Wanna achieve your goals faster, easier, and with less stress?
Let me tell you something. There are a million productivity gurus out there (including me) who are going to tell you that they have the magic solution.
It’s the single-easiest way to sell something.
Identify a problem. Look at all the other solutions out there. Come up with one that works for you (or maybe even not that, depending on your ethics) that’s maybe even just a slight variation on the others. And package it as the latest and greatest breakthrough, guaranteed to solve the problem for good.
All those other solutions were missing something. I’ve figured out what they were missing, and I’ve included it in mine. That makes it an easy button. Gets you what you want faster, easier, and with less stress! It’s just like magic!
You know the spiel.
And the truth is, their solution MIGHT work for you. Or, it might not.
Here’s why “proven” solutions can be so hit or miss…
We’re all vastly different people. With different experiences, knowledge, drives, and desires.
For example, let’s look at just one “personality” index you can take. It’s called the Kolbe Index. You may have heard of it before (I’ve written about it). It was designed