and drama get the best of you. Happy,
successful people tune out negativity to make room
for positivity. Be wise enough to follow in their footsteps. Walk away
from the nonsense around you.
Also, along these same lines, accept the fact that there’s a lot you
can’t control. And if you focus on what you can’t control, you’ll do
nothing but create more stress for yourself. So remember, you can
influence many aspects of your life but you can’t control them
entirely. Once you fully accept and adopt this pattern of thinking,
another important question must be asked:
3. What meaning am I assigning to my challenges?
Even when we’re being positive, we all have challenges; there’s no
escaping that. But how you feel about your life has little to do with
the events in it or what has (or hasn’t) happened to you. The meaning
you assign to these things controls the quality of your life. Most of
the time, however, you may be unaware of the effect of your unconscious
mind in assigning meaning to life’s events. So check-in with yourself…
- When something happens that disrupts your life (an illness, an
injury, a job loss, etc.), do you tend to think that this is the end or
the beginning?
- If someone confronts you, is that person insulting you, coaching you or trying to care for you?
- Does a big problem mean that God is punishing you or challenging
you? Or is it possible that this problem isn’t really a problem at all,
but an opportunity?
Bottom line: When something negative happens, view this circumstance
as a chance to learn something you didn’t know. Don’t wish it never
happened. Don’t try to step back in time. Take the lessons learned and
step forward. You have to tell yourself, “It’s OK. I’m doing OK. I can handle this.”
You need to know that it’s better to cross new lines and suffer the
consequences of a lesson learned from time to time, than to just stare
at the lines for the rest of your life and always wonder.
Also keep in mind that the past, even when troubled, is invaluable to
your present. It provides a solid foundation for everything you’re
doing now. Learn from it – the mistakes and the successes – and then
let it go. This process might seem easier said than done, but it
depends on your focus. The past is just training; it doesn’t define you
in this moment. Think about what went wrong, but only in terms of how
it will help you make things right.
When we shift our habitual focus and meanings, there’s no limit on
what life can become. A change of focus and a shift in meaning can
literally alter our biochemistry and the trajectory of our lives in a
couple minutes flat.
So take control and always remember: Meaning equals emotion and
emotion equals power. Choose wisely. Find an empowering meaning in any
event, and best will always be yours for the taking.
And that leads right in to the next question…
4. What will I do next to progress?
While everyone else is talking about it, successful people are quietly doing it.
It doesn’t matter if you
have a genius IQ and a PhD in Quantum Physics, you can’t change anything
or make any sort of real-world progress without taking action. There’s
a huge difference between knowing how to do something and actually
doing it. Knowledge and intelligence are both useless without action.
It’s as simple as that.
Successful people know that a good plan executed today is better than
a perfect plan executed someday (or put off indefinitely!). They don’t wait for the “right time”
or the “right day” or the “right (impossible) circumstances”, because
they know these reactions are based on a fear and nothing more. They
take action here and now, today – because that’s where real progress
happens.
5. What tangible reminders do I need to see to stay motivated?
You want to lose weight, but when you’re tired, it’s easy to
rationalize that you’ll start exercising and eating right tomorrow. You
want to build a more profitable business, but when you’re caught up in
the daily grind, it’s easy to just do what’s familiar instead of what’s
required for growth. You want to nurture your closest relationships,
but when you’re busy, it’s easy to rationalize that you really need to
work on that client proposal instead.
Few good things come easy, and when the going gets tough we often
take the easy way out – even though the easy way takes us the wrong way.
To combat this, successful people create tangible reminders that pull
them back from the brink of their weak impulses. One man has a copy of
his credit card balance taped to his computer monitor; it serves as a
constant reminder of the debt he wants to pay off. Another friend keeps
a photo of herself when she was 90 pounds heavier on her refrigerator
as a reminder of the person she never wants to be again. And another
fills his desk with family photos, both because he loves looking at them
and because, when work gets really tough, these photos remind him of
the people he is ultimately working for.
Think of moments when you are most likely to give in to impulses that
take you farther away from your ultimate goals. Then use tangible
reminders of those goals to interrupt the impulse and keep you on track.
Afterthoughts
Now that you’re aware of the power of these five questions and their
subsequent decisions, start looking for role models who are experiencing
what you want out of life. When we observe someone we want to learn
from and we have a crystal clear idea of what we want to create for
ourselves, it unlocks a tremendous amount of motivation. Human beings
are socially inclined, and when we get the idea that we want to join
some elite circle up above us, that is what really motivates us to
achieve greatness. “Look, they did it. I can do it too!”
And yes, you CAN!
It may sound overly simplistic, but when you spend enough days asking
yourself the right questions and you spend enough evenings studying
people who have been where you want to go, you’ll gradually clear a
pathway to create the positive change you desire in life.
