What is the vision you are working towards? This was what Steven Covey noted in his book
the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, beginning with the end in mind.
And that's why clarity plays a big key in this, it's understanding for your
business, what is success for your business? How will you know exactly
where you want to be in business? And it's really from sitting down and kind
of understanding what that journey is for yourself. There's a great quote,
I love by a guy called Patanjali and he said when you're inspired by some great
purpose some extraordinary projects, your thoughts break their bonds your mind
transcends limitations and you find yourself in a new great and wonderful
world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents awakened and you find yourself
to be a far greater person than you ever imagined yourself to be. And that's the
power of vision because when you got a compelling, inspiring, and magnetic enough
vision, then you avoid unnecessary distractions. It's the power of the
routine, the power of the habits, of power what we do daily, not what we do once in
a while. You know Denzel Washington summed up something up very nicely
in one of his acceptance speeches when he said commitment gets you started but
consistency gets you over the finish line.
So it's the power of habits, what we get rewarded in public is a
result of all those habits we've done privately the habits that we've done
every day, those ritual habits. And the way to think about it going back to this
vision, if you connecting the vision with your consistency, if you want to know
what are those habits you've got to upgrade, because once you upgrade your
habits, your mindset, everything else begins to upgrade. Is to think in your
mind if you are already the person or business you want to be tomorrow, what
choices or habits would you embrace today? So again if you are already the person
you want to be tomorrow? Or the business you want to have
tomorrow? What choices or habits would you embrace today? Now a lot of people
focus on goals, what's more important is focusing on the process, the design of
something. Now as simple as who are you spending time
with? What are you reading? Are you planning your day the night before?
Because when you consciously design things to succeed without you,
then you don't have to make decisions all the time. Because think about it this
way, willpower never lasts. When we wake up every morning, we've got so many
decisions to make, what are we going to wear, who we're going to meet today, what should I
have for lunch? All of these decisions, if we can take those decisions away, as much
of them away so we can focus on what's most important, we begin to consciously
create an environment, a platform, and foundation if you will, in which it
becomes impossible not to succeed. Now if you're working for someone in the
company, or you're at school and you are at university and your professor says
you've got to hand this thesis in by Friday, or your boss says you've got to
hit your sales target by the end of this quarter, what are you going to do? You're
now held accountable, so you're gonna get this thesis done by Friday or your
academic grade suffer and you're going to hit those sales targets best you can
so you can get that promotion. Here's the thing
when it comes to your own life, your own business, who's holding you accountable? And
this is the accountability that environment really touches on, because
studies showed that if we say to ourselves, I'm going to do something, this is what
we're going to do this quarter, this is what I'm going to do this year, there's
actually only a 10% chance we'll actually do it and follow-through with it.
It's why new years resolutions never work because just by telling us if we're
going to do something, there's only a 10% chance we're gonna do it. One, is focus
now becomes the biggest differentiator between those that want to make it
somewhere and those that actually succeed because your ability to focus in the
world that is constantly demanding your attention whether it's the pings of
emails, social media pings, people requiring your time and saying
everything is urgent, that means you've got to be able to focus your attention
on what matters most. That's one issue from this. Now what this analogy shows is
the most businesses most people want things now, we're kind of in this
instantaneous generation, we want it now now now, and so we accept this
sort of shortcuts, but what this analogy shows is the power of consistency!