Tag Archives: personal effectiveness

On expertise

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Pick your one thing as early as you can and become an expert at it.

There’s an example I heard of a top tax lawyer being very happy with the way their life has worked out after a couple of decades or more working in a narrow, perceivably dull, area.

Go deep and narrow. There will always be good things going on there the longer you stay in the space, learning and evolving.

The tax lawyer will be satisfied at the end of their working days once they retire, financially secure, with a legacy earned from a raft of loyal clients.

They may have built their own practice or just be a well-known expert in the space in high demand.

Assume you can do this for yourself and work hard to achieve it in your space.

Hard work on hard things

Work on hard things. The payback for doing them is massive.

You’ll develop mental calluses.

Your brain will recognise what you’re doing and throw everything at you to put you off course.

The challenge is to fight the resistance and do it anyway.

Stay on the path you’ve set for yourself. Suffer a little.

You’ll gain strength and confidence from knowing you can do hard things.

Test your levels of courage, bravery, strength, or whatever you find hard right now.

Prove you can change. The benefits will flow.

Stop dreaming, start doing.

Completing those things that suck will always make you stronger.

Ways to be nice to yourself

Go sit in a church. Not for the religion unless that’s your thing. Meditate. Enjoy the silence. Feel safe.

Listen to an album. Listen to it, stop everything else. See where it takes you. Make some notes on the feelings you feel, plus anything else that pops up in your head.

A smell in the place you work. Coffee maybe, a candle, incense sticks. It gives you a sense that you’re in your space.

Buy something for yourself. A piece of clothing you like (rather than need). A t-shirt, maybe. A pen or a notebook. Don’t go crazy on price; it’s just a small token.

Watch a favourite movie. Spend the couple of hours totally into it. No other distractions.

Exercise. Even a dozen squats while you make a coffee is something. The more you can do, the better. Do whatever you can.

Treating yourself like someone special, someone who deserves to be treated well, will make you stronger.

You have a lot to give.

You’re valuable.

You deserve it.

Watch your words

Do you talk to yourself like someone you like, or someone you despise?

Do you cheerlead for yourself?

Are you constantly looking at the things you think and do like they’re the worst or the best?

Be nice in what you say, think, and do for yourself.

Don’t crap on yourself over and over again. Be nice.

Give yourself a chance to win, to grow.

Don’t hold yourself back by telling yourself that you’re bad at this, awful at that, a terrible person, a bad parent, and so on. This isn’t helping.

Solve your own problems first

If you’re not OK, you’re not going to be of use to those around you.

The temptation is there within us to jump in and fix other people who we think need fixing, but this is not required, especially if we are struggling ourselves.

On an aeroplane, we are told to put our own oxygen mask on first before helping anyone else. It’s for the same reason.

This principle is easy to read but can be difficult to put into practice.

Set your life plans up to fix the things that you find difficult, then see if you can help others through your learnings.

The case for making notes

I started writing in early 2020 in simple lined notebooks as a way of straightening out my thinking. By June of that year I had started my fifth book.

There was a lot coming out. I was 48 years old. Life was a struggle. I couldn’t seem to make anything stick.

I had been working on my own small business for about 4 years. It was making money and a small team was supporting me but there was little satisfaction coming from the work I was putting in.

The writing stopped me in my tracks.

From my writing, I could see that things had to change. I could map out ideas for the future, make sense of the lack of fun, the lack of progress, and the breakdown in my self-belief.

It did a couple of important things that I needed at the time – it put it all there in front of me, and it set me on a new path.

One of the by-products of continually writing these notes has been the ability to revisit them. The progress I’ve made since those dark days is clear.

I took time to listen to what was going on inside myself, and being real about my attitude to life. I hadn’t done this before, and I’m glad I began to. It’s unlocked much more than I thought it would.

The words I wrote are hard to look back on but they needed to be said. I had to have this kind of talk to myself, being honest about where my life was at.

It all came out on the page once I committed to the process, the practice, of writing things out.

When I think back on how powerful a tool it has been (and still is), it’s up there with the best things that I’ve ever done for myself.

Find someone to learn from

Assume this is NOT the person.

It doesn’t have to be Oprah or any shining light with a life nailed down.

It can be someone who works closely to you and does work that you admire.

It can be someone you spend time with, and the way they communicate is a skill you’d like to emulate.

It can be a relationship that works formally or informally.

The person leading can be in a position of power, but can just as easily be a peer.

