Business Finds

Setting Priorities

You don’t need to set a ton of different goals. Fewer is better. It’s better to achieve one big goal than to set 20 goals and fail to achieve any of them. Setting too many simultaneous goals will just dilute your focus.

A goal is a decision. If you set lots of goals at the same time, you haven’t made any real decisions. You’re just playing the field, hoping you’ll find the time to squeeze everything in. But there’s no commitment. What you have is a quagmire of potential distractions. One goal is clarity. Ten goals is confusion.

If you want to succeed in achieving your goals, pick just one or two at a time, and stick with them until they’re complete. You can also set new goals afterwards.

Try limiting yourself to one major personal goal and one major professional goal at a time. Stick with these priorities until they’re 100% complete. You’ll achieve your goals much more quickly if you do this.

One of the reasons I had such a great 2008 was that I was very clear about my primary goals. Going raw was my #1 personal goal. Finishing my book was my #1 professional goal.

While these goals were on my plate, I worked hard on them. They never slid under the radar. I couldn’t forget about them or ignore them. And since these were goals I really desired, I was inspired to take a lot of action.

If you have a goal that’s too big to stick with until it’s 100% complete, break it down into phases. For example, I broke my book project into different phases like creating the outline, writing the first draft, editing the book, and then promoting the book after it was released. That way I could work on other projects between phases to fit the schedules of others I worked with.

When you think about your New Year’s goals, try setting just one personal and one professional goal. Then commit to sticking with them until you’ve achieved them. If you aren’t willing to do that, then you’re just playing games with yourself. If the goals are really important to you, then you should get them done quickly and directly by minimizing distractions and obstacles.

Have you ever started off the New Year by making grand new promises to yourself? You list out your new goals (and re-list some old ones). You get excited about what you’ll accomplish. You think about how great your life will be when you get all those things done.

And then sometime in December, you look back and wonder where all the time went?

You certainly kept busy. You got a lot done. But somehow the stuff you didn’t get done was the stuff that really mattered. The stuff you completed just wasn’t as important. You did a good job of maintaining the status quo, but you failed to get ahead. This year turned out very much like the year before… and the year before that.

Where did you go wrong?

Setting the Right Goals

One possibility is that you set lame goals. It’s very common to set goals that come from social conditioning instead of setting goals we really care about. For example, maybe you set a goal to make a certain amount of money, but deep down you just don’t care that much about money. If you’d set a goal you really cared about instead, you might have accomplished it by now.

If you set a goal, and you aren’t as enthusiastic about that goal as a child asking for a piece of candy, your goal is probably pointless and uninspiring. You think you want it. You tell yourself you should want it. Intellectually you think it would be great to have it. But deep down it just doesn’t connect. You simply don’t care… not really. I know it’s hard, but you need to dump these types of goals. Otherwise you’re trying to climb a ladder that’s leaning against the wrong building. You’re not being authentic.

Good goals stir you emotionally. They scare you. They push you to grow. They require you to face your fears. They practically dare you to chase them down. They expose your inadequacies. The best goals are those which make you think, “Damn, it would be awesome to achieve that! But I’m really not sure if I can pull this off…”

One of the goals I set at the beginning of this year was to become a raw foodist. I’ve been a vegan since 1997, and I wanted to make the transition to a 100% raw diet. This was a goal that inspired me. It also scared me because I didn’t know how I’d pull it off. I successfully achieved it though. It was hard to adapt to this way of eating, but fortunately it’s very easy to maintain. I’ve been eating 100% raw for most of the year now.

6. Request help.

You don’t have to go it alone. Ask someone to help you. When I feel overwhelmed, I often ask Erin if she can take on a few items from my to-do list. Then I might thank her with a nice massage when my schedule is lighter.

7. Batch small items.

If you batch up several small items together and do them all in a row, you may feel significantly lighter afterwards. Batch up all your errands and do them all at once. Process all your emails, phone calls, and other correspondence together. When you get some of the small items off your plate, you’ll feel more capable of tackling the bigger ones.

8. Exercise.

Exercise helps to boost your metabolism, so you feel more energetic throughout the day. Even though this adds something to your plate, the benefits more than make up for the extra time. Exercise also combats stress and serves as a potent mood enhancer.

9. Reduce interruptions.

Tell others not to interrupt you during certain times, so you can free up blocks of time for catching up on your to-do items. As I mentioned in the article Productivity 101, I post a special sticky note on my door to warn others not to interrupt me when I’m writing and need to concentrate.

10. Renew.

Take time for personal renewal. Read an uplifting book. Take a hot bath. Meditate. Listen to audio programs. Go for a walk. Clear your mind and focus on restoring your energy, so you can come back to tackle life’s challenges with renewed strength.

