I have been suffering from ‘shiny object syndrome’ for a long time now.
I get easily lured by the next big thing, the next good idea, the next course, the next platform. I am writing on three platforms, building audience on each one of them separately, writing and publishing books, sketching, meditating, building a ghostwriting business and creating educational email courses for my clients.
But here is the problem, I am not a superwoman.
I can excel at one of these activities (any one for that matter) but not at all of them simultaneously. Having numerous concurrent goals means I end up being average at everything. Scrambling between tasks leads to lost time and mental energy leading to loss of creativity and unnecessary stress. I’m afraid that my motivation will eventually wane, leaving me disappointed.
Something has to change.
So, this week, I went on a quest to find out what can I do to get out of this conundrum. My quest led me to the book called ‘One Thing’ by Gary Keller. The book caused a storm back in 2013, toping the charts and selling more than 2.5 million copies.
The book had one clear message, if there is ‘one thing’ that prevents us from achieving our goals and realizing our full potential, it’s our inability to focus on ‘one thing.’
The book refers to a scene in the movie ‘City Slickers.’
Curly, the gritty cowboy played by the late Jack Palance, and city slicker Mitch, played by Billy Crystal, leave the group to search for stray cattle. Although they had clashed for most of the movie, riding along together they finally connect over a conversation about life. Suddenly, Curly reins his horse to a stop and turns in the saddle to face Mitch.
Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
Mitch: No. What?
Curly: This. [He holds up one finger.]
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing.
You stick to that and everything else don’t mean sh*t.
Mitch: That’s great, but what’s the “one thing”?
Curly: That’s what you’ve got to figure out.
From the mouth of a fictional character comes the biggest secret of scussess.
Figuring out and sticking with ‘one thing’ not only gives you a meaning and purpose in life but also makes it less stressful.
Success comes from choosing and doing the right things sequentially, each connected to and building on the previous one, rather than doing a lot of disparate things, simultaneously.
Extraordinary focus on One Thing each day is what leads to extraordinary success.
All those who have achieved big things in life were focused on ‘one thing’ to the point of obsession–whether it was Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Beatles, Serena Williams, Michael Jordan, Mark Zuckerberg, Thomas Edison or Oprah Winfrey.
But if the answer is so obvious, that we need to focus on ‘one thing’ then why can’t most people (including me) do that? It makes sense, and we are pretty logical intelligent people. Surely we should be able to do that.
But seems like it’s not so easy. We have some deep seeded beliefs that stop us from finding and focusing on the ‘one thing.’
We think all things are equally important.
We think if we could multitask, we can do more.
We think if we are more disciplined, we can get more done.
We think we can achieve anything with willpower.
We think we should have a work-life balance.
We think dreaming big is bad for us.
Here is how Garry Keller busts these myths in the book:
Everything doesn’t matters equally.
Something matter more than the others. Pareto's 80/20 principle applies to almost everything. So if minority effort leads to the majority results, then focusing on the few highest impact things is the key to success.
“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Multitasking doesn’t work.
It doesn't matter how good of a multitasker you think you are, no one can get more done by multitasking. Clifford Nass of Stanford University proved that multitasking doesn't work. And while multitaskers think they are succeeding, they are actually performing below average. So it’s better to tackle one task at a time.
“To do two things at once is to do neither.” - Publilius Syrus
We don’t need anymore discipline.
One of the most prevalent myths of our culture is self-discipline. Contrary to popular believe success is not a marathon of disciplined actions. We don’t need anymore discipline than we already have. We just need to direct it and manage it a little better. When you exercise discipline, you train your body and your mind to act in a certain way.
When you do it long enough, it becomes a habit and you no longer require discipline.
Willpower can’t be summoned at will.
Even though the famous saying goes, where there is a will there is a way, unfortunately willpower doesn’t hold. Willpower is like the battery of your phone. The more you use it, the more it gets drained, until it's completely gone.
That's why it's easier to go back to smoking when you get home after a rough day. Many activities drain willpower and if you're not aware of it, your battery will eventually leak and you’re left with no willpower to face the most important task.
That’s why start the day with your ‘one thing.’ This will allow you to tackle the most critical tasks while your battery is fully charged.
“Odysseus understood how weak will power actually is when he asked his crew to bind him to the mast while sailing by the seductive Sirens.” Patricia Cohen
You can’t have work-life balance all the time.
