Upon passing my resignation On February of this year to focus on business and CA2020, I had a massive dose of culture shock.
Having always thought of myself as a relatively disciplined person, i was dismayed by the drop in productivity that I experienced in the months following my resignation. I was both frustrated and disheartened. But, having been trained in the community to continually fall forward (learn from your mistakes and grow), I took an honest evaluation of myself and realized that I am not really that disciplined plus I completely lacked focus. With work, in some way or another, you are always given a list of things to do or at least goals and deadlines. Without work, I suddenly became accountable to nobody. Sure my mentor would check on me from time to time but it’s not like he pays me so I suddenly had a ton of excuses why I was not honouring goals and agreements.
The thing about the community is that sooner or later, you find the courage to face your monsters. You realize that you are accountable. To yourself. Two things helped me:
- 90day Wealth Conditioning Program that the coaches started. Since we had to text 5 successes/accomplishments everyday not just to our mentors but to other coaches and teammates as well, I had to really pull myself together and ACT! Since I had started this same program alone before but never gone past day 7, I admit it was a chore at first and there were days when I was hard-pressed to find a success to textblast about. But eventually it became routine. I was forming a habit. And a habit of success breeds success.
2. Parkinson’s Law
Parkinson’s law states “ work expands to fill the time available for its completion”. This means that if you give yourself a week to complete a two hour task, then (psychologically speaking) the task will increase in complexity and become more daunting so as to fill that week. It may not even fill the extra time with more work, but just stress and tension about having to get it done. By assigning the right amount of time to a task, we gain back more time and the task will reduce in complexity to its natural state.
Take this blog, for example. It took me many months to actually write another blog. I gave it too much time allotment. For “buffer or cushion”. 1 week. So what happened was I would take the extra time to research, find inspiration, read other blogs, etc. All this would cram in my head and the task would indeed seem bigger than it actually is and I would just opt not to do it. Also, I realized most of my “preparation” is just so I’d look/feel busy. So I started applying Parkinson’s Law. For those who saw a similarity in my experience whether in business or in personal life, pay attention.
Daily, I’d make a list of things to do and divide them by the amount of time it takes to complete each task. Then I would give myself only half the time to complete each task. Then I would treat these deadlines as unbreakable and I have to win against the clock. To do this I had to develop focus and intense concentration. As if nothing in the world exists except me and the task.
Our mentors would always remind us to always push ourselves beyond our limits. To strive to be excellent. I would always be thankful that I am in a community that gives me the best chance in reaching my full potential.