Real life can throw a lot at you sometimes. In those situations it’s important to practice good time management, but it’s even more important that you manage your energy and attitude to avoid burning out or feeling helpless. Even if you do feel burned out, all is not lost. If you can lighten your load a little, you’ll find that the weight you must lift no longer seems so heavy and daunting. Soon your attitude will shift from “I hate this” to “I can do this.”

As I noted in the recent article The Joy of Solving Problems, I like to view life’s problems as growth challenges rather than as obstacles. Problems don’t pop up in your life to beat you down. Their purpose is to help you grow stronger.

Despite the beneficial nature of problem-solving, there may come a point where you feel so overwhelmed with problems that you begin developing learned helplessness. You feel like you’re drowning in difficulties, and you can’t see a way out.

This means that the weights in your life are too heavy for you to lift. It’s like going to the gym and trying to lift a 300-lb barbell. It just won’t budge, so you feel powerless and stuck. The solution is that you must reduce the weight.

Even when most of the individual problems in your life are small, the sheer volume of them can become overwhelming. Hence the expression, death by a thousand cuts.

When you feel overwhelmed, you must find ways to lighten your load. You need to dump some of your burdens until you’re facing a situation you can reasonably handle.

If you ever find yourself in such a situation, here are some practical ideas for lightening your load:

1. Capture and prioritize.

Make a list of all the problems, challenges, and activities that are currently on your plate. Then sort them into three sublists: (A) must do, (B) should do, and (C) nice to do. The simple act of writing things down and prioritizing them can be a real stress reliever since it helps to clarify that not everything is urgent. Give yourself permission to attend only to the items on your A-list for a while, allowing your B- and C-lists to slide until you feel caught up.

2. Cancel commitments.

If you’re feeling over-committed, see if you can pull back from any commitments that aren’t essential. I’m not suggesting that you break your promises to others, but it’s reasonable to renegotiate stress-inducing over-commitments when possible. Look at your calendar, and drop or cancel the non-essential items.

3. Accept no new commitments.

When you’re feeling overloaded, do your best not to add new items to your plate. Learn to say “no” liberally. Give yourself time to work through your existing challenges before you think about taking on new ones. A polite way of turning people down is to simply say, “I appreciate the offer. I’m currently over-committed though, so I must decline. I hope you understand.” I find that people are generally very understanding when you decline their requests in this manner.

4. Postpone.

Pace yourself by spreading new commitments over a longer period of time. When my plate gets too full, I sometimes designate a commitment blackout period. I don’t want to miss good opportunities, but I can’t keep adding items to an already-full plate. When someone makes a request of me, I only say yes on the condition that we proceed after a certain date, not immediately.

5. Declutter.

Clearing out clutter can be a great stress reliever. Last weekend my family and I reorganized much of our home and garage, including eliminating a lot of accumulated clutter. Afterwards I felt lighter and ready to take on new projects. Every time I look at the garage, I feel relaxed instead of being reminded of all the things that I have yet to handle. At the very least, get all visual clutter out of your field of view. Better to have a messy closet that you can forget about for a while than a messy desk that distracts you multiple times per day.

Developing Wisdom

When you have a tough decision to make, stop for a moment and imagine your ideal future self. Ask what s/he would do.

When I do this, the correct decision is usually clear to me right away. The hard part is summoning the strength to follow through.

You don’t have to make the decision your ideal self would suggest. You may not be strong enough to handle it yet. In that case, it’s good to acknowledge to yourself that you’re going to make a different decision for now. Then as you act on it, keep a close eye on how it’s turning out. How do you feel about it as you move forward?

When I’ve made decisions that were different from what my ideal future self would do, I usually felt disappointed in myself. But I allow myself to experience that feeling anyway.

Recently I made a fairly minor personal decision that I knew was bad going into it, but I felt I need to go forward with it anyway. So I gave myself permission to experience and explore that divergence b etween the man that I am now and the man that I wish to be. After I acted on the decision, I feel okay about it at first, but then I began having doubts about whether it was such a good idea. A day later I felt pretty stupid for having made the decision. Even so, I’m glad I made the decision as I did. It was a very limited decision that I knew wouldn’t have any serious after-effects, so I felt okay giving myself permission to explore it. It had the positive effect of getting me to do more self-examination and to let go of a little more immaturity.

It’s okay to make a choice you feel is wrong — even intentionally — if you treat it as a learning experience. Bad decisions can sometimes help you see the consequences of your actions more clearly than good decisions. And this can help you learn and grow faster.