While it seems like an obvious concept, the goal of achieving a balanced life is relatively recent. The idea emerged in the 1980s when a critical mass of women entered the workforce and had to balance the demands of work and home in the 1990s. The balance became important for men too. But it is an idealistic idea not realistic.
Magic happens at extremes. To achieve an extraordinary result, you must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands. This requires getting extremely out of balance.
When you're working work when you're having family time, have family time.
Thinking big is not bad for us.
We have been told that thinking too big will not lead you to success. Instead, you should lower your sights to more realistic goals. Well, it’s a lie.
Thinking big and having big goals is essential to extraordinary results. Success requires action and actions requires thought. The only actions that become springbards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with. Don’t let small thinking cut your life down to size. Think big, aim high, act bold and just see how big can you blow up your life.
What you do and how big a thing determines your level of success.
Now it's time to ask yourself, what is my one thing?
What is the one thing that I can do that by doing it everything else will be either easier or completely unnecessary?
I devised a small exercise for that.
Make a list of all the things you’re doing and want to do.
Circle the five things that you think you must now.
Which one you want to do more than anything else?
It did the exercise myself and the answer was so obvious that I felt foolish for not recognizing it before.
The ‘one thing’ I want to do more than anything else is - to write books.
“It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.” - Og Mandino
Now, it’s your turn. Make a list of all the things you’re doing and find your ‘one thing.’ This is your ultimate goal. Now that you have figured it out let’s figure out how to implement it.
There are three components to it:
Purpose
Passion
Priority
Your purpose is the one thing that you want your life to be more than anything else.
Your passion is the list of activities and outcome you’re passionate about.
Your priority is what you do now that gets you there.
Now ask yourself:
Based on my ultimate goal what is the one thing that I can do in the next five years to reach it?
Based on my five year goal, what is the one thing I can do this year?
Based on my one year goal, what can I do this month?
Based on this month’s goal, what can I do this week?
Based on this week's goal, what can I do today?
And based on my today's goal, what can I do now?
This simple exercise helps dial in daily and weekly priorities and you can grow from there.
How has this exercise helped me?
This simple exercise of identifying my most significant 'one thing' has been truly enlightening. It's enabled me to zero in on 'writing books' as my foremost priority and cease expending energy on projects that don't align with this primary goal.
I've come to understand that tackling projects sequentially yields greater productivity than attempting to address them simultaneously.
My ultimate goal is to write 100 books in 10 years. That means writing a book a month. So my daily goal is writing a chapter a day to achieve that.
You might thing this is outrageous. Why would anyone want to write 100 books in 10 years and writing a chapter a day is asking yourself too much.
But this big goal fires me up.
With my current skill level writing a 1000 word chapter is not as big a task as it used to be. And as I continue to do that, it will becomes easier and easier.
Productivity isn’t about being a workhorse, keeping busy or burning the midnight oil…It’s more about priorities, planning and fiercely protecting your time. - Margarita Tartakovsky
Each book is unique, and so is the writing process for each one. The Travel Memoir I completed between October and December 2023 recounted my journeys and included a series of exercises I employed during its creation. In contrast, my memoir 'My Life In 100 Objects' consisted of fully formed stories from my personal experiences.
The current book is a work in progress, evolving alongside my own discoveries and the application of incremental changes in my life. This chapter may undergo transformations before final publication, adapting to incorporate newfound insights as I progress through the first draft.
I'm navigating through the writing process, allowing the narrative to unfold organically. After all, writing, in its purest essence, is the journey of uncovering our own truths.
That’s all from me this week.
See you next week.
This article was super helpful, thank you for sharing!
What a great post Neera. Whilst reading, my first thought was what did I have on my list for this morning. Priority one was to pick all the green tomatoes, prepare food for a meal, and start the painting I want to do for my sister’s birthday. Success. As for the next couple of months I aim to paint when time allows, and the fact I never spend a whole day doing that works well. My writing has stopped for now as I have posts completed ready to be sent every week up until the end of May. You know how much time researching and writing takes so I am hopeful that my art gets priority until later this year when I will start again. Cooking is also a happy place for me and it is rarely just meat and three vegetables, I like to create in the kitchen also. Mornings are my time for planning meals.