If the example they set suits the path you want to take, there’s some value there.

Choose your friends with care

Was at a cafe this morning with my wife and the dog. A guy who works in the same industry as my wife showed up, and he began talking about their ‘shared’ challenges.

He complained of a lack of time, about having too many things to do, and that he doesn’t see an end to this in his business. He was complaining about how busy he is while also mentioning his upcoming three week vacation (how fabulous?!) that was stressing him out…

I asked if he has a target to aim for, an end point for his business, and he shrugged his shoulders to express that he doesn’t, while looking at my wife to join him in agreeing this is always the way in their world.

It was a sixty second encounter but it spoke volumes.

Unless he begins to think differently, it will never end. His first world problems were not uncommon to ‘busy professionals’, but his level of relative misery was crying out for company. I’m sure he finds it often.

Surround yourself with people who hold you to a plan. Who lift you rather than drain you. Who you aspire to learn from and spend time with. Who help you get the best out of your life each day and cheerlead for you constantly.

The rest? Move on from them. Don’t get dragged down to their level.

They’re looking for people who agree with their outlook on life. People who validate their way of operating and share the same perceived challenges as they do.

If you’re on a down day, maybe you’ll feel like agreeing with them. Assume this isn’t going to work out well for you over the long term.

You’ll be keeping misery company soon enough, like two alcoholics propping up a bar, and it’ll become harder and harder to show it the door.

Nothing beats calm

NSW coastline

Yoga, meditation, or breathwork maybe?

It could be yin in the evenings, yang in the mornings.

Time to read. Quiet, alone time.

Writing time first thing in the morning or last thing at night.

It all matters.

It all adds to your spiritual bank balance (rather than taking away from it).

Nothing beats it.

Three short lines to ponder on

“If not me, who?

If not now, when?

If not here, where?”

I didn’t make these lines up, and I don’t know who did, but they are amazing.

Get out of your head and into your body by walking or doing some other kind of movement, and process these words as you go.

Write a few lines of your own when you’re done. See what pops up.

We were always ok

Before we knew who we were, or questioned anything about our life, we were good enough.

We were always good enough.

The things we learn as we get older, and the things we are told are wrong with us, blind us from this simple fact.

We were always ok.

Don’t let the stuff that comes up in our life take away what we were as children.

That innocence. That thrill for the new. The energy and excitement. The smiles.

When bad things happen, or you doubt yourself, remember this.

Let no one take this away from you.

Get in a group

Surround yourself with positive people and the right kind of influences.

The ones that take you somewhere new, to a different level.

The ones who lift you when you’re feeling down.

Loneliness can be a powerful force, dampening many dreams.

It takes effort on your part to join a group, especially if you’re an introvert, but the more groups that you’re part of, the lower the likelihood you’ll find yourself alone.

Book groups, study groups, sports teams and clubs, school groups, work social committees – there are plenty to choose from.

Get involved.

From these groups long-lasting friendships will form and develop over time.

You’ll go further, faster, surrounded by the right people.

Self belief: overcoming mental obstacles by making choices

One day we see the world as rosy, the next it can be nothing but problems.

We can write ourselves off, with our brains giving us no chance to succeed.

It takes self belief. The ability to decide and act is all on us.

The ability to override our brains is also on us.

It’s a choice.

All we are is the product of our choices.

“If you chase two rabbits…”

“… you will not catch either one.”

This is a Russian proverb from the front cover of ‘The One Thing’ by Keller and Papasan.

Read it, think about it, read it again, and use it. There’s great power inside its pages.

The power of taking on difficult challenges

I ran 31km yesterday as training for the Sydney marathon (49 days to go). It was a miserable day; cold, wet, and windy – very un-Sydney-like.

I had three and a half hours to think about why we should all push ourselves to do difficult things.

When we take on tough tasks, we grow stronger in our minds. The muscle grows the more we challenge it.

Doing hard things also makes us feel more sure of ourselves. We prove that we can overcome obstacles, making us more confident in other areas of life.

Mental toughness increases. These long runs are small victories on the path to the big day in front of large crowds on the streets of the city. I know I can do it on the day if I’ve put the work in week to week – it all compounds.

Want to set your own challenges? Start small and work your way up. Set clear goals and keep track of your progress. Remember, the hardest things often bring the best rewards in the end.

Disconnect to create: get away from the internet

I’m creating a dumb laptop, connected to nothing, that I can write and journal on. It’s solely for writing, to be used anywhere I want to take it.

Writing will be done with no distractions or temptations from the rest of the online world.

I will have to use a USB drive to transfer files to Obsidian or elsewhere, but having a dumb device is the way to focus.

My phone has been placed inside a faraday bag for most of the last two hours. I’ve not pulled it out or been tempted to once. It’s forgotten when it’s not looking at you.

This is the way it works. The notifications, the bright screens, the dings, pings, and the vibrations in your pocket – it’s a conspiracy against our ability to focus, to deliver our best work, to ship.

A shiny phone you spend your life caring about more than the humans who live and breathe around you is reducing your ability to create, evolve, grow, and become more than you were yesterday.

Take it away for a few minutes, hours, and even days, and watch what happens to your life in the process. Start with a faraday bag, maybe, and see what you come up with.

Pick a thing and do it

To-do lists are killers. We pile up task after task, creating this list that never ends.

Ever created a list with just a couple of things on it, like a shopping list of stuff you pick up from the store? The satisfaction when you tick everything off is a dopamine hit.

When we make a massive list, never getting to the end of it, we never get that hit. The nervousness builds knowing we have a pile of stuff that’s growing instead of reducing.

I try and get three things done a day. I get the biggest thing done first, and then the next biggest, and so on. If I clear the three things, I’ve achieved something small but normally meaningful to me based on what I have on my plate.

I have a long to-do list, but I see it more as a stockpile of possibles for my three task list that I attack every day. This way, the stress is reduced. I know I’m ok if those three things are done. Tomorrow is another day to attack the rest.

Shift that first thought

I don’t know why the reaction to anything is usually a negative one before a positive.

Maybe a cute baby gets a smile, or you see someone you know and like, and the safe feeling you associate with them makes you smile. These are times when there’s no downside, no bad feeling.

At work, that first thought is often one of negativity. It’s a battle to turn on the ‘can-do’ mindset, offering to help and solve a problem rather than highlight one. The questions come to the surface – why this, what that, why me???

I know it’s a choice in most cases – a choice to accept the bad thoughts and feelings.

Those times when I decide not to accept the bad and take the chance saying yes frequently lead to something good.

And, even if the immediate reward isn’t clear, there’s normally some kind of silver lining a little further into the future based on those good intentions being made real.

The planets align somehow. Don’t ask me how or why, but we’ve all had instances of these happy accidents.

For some, this is the norm. Why can’t it be for us, too?

The third goal

Cruyff speaks, we listen.

The third goal yesterday was a stand out moment for our football team.

I’ve been banging on about putting passes together, keeping the ball. The clock was ticking. It looked like we would miss out on the points again. The final substitutions had been made.

We got the break from a 50/50 challenge in the middle of the pitch and the ball suddenly started moving from back to front, one player to another to another, then finally at our striker’s feet.

She swings a big right foot at it and the net bulges. It was never missing.

I was pleased and proud of what just happened because the simplicity of the move made it so effective.

There was nothing fancy. The ball just went from player to player in maybe five passes max, and the finish was excellent, but it all came from passes.

The whole game is about making passes – executing on the most basic of skills. The team that does it the most wins most of the time.

The work will carry on. The weeks we play badly will be when we don’t execute on our plans and the frustration mounts as mistakes take over.

But when that plan comes together and the ball hits the back of the net at the end of a move as sweet as the one we delivered yesterday, there will be no frustration. We’ll be winning.

There is life beyond the scroll

Attempting to white-knuckle the task of beating the algorithms to stop or slow down your use of social media is doomed to failure.

The facts are clear if you think about it.

These mammoth tech businesses have armies of the brightest minds working against you as their business model.

Their job is to hijack your attention and keep you coming back for more, over and over again. And they do it so well.

The attention on Instagram, for example, and the seemingly non-stop growth of that attention, transcending age, gender, and social barriers, is off the chain.

Willpower alone is not enough. The algorithms are too strong, too smart, too skilled at keeping you fixated. Our psychological weaknesses as humans are being exploited.

To overcome the alogorithms and move on with a full life, cut them out.

Delete the apps from your device to eliminate that instant fix from your phone.

Reclaim that 2 to 5 to 15 to 50 minute block that you’d spend scrolling inside the app, using it for something practical instead.

Challenge yourself to make this change work. Your mental health and your ability to be productive will thank you later.