*I published this post a year ago, and now I'm re-posting it now because it's worth remembering.


In an interview with Darren Hardy, the publisher of SUCCESS magazine, he makes an incredibly important point to carry with you in your journey of personal development.

If you're a PD (personal development) newbie or even if you've been around a long time, you've probably experienced bouts of feeling overwhelmed by all the information. There's just soooooooo much to learn and you want to consume it all. You're jumping from book to book, audio to audio, program to program, blog to blog, etc. You're wired up with exciting information about how to improve your life in a million different ways and you feel great!

But then a few months or even a couple years pass by and though you feel and see some positive effects, you also realize that you haven't really applied what you've been learning. Yes, your life and overall sense of well-being has improved, but you know in your gut that you could and should be achieving more progress faster. And then the guilt starts setting in. This is what Darren Hardy called "personal development frustration" in his interview.

So how do we avoid it?

Darren Hardy says your mind is like an empty glass and it will hold whatever you put in it. Now imagine all the negative we encounter as we go thru our day. That's dirty water going in your glass whether you like it or not. The only way to get that dirty water out is to flush it with a continuous stream of clean water. That clean water is the positive input of personal development.

So, every day you have to keep that stream of positive input flowing constantly to flush out the negative, but the secret to avoid feeling overwhelmed by all the wonderful things you want to implement is to simply pick one thing that you want to focus on and apply it consistently and persistently starting right now for the next 30 to 90 days. Now, that stream of general PD input is still flowing because you can never take a break from flushing your mind because the monsters of negativity never take a break, but what you've done is allowed that stream of information to go into the background so that you can focus on one, specific thing to start applying in your life.

So pick your one thing now! Do you want to start implementing that investment plan that you read about 2 years ago? How about that exercise routine that sounded so good on the cd you listened to last month? Pick one thing and as Darren Hardy said: "Drive it deep!"

Next, we will take a look at our dreams and goals.  We are half-way through the year, folks!  We are going to examine where we stand with our personal goals and refresh, revamp, and revive that list.

And last, we are going to identify the half a dozen habits that will propel us forward in alignment with our dreams and goals.  As Jim Rohn says, success is not complicated.  Success is simple.  It all comes down to about half a dozen practices that you do on a consistent basis that create all of your success.

What do you need to bring?  A notebook and pen.  You'll be taking lots of notes!
  

Thought: There are people in this world who have multi-million dollar companies and yet do not have a personal office area.  Interesting.  What does this mean?  Well, all business have different needs, but it's easy to see how technology can eliminate alot of the "stuff" that we think we need to be productive.  In fact, getting rid of the stuff might actually make us more productive.

Dan Sullivan, co-founder of "Strategic Coach" (a $25 million dollar company) says a couple of significant things about "the office".

- just get rid of the office

- the office is where entrepreneurs go to hide from opportunity

- it can be part of an inferiority complex because entrepreneurs struggling to establish themselves fall into thinking that a nice, big office helps serve to validate their business.

- your office quickly becomes a mess of incomplete work that steals your energy and makes you discouraged

Hmmm, reminds me of the 37signals guys.  They also have a multi-million dollar company and they require NONE of their employees to come into "the office".  They do this because they believe that real work never gets done in the office.  They ask, "Where do you go when you really need to think and get stuff done?"  The answer is NEVER "The office."  Seems to be working out for them.

I don't think your office needs to look like the pic above.  But having a desk that is completely clear by night time might be a thought.  I used to think I needed a desk with alot of space for alot of stuff, but I decided to go without an "office space" for a while and...

1)  I haven't missed a thing.

2)  I've been getting more things done.

3)  I've been more focused on events, experiences, and people - being out in the marketplace and making things happen.

4)  Everything that used to take up physical space can be transferred to "The Cloud".

5)  My laptop even broke down and I haven't even really missed that either.

6)  Throwing away stuff feels like I'm throwing away my excuses.

Living a successful life boils down to approaching life in a small number of uncommon ways.  One of those ways is to ALWAYS DO THE MOST UNPLEASANT THING FIRST.  I have not mastered this lesson.  Yet.  It's definitely a challenge, but sooooo worth it.  Just imagine how your day, week, month, year, life can be so incredibly different if you always did the most challenging thing first.  We like to distract ourselves and feel like we're accomplishing so much with the items we write down and check off on our to do list, but chances are...the most significant thing never got done.  So here's the challenge:  This is a new week.  Forget about all the other junk on your to do list and just focus on that one ugly, annoying, scary frog each day.  You can do it.  It's just one week.  You already know what results you've been getting from doing things the same old way.  It's time to try something new.  Let's see how different life can be when you EAT THAT FROG!

Darren Hardy said that success is not about being on top of 5,000 different things.  Success is about doing about half a dozen things 5,000 times.  In the words of Jim Rohn, "Success is consistency around the fundamentals."

What are those fundamentals for you?  Write them down.  Look at them everyday.  And FOCUS.