Is there anything I am doing right now that, knowing what I now know, I wouldn’t get into again if I were starting over today?
Last week I asked you to define your X – the ONE thing that if you achieved it this year, would have the greatest positive impact on your life. This is your focal point because it’s the one thing you can achieve to get the best result possible.
The Pareto Law, also known as the 80/20 Principle states that a minority of causes, inputs or effort usually leads to a majority of results, outputs or rewards, so most of the outputs result from a very small portion of the causes or inputs. This pattern was discovered in 1897 by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto.
The reason the 80/20 Principle is so valuable is that it is counter-intuitive. We tend to expect that all causes will have roughly the same significance.
That all problems have a large number of causes, so that it is not worth isolating a few key causes.
That every behaviour matters equally in pursuit of our goals.
That every task we do is equally important in achieving our target.
That all our friends have roughly equal value to us.
That all opportunities are roughly of equal value.
That each day or week or year has the same significance.
That every bit of business, every product and every pound of sales revenue is as good as the other.
So we treat them all equally.
However, our expectation that causes and results are generally equally balanced is a fallacy, a deeply rooted mental trap that, if not recognised and acted upon, will make it much harder for you to achieve the results you want.
So you need to simplify in order to amplify.
It’s important to simplify everything you do by continually reducing or eliminating activities that take up too much time and contribute very little to your goals because this frees more time up to do things that really make a difference.
This can be hard for perfectionists because our natural tendency is to want to do it all, and do more because there’s the belief that, the longer and harder we work, the more hours we put in, the more we do, the more successful we will be.
But this isn’t the case because not everything matters equally.
It’s only by spending more time doing the activities that contribute the greatest value and enable you to achieve the most important results, and downsizing, delegating and eliminating the activities that contribute very little, will your results and rewards increase.
And the first place to start is with what needs to be reduced or eliminated, since you only have so much time and energy, you need to devote this to what matters most by eliminating or downsizing what’s insignificant or what is going to impede your progress.
For example, in terms of losing weight, it’s well known that 80% of your results come from your diet. Weight loss is 80% what you eat and 20% exercise. So with this in mind, it’s far better to concentrate all your efforts on improving your diet in order to maximise your results.
But what about your diet is currently your biggest downfall and will sabotage your efforts in pursuit of weight loss? Is it the sugar-laden biscuits you snack on throughout the day at work? Or is it the quantity of alcohol you drink each week? Or is it the unhealthy lunch you grab from a kiosk nearby at work?
Is there anything I am doing right now that, knowing my goal, is either going to delay my progress or prevent me getting there altogether?
And If you find the answer is “yes” then your next question is…
How do I get out of this situation or stop doing this, and how fast?
Discontinuing just one major activity, or doing less of it, is often the simplest and most effective way to start making progress.