The point is to make important decisions consciously, especially those tricky character decisions. Consult with your ideal future self. Notice when you’re con verging with your ideal self and when you’re diverging. Pay attention to the consequences of your choices, especially during the first 24 hours when you begin to act a new decision. Notice how you feel about yourself. You’ll find that as you do this, little by little, you’ll begin to converge with your future self. After all, the main difference between you two is that you make different decisions. When you begin to align your decisions with your future self, you align your character as well, and your character shapes your destiny. Make your decisions more consciously, and you will consciously sculpt your character.

My life has changed tremendously in the 18 years since I started on this path. Some of the changes I’ve made would have been unfathomable to me back then. By far the biggest and most important steps were those that helped me improve my character. I’d gladly let go of all the external bells and whistles in order to hold onto the inner changes. No sum of money can purchase honor. No position can give you courage. No title can bestow you with compassion.

Permission to Fail

In order to make better decisions, we have to give ourselves permission to fail. We have to make failure okay to experience.

I know that I’ll make new mistakes in the future. But I don’t beat myself up when I make a bad decision. I forgive myself in advance. I know that I can’t predict every outcome, and I know that I’m not perfectly aligned with the character qualities of the man I wish to be. I accept that. It’s okay. It’s a good thing really because it means I can continue learning and growing.

Failure isn’t the end of the world. Every failure is a learning experience. Failure is simply the underbelly of success. If you don’t risk failure again and again, you’ll never enjoy true success. Fake success is when you seek validation in your titles, positions, and possessions. True success is when you can gaze into a mirror and feel totally loved and accepted by the conscious being looking back at you.

Self-acceptance

Accepting where you are is so important. If you don’t accept yourself, you can’t grow. Beating yourself up will only keep you stuck.

If you don’t like the situation you’re in, or if you don’t think much of your decisions sometimes, that’s okay. Focus on the fact that you always have the potential to grow. That’s what allowed me to accept myself when I first started on a path of conscious growth. My life was one big mess, but I focused my attention on the small areas where I could grow.

I began by giving myself permission to feel good about the things that other people would take for granted. I didn’t steal today — that’s awesome! I exercised once this week — what a breakthrough! I got up before noon today — hot damn! That seems a bit silly looking back on it, but those accomplishments were big deals to me at the time. Some days I couldn’t even get myself out of bed until the sun was already setting, so being on my feet when there were several hours of daylig ht left really did give me a sense of accomplishment. My past self would have a hard time believing that I happily got up at 4:45am this morning, wrote and posted a blog entry, and then went to play disc golf with some friends at 6am.

Even two years after I last stole anything, I’d still feel anxious walking into most stores, including stores I never stole from. I knew I wasn’t going to shoplift anything, but I still had all those old habits — taking note of the security cameras, scanning for the loss-prevention sensors, spotting the plain-clothed store security people roaming around. Those feelings eventually degraded over time, but it took years to finally feel that I was congruent with my new choices and not being ruled by unconscious patterns. Even five years later, I could still feel the residue of those experiences, like a disturbing echo in my consciousness.

Your Ideal Future Self

One thing that helped me a lot was to imagine the kind of man I wanted to become. I’d sit down and visualize what he was like, and I’d have imaginary conversations with him. “What would you do?” I’d ask. Then I’d listen for his answer. At first I felt that he was mostly amused by me. I was like a joke to him… so weak, pathetic, and driven by impulse. Compared to him I had no self-control at all. My life was all about temporary thrills. If I wasn’t taking stupid risks at least every few days, I felt empty inside.

As I held this vision of the man I wanted to be, it really made a difference. Two years later my life was looking much better. Five years later it was like night and day.

Think about the person you most want to be. What is s/he like? Focus on this person’s character qualities, not on possessions, partners, or goals achieved.

When I imagined my future self, he was everything that I was not. We seemed to have maybe 20% of our character traits in c ommon, but the other 80% were very different. He seemed so in control of himself… so centered. He had no desire to lie, cheat, and steal. Such behaviors were totally beneath him. When I first started doing this, I thought that even if I could only become a little bit more like him, that would be a step in the right direction.

I didn’t use the term “conscious living” back then, but that was really the main difference. The future self I envisioned was living consciously, and I was just the opposite.

I still have the same vision of this man today, but now things are different. I have changed a lot, but he has remained essentially the same, so I was able to close the gap between us. I’d say that now we’re about 80% similar and 20% dissimilar. And it only took 18 years of conscious growing.

It’s been said that good judgment is the result of experience, and experience is the result of bad judgment. That’s very true. In order to build experience and develop your wisdom and intelligence, you have to make a lot of decisions and see how they turn out. If you avoid making decisions because you’re afraid of making a mistake, you can’t learn and grow.

I have made some egregious mistakes in my life. Sometimes it’s embarrassing to look back on them and recognize the sheer stupidity of those choices. But then I think about the person I was when I made those decisions, and I feel grateful that my past self at least had the courage to decide. If he avoided making tough decisions, I never would have learned those crucial lessons.

I think the most important growth aspect of making decisions is how the process reveals and hones your character over time. Tough call after tough call, you’re given the opportunity to look within and consider what kind of person you r eally are. Can you make a decision that may cost you a lot of money but which is more honest than the alternatives, or will you lie to preserve your finances? Can you decide to do something that scares you, knowing it will help you become stronger in the long run? Can you choose to help someone who may eventually surpass you?

In my late teens, I used to be a person who would lie, cheat, and steal every day. In a typical day when I was a freshman during my first attempt at college, I would shoplift something on the way to school. If I went to class at all, I’d sit in the back and not pay much attention. Then I’d hit the computer lab and stand next to the printer, so I could swipe someone’s completed computer science homework, retype it, and turn it in as my own. Next I would do a little more shoplifting. If it was a Friday, I might go buy some beer or wine coolers from the Korean grocer who would sell to anyone. Then I’d play ping pong, play video games, get drunk with friends, play poker, and maybe go out again to do something risky and stupid.

My friends knew I was headed for trouble, but when they tried to advise me to make some changes, I dismissed them with sarcasm and tuned them out. It took multiple arrests and getting expelled from school to get me to see where my own decisions were taking me.

What changed my life is that I started pushing myself to make better decisions. I did not transform everything overnight. I had no idea how to do that. I had too many bad habits and addictions. But little by little over a period of years, I started making better decisions.

The Vibration of Courage

Courage is a very powerful vibration. When you act with courage and confidence, your goals and intentions will manifest much more readily because you’re actively moving toward them instead of hoping they’ll magically appear at your door. Hope is a very weak vibration — it doesn’t manifest squat!

If you shrink from your fears, you’re going to have little success with the LoA. Fear serves as a counter-intention to all of your positive intentions. Trying to manifest without courage is like going to the gym to do a workout, then returning home to smoke a cigarette and chow down on junk food. Now go ahead and complain that exercise has no effect.

Some people might be turned off by this, but I have to say it. The people I know who are most convinced the LoA doesn’t work are invariably the biggest cowards I’ve ever met. They’ve given up so much ground to their fears and retreated so far into their heads that their goals are buried beneath a weighty tome of excuses and rationalizations. When I talk to such people for even a few minutes, it’s crystal clear that fear and worry are their dominant vibrations. Courage is like a totally alien concept to them and has very little place in their lives. The closest thing to courage they can muster is to complain about what they don’t want.

For example, I know someone who hates her job and has enough money saved up to last a year, but she can’t bring herself to quit. So she keeps doing heartless, soulless work year after year. She’s good at what she does, but she knows it’s a dead end. She lacks the courage to go after her dreams, so she plays it safe instead. I can ask her what she wants, and she’ll tell me her goals, but there’s no passion or enthusiasm behind her words. The goals are nothing but emotionless content — there’s no energy behind them at all.

When she asks me for advice on how to create a better life for herself, I tell her, “Go to your boss and say, ‘I quit.’ It will take about one second.” It’s a very straightforward, simple, concrete step to take. I can see that she’ll be utterly relieved, but also excited and terrified, when she lets that job go. It will allow her to embark on an adventurous new chapter of her life. But will she do it? I doubt it will happen anytime soon. She doesn’t see the value of courage. She thinks she can get by without it. And yet she remains a woman whose life is tediously the same year after year.

At the same time, she wonders why she can’t seem to attract the man of her dreams, no matter how much time she invests in clarifying what she wants and (feebly) moving toward her goal. Of course she can’t succeed with this approach. Such a man only exists on the other side of her fear. The man of her dreams, should he ever appear in her life, could never find such a disconnected, cowardly woman attractive. Until she musters the courage to step outside her comfort zone, she’ll remain perpetually alone.

Fortunately I know that life will eventually force the issue. With each passing year as she ages, she has to watch her dreams fading faster and faster. I expect that will eventually stir something in her, especially since she wants to have a family of her own.

If you want to grow consciously, don’t wait for life to force the issue. Build your courage consciously. Apply it consciously. Push yourself to grow instead of being shoved around or beaten down.

Don’t wait for life to magically bring you what you want. Go out and hunt it down. Be bold, brave, and proactive. Activate the Law of Attraction at full intensity. Speed toward your desires just as they speed toward you. Let them attract you just as you attract them.

