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As you start the week
As you start the week, can you think of one thing which you can make your outstanding success this week?
Do you feel more energised when you write down you goals for the week on a Monday?
I do! But I find it’s tempting to end up with A LOT of many goals though. And that’s an easy way to self sabotage or, if you’re a manager, sabotage your team.
When I walked 5,000 km walk from Mongolia to Hong Kong, I fell into this trap.
As I had just had my first TV show, I was suddenly being offered lots of exciting opportunities – to tag onto the next trip. I found myself saying yes to everything.
In the end, these were my TEN (!) goals, or “priorities” for the new expedition:
The result, predictably, was that throughout the journey – I was completely exhausted, and I did not enjoy it much!
I had so many things to think about and work on, every day. In the end, through a lot of effort and pain, I did achieve most of these goals – to a reasonable degree. But I did not achieve any of them to an OUTSTANDING degree.
The expedition was fine (but a slog);
the book was fine (but not my greatest);
the TV show was fine (but not my greatest);
Etc.
Essentialism revisited
I have recently been re-reading Greg McKeown’s wonderful 2014 book “Essentialism” in which he notes the importance of learning to distinguish between the essential and non-essential in life.
We all have a lot of competing demands, and many opportunities. As the world moves faster, there are more and more things we can do with our time!
But if we say yes to everything, then we’re probably, actually, saying no to doing anything really well.
McKeown notes that originally, the word “priority” was a singular word – about choosing a SINGLE thing to do really well.
But now we have corrupted the word into “priorities” – and sometimes, like me on my expedition, we might even have TEN priorities!
If I’m honest, I know that the times in life that I’ve had too many “priorities”, have also been the times I’ve been least happy, most exhausted, and produced little that I am really proud of.
A question for you – your outstanding success
So, a question for today (which could relate to your work, or your personal life):
Of your many goals/priorities right now – which one thing would you like to make an OUTSTANDING success?
(And the parallel question – what things can you take off your list?)
To a less is more week,
Rob
Read more on my post about the benefit of balancing the negatives with the positives.