You can not overestimate the unimportance of practically everything
The title is a quote from John Maxwell:
You can not overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.
One of the best quotes I've read in a while, at least when looking at my scattered, countless interests and goals. Read on to understand how this quote touches the core of happiness & high-performance and how you can uplevel both.
Happiness
Do you succeed in focusing on what is really important for you? Or is a lot of your time going to things that are not really important?
The important things are the things that contribute to your happiness. Focusing on what is important for YOU is the foundation of your happiness. We might get lost living someone else's life doing things that are important for them but that starve our own desires in the process. We don’t want that.
If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.
So it’s time to prioritize your life. And if you're not really sure how, I suggest to start with some exercises to get more clarity in what is important for you. Check out this free Life Clarity Guide.
High-performance
Once you have clarity on what is important for you, learning to focus on what moves the needle is the next killer ingredient to achieving what you want. And here also, the key is to focus only on the few things that are really important and that make the biggest impact.
Set goals for the most important desires, make a plan and start taking action. Check in with yourself: what action is essential to move the needle for this goal, for this dream, or for the impact I want to make?
The Pareto principle (20-80), Minimalism, Essentialism (book tip), … are all strategies to help you to focus on what is important. And John's quote is a great reminder: almost everything is unimportant.
What would give you the biggest result with the least effort? Can you focus on just one thing? And if not, challenge yourself. Are those other things really that important to hold on to, to invest time in, to get distracted by, or to loose energy on?
How efficient are you with your available time? How much real focus time can you create throughout the day? Are you batching your work? Are you removing distractions when you work? Are you putting discipline in place to do the hard things?
The hard things usually are the important ones, the easy things are most likely the unimportant ones.
Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.
(Read this article (in Dutch) to get more insights on how to train yourself to be more focused: Olympische Breintraining. Or this article on how to become more productive)
Don't fool yourself
Busyness does not equal productivity.
Busyness does not move the needle. Think about what you accomplish in a day. How much value does that create? How "deep" does that work go (how focused are you)? Would you benefit from more focus time without disruptions or distractions?
(For more info on moving from busyness to productivity, you can read this article.)
I started writing this as a reminder for myself. FOCUS was one of my focus words for 2020. I did not succeed elegantly. So I'm putting it out there again for 2021 while thinking of my goals and dreams. And I hope this can help you as well.
Feel fee to reach out to get clarity on what is important for you or to set up a system or find a partner in crime to move the needle towards your goals and dreams, towards what makes you happy.
You can also keep an eye on the THRIVE Academy (everything you need for a life fully lived, on your own pace (in Dutch)).
To a life in which we focus on what is important for us!
#becurious #becourageous #beyourbest
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Jan Aquarius - Live. Grow. Matter.