Courage Training

But how do you do this? How do you build up your courage to face and overcome your fears?

There are many methods you can use. My personal favorite is progressive training. Start by tackling a very small version of your fear. Face it over and over again. Once you can do that consistently, you can progress to a slightly more magnified version of the fear. Keep doing this progressively until you’ve effectively squashed the fear, and it no longer limits you.

For example, suppose you have major approach anxiety when it comes to starting up conversations with strangers. That’s a fear that will surely limit your social life and relationship options. It will take a real commitment to overcome this fear, but it’s certainly one that can be overcome.

I suggest you commit to going out to a public place at least a couple times a week, ideally 4-7 times a week if you really want to make rapid progress. Go out for 90-120 minutes at a time if you can swing it.

Each time you go out, give yourself a simple social goal to accomplish. It should be something that requires a small amount of courage but that you still feel quite confident you can achieve.

For example, go to a large shopping mall, and visit a few dozen stores. In each store ask one of the employees a simple question like “Hi… Do you know what time it is?” Or ask for directions to the nearest restroom. It doesn’t matter what you ask. Your goal is to get used to approaching and talking to people. Do this a few dozen times, and it will eventually feel very easy and probably boring to you. If it takes a little courage for you to do this, you’ll gain a confidence boost after wards. Most people would find this easy but still mildly rewarding once it’s done.

For the next level, you might try throwing out comments to other customers in each store. Say things like, “Oh, I think that shirt would look great on you.” or “Have you eaten here before? Do you know if the food’s any good?” You don’t have to say hi and introduce yourself. Just toss something out like you already know the person. It doesn’t matter if the other person replies back. This exercise is entirely for you.

If you feel more comfortable talking to store employees, then you might try this with employees first until you feel ready to branch out. Go to one of the Apple stores and chat with one of their employees — they tend to be very talkative, as long as you talk about Apple stuff.

Sometimes a stray comment will turn into a full-on conversation if the other person is receptive. If that happens, have fun and go with it. Recently when I was in an art gallery, I made a stray comment about a painting to one of the employees, and we ended up talking about art for 15 minutes. I learned quite a bit that I didn’t previously know. When I had to go, she sent me off with a free art book that the store normally sells.

Each time you go out, up the ante. Give yourself a sli ghtly bigger challenge than the one you last achieved. It should take a little bit of courage but not so much that you cringe when you think about it. Turn it into a fun game. See how far you can take it.

To increase the challenge, think about going longer, wider, and deeper. See how long you can keep a conversation going with someone you just met. See how many different things you can learn about the other person (birthday, hometown, siblings’ names, most important values, etc). See how many different types of people you can approach. See how deep of a connection you can create in a short period of time. Remember that this is a training exercise, so it’s okay to try things you wouldn’t normally do in a regular conversation. Push yourself!

It’s critical that you don’t just do this haphazardly. Go out regularly, and keep raising the bar each time you go out. Challenge yourself to reclaim more and more territory from your fear. If you don’t keep raising the bar, th e fear will simply creep back in, and you’ll stagnate. Don’t let your courage succumb to atrophy.

Of course you can do this with non-social fears too. You can use progressive training to face and overcome any type of fear. Taken one by one, none of the baby steps should be terribly difficult for you. Each new challenge builds upon your previous success. But when you string all those little steps all in a row, some serious progress can be made in a relatively short period of time.

One of my goals is to be able to meet a random stranger on the street, start a conversation, get to a place of sharing and acknowledging a connection of unconditional love with them, and part ways with a nice hug — in 5 minutes or less. I can do this pretty well in certain circles, like when I’m around people who are very open and spiritual — in those cases it’s almost too easy — but I’d like to be able to do it with just about everyone if possible. I’m not sure how easy it will be, but it’s a fun challenge to work on.

In working toward this goal, I’ve noticed that as I open myself up more and more, other people seem to pick up on it. It’s like I exude a vibe of greater approachability. One morning as I was walking down the Vegas Strip, some random guy walking by looked up at me and gave me a high-five for no apparent reason. That’s a small example of seeing other people moving to connect with me as I move to connect more with them. It’s a lot of fun to watch these changes unfold and to see that other people relate to us very much as we relate to them. If you’re willing to approach strangers to start a conversation, you’ll find that other people will approach you more frequently as well.

When you weight train certain muscles, there’s a local effect but also a systemic effect. The specific muscles you train get stronger (local), but your whole body gets stronger too, even the parts you didn’t specifically train (systemic). Courage training works much the same way. When you train to overcome a specific fear, you also benefit from a systemic boost in confidence. You’ll become less afraid in general, and other fears will diminish in intensity.