Unsurprisingly I’m heading into the new year thinking about my goals and it made me revisit my notes from the brilliant book “The One Thing” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.
There’s a really important principle I wanted to share with you:
“When you want the absolute best chance to succeed at anything you want, your approach should always be the same. Go small.”
“Going small is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. It’s recognising that not all things matter equally and finding the things that matter most.”
“The way to get the most out of your work and life is to go as small as possible”
But this isn’t how most of us think, especially if you’re a high achiever with a perfectionist mindset. We like to overcomplicate things; try to achieve too many things at once, and as a result, our calendars and to-do lists become overloaded and we become overwhelmed.
Unfortunately it’s just downhill from there. We get lost, feel perpetually frustrated and disappointed since we’re unable to meet our expectations as we struggle to do too many things at once, our stress levels ramp up and as a result our lives start to shrink. Not only do we end up unhappy and unfulfilled but we also achieve very little too.
This approach shrinks everything – our energy, impact, performance, and our life in general – everything that we don’t want to make small.
You only have so much time and energy, so by trying to achieve too many things at once, you spread yourself out, and you spread yourself thin. Whilst you want to achieve more, you end up achieving less, what’s more, even of you did make it work, this would require you to cut out certain things from your life that are integral to your happiness and success, like sleep, quality time with loved ones, exercise, eating well, and as these things go, you risk even greater levels of stress and disappointing results.
I’m all for big bold goals and I love helping people to achieve them, however, what most people don’t realise is that big success comes when we do a few things really well. That’s when you see really big results because you’ve honed your focus so you maximise your impact.
I’ve made this mistake plenty of times and unfortunately the result has always been the same – the more goals I set, the less of them I achieve and the more stressed I feel. I don’t want this for you.
Since it’s a new year I believe it’s a great time to reflect, reset and set some goals or intentions for the year ahead.
So my question to you is this:
What’s the ONE thing you’d like to achieve this year, that if you did, would have the greatest positive impact on your life?
Yes, just ONE thing because this is the best approach to getting what you want. If you achieve it before the year is out, then by all means set another goal, but for now, choose just one and put your energy into that because that’s when awesome things happen.
“Be like a postage stamp – stick to one thing until you get there” – Josh Billings
