The trick to success is to choose the right habit and bring just enough discipline to establish it.
Your work life is divided into two distinct areas – what matters most and everything else. You will have to take what matters to the extremes and be okay with what happens to the rest. Professional success requires it.
People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” – F. M. Alexander.
I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.
The key is over time. Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.
So, if you want to get the most out of your day, do your most important work – your ONE Thing – early, before your willpower is drawn down. Since your self-control will be sapped throughout the day, use it when it’s at full strength on what matters most.
Voltaire once wrote, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” Sir.
We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.” – Robert Brault.
One of the most empowering moments of my life came when I realized that life is a question and how we live it is our answer.
Anyone who dreams of an uncommon life eventually discovers there is no choice but to seek an uncommon approach to living it.
Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.
Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.” – John Carmack.
Big is bad is a lie. It’s quite possibly the worst lie of all, for if you fear big success, you’ll either avoid it or sabotage your efforts to achieve it.
What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
Not everything matters equally, and success isn’t a game won by whoever does the most. Yet that is exactly how most play it on a daily basis.
Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results.
Where I’d had huge success, I had narrowed my concentration to one thing, and where my success varied, my focus had too.
There is no failure. You win or you learn. Either one is okay.
Achievers operate differently. They have an eye for the essential. They pause just long enough to decide what matters and then allow what matters to drive their day. Achievers do sooner what others plan to do later and defer, perhaps indefinitely, what others do sooner. The difference isn’t in intent, but in right of way. Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.
When you see someone who has a lot of knowledge, they learned it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of skills, they developed them over time. When you see someone who has done a lot, they accomplished it over time. When you see someone who has a lot of money, they earned it over time. The key is over time. Success.