“The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing.” — Stephen Covey I am often amazed at how many of us have been given the same bad advice over the years, and, in retrospect, how often I have given it myself. I mean advice such as: live a balanced life, create work-life balance, […]
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“The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing.” — Stephen Covey
I am often amazed at how many of us have been given the same bad advice over the years, and, in retrospect, how often I have given it myself. I mean advice such as: live a balanced life, create work-life balance, and make sure that your wheel of life is balanced properly in each area so that it can roll smoothly.
I am amazed because, first, I have come to realize that a balanced life is not really possible. And secondly, why would you want to have it, unless you were striving for mediocrity?
As Gary Keller, co-founder and chairman of the real-estate firm Keller Williams, points out in his book, “The One Thing,” greatness occurs at the extremes. And, treating everything with the same importance or just prioritizing your schedule prevents you from reaching mastery in anything.
Integration is the key. Finding work that you are passionate about and that is aligned with your purpose and values, or at least your current purpose and values, is a way to create seamlessness between your professional and personal lives.
Build your values into whatever you do — be so inspired and motivated by what you do that it positively affects everything else. Don’t take a linear approach to life, but integrate spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental renewal into every day.
Treat your life like a sprint rather than a steady-paced long distance race: have focused periods of high energy, punctuated by periods of intermittent renewal for rest, relationship building, mindfulness, exercise, and reading.
Focus on those vital few things that, when done well, will have the greatest significant impact. Don’t get sucked into the trap of infinite capacity by trying to prioritize your schedule. Get clear on your key things and schedule your priorities.
Focus, focus, focus — make the affairs of your life number one or two. Henry David Thoreau stated it more eloquently at Walden’s Pond: “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million, count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on a thumb nail.”
Lastly, find and commit to a process that enables you to articulate an integrated and focused approach to life. Here are seven steps to achieving integration and focus that I follow:
1. Write out your life’s purpose or mission statement, your reason for being. If you already have a statement, rewrite it at the beginning of each week. If you don’t have a statement, silently reflect on your true purpose and write whatever comes to mind.
2. Write down and reflect upon your most important values.Remember that we value what we do and do what we value.
3. Write down your intentions for your life, the year, and the coming week. We become what we think about all day long. An intention focuses both our conscious and subconscious minds and guides our energy and actions.
4. Make a commitment to self-renewal by writing down activities that will regenerate you at the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels. Consider investing an hour a day on renewal activities.
5. Select and record one to three “vital” goals for the week. A “vital” goal is verifiable, inspiring, time-bound, actionable, and limitless. One way to make a goal limitless might be to add the words “or more” at the end.
6. Use your weekly scheduler and make commitments to yourself to have the content of your schedule be congruent with your purpose, values, intentions, and goals. This is not the place for standing appointments, but a place for blocking out chunks of time for inspired action — time for exercising, meditating, reading, writing, dreaming, and just allowing yourself to be you.
7. As you progress through the week, be cognizant of the things that you are doing that you could delegate, automate, or eliminate. Make some conscious choices to have these activities removed from your routine so that you can create space for the things that are truly purposeful and inspiring to you.
Ralph L. Simone is founder of Productivity Leadership Systems (PLS) in Baldwinsville. Contact him at ralph@discoverpls.com