"Do not judge your results.  Judge your activity."

How do you know if you're staying on the upward curve of the slight edge?  Well, ask yourself this question: What am I focusing on more - my results or my activity?

In some cases, I think we need to throw our compulsion to see results out the window.  Why?  Because our mental time frame for when we think we should start experiencing results is terribly skewed.

The Time it Takes

Once upon a time, most people were self-employed - they were farmers.  In the spring, they plowed and fertilized the land so that they could plant seeds.  Then they spend months weeding and watering those plants under the hot summer sun.  After time, sacrifice, patience, sweat and toil, they are finally able to reap a harvest.

Today, we go to the grocery store and check out. 

I'm not proposing we need to "go backwards" and all become farmers, but we do need to cultivate the mentality of a farmer when it comes to achieving success.  How ridiculous it would be for a farmer to plant apple seeds and wake up the next day expecting to eat apples?  But this is the attitude that most people take toward achieving results in their lives.  They want to see the payoff right away.  We're all a little tipsy on instant gratification.

Seasons of Life
 
Results are important, but don't go looking for them in the spring.  Wait for the fall.  And in the meantime keep doing the activity.  Keep watering, cultivating, weeding, fertilizing, pruning, and let the shining of the sun and the passing of time work its magic.  It's a healthier, more productive way to go because it is an approach that stays true to the nature of success and the seasons of life.

You Already Know What to Do

Success is simple.  As Jim Rohn said, it's simply a matter of mastering the fundamentals.  To grow a good crop, a farmer knows that he needs rich soil, seeds, water, and sun.  He can add fancier ways of doing things, but those fundamentals are the foundation of achieving a harvest.  No matter what you want to achieve, you can break it down into a set of actions that you can do every day to remain on the positive side of the slight edge.  Don't make it any more complicated.  Don't get hung up on results.  Just do the activity because achieving success really is as simple as that.

This weekend's OWL assignment comes from another tip from the Chris Guillebeau CD.  He tells a story about a guy who wasn't too happy with how complacent he was being with his life.  So one day, he decides to break out of his routine by visiting a nearby museum on his lunch break.  Then he started getting into photography.  When his company needed work done overseas, he took the opportunity and got to experience France for a few weeks.  The next time he had to go to France for work, he took his family.  Gradually he shifted his work until he was able to work for himself as a consultant.  Then, because they loved France so much, he moved there with his family.  This guy was able to change his entire life all because he decided to do something different one day and let that little "life experiment" open his eyes up to what else he could do outside of his usual routine.

This story really highlights how the decision to break out of our routine and make a conscious effort to do something that isn't normal behavior for us can initiate a snowball effect in our lives.  The man in the story (true story btw) basically wanted to make a life-change, but as you can imagine, based on his circumstances he couldn't just pick up and commit to anything drastic off the bat.  So he started with something small, then he allowed himself to follow a passion (photography).  These little experiments made him more comfortable with change so when there was an opportunity to work in Europe, he took it. Then getting familiar with living in a foreign country led him to consider the possibility of moving his family.  One thing led to another, but it all started with him deciding to do something out of the ordinary with his lunch break.

Even if you don't desire to dramatically change your life, it's still good to develop our sense of awareness so that we are not living our lives on auto-pilot mode.  Our brains love routine.  Your brain is perfectly happy seeing you live every year the same as last year.  And that's what we do even while we're wishing things could be different.  Einstein calls this the definition of insanity: doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.

You may feel like you're fooling yourself when you first try this experiment - you'll wonder how could something so insignificant contribute to any real change.  But even just breaking out of your routine even the tiniest bit will fire up parts of your brain that you've rarely used before.  Then all you have to do is keep that ball rolling and magic will start happening.

I can trace many of the significant events and opportunities in my life to one simple decision to do something different one day.

So your assignment is to pick something to do this week that breaks your routine and takes you out of your comfort zone a little bit and be open to where it leads you after that.

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant." 
- Robert Louis Stevenson

What is the source of frustration and discouragement?  In my humble opinion, I believe we experience discouragement when reality doesn't meet our expectations - when we're just not getting the results we want.

Results are good.  All our work is for results.  But if you're planting apple seeds one day and waking up the next morning expecting to pick fruit from the tree, you're in for nothing but frustration and discouragement.

What if, for one year, you forget about the results?  What if you just focused on planting as many seeds as you could every day?  Imagine how that would that change your whole attitude.  Feelings of discouragement would just melt away because you're not stressed out over whether or not reality is matching your expectations.  You're focused on the one thing that you have control over: planting seeds.  No seed is too small and sometimes even the seed that you thought fell where it couldn't grow can surprise you by sprouting up when you're not looking.  In fact, this is something that happens all the time.

Yes, there is a time to focus on results in order to evaluate and measure our activity.  The problem is we want to judge the results far too early.  Time must always be factored into the equation...and plenty of it!  That is why I suggested staying focused on planting seeds for a solid year - you accept the passing of time right off the bat.  Or better still, give it 18 months.  This is what's called the "J Curve" - the principle that it takes 18 months from the point in time that you set a significant goal to the point in time when your goal comes into full fruition.

This may seem like quite a challenge, but think about it.  18 months are going to pass anyway and wouldn't it be nice to let go of what's causing you so much discouragement?  We cannot always control our results, but we can control how many seeds we plant today.  Focus on the seeds and keep faith in the harvest that is coming to you.

I've watched many interviews of successful people and when they're asked what was the single most powerful factor or key to their success, they all pretty much say the same thing: that they've been more consistent than most people.

Consistency is everything.  But successful people aren't just consistent.  They are persistently consistent.  At first glance, this may sound redundant, but when you get into the challenge of being consistent at anything, you really start to feel just how persistence comes into play.

And this is where habits come in.  The dictionary defines habits as:

So, we've accomplished four thing in this process so far.  We've...
1. set a goal/point B
2. wrote it down
3. accepted that we must reprogram the way we think
4. accepted the power of taking baby steps

Now, there's another ingredient you need to achieve your goals.  It's called THE MAGIC FACTOR.  I learned about the "magic factor" in a goal designing program by Darren Hardy, the publisher of SUCCESS magazine. It is hands-down the best thing I have ever learned in 23 years of being exposed to personal development material.

Out of everything and anything that I can write about goals, this is the most important.  If this is the only piece of information that you remember from this blog or any source of personal development information, you'll be more than good to go.

Are you ready for it?  Here it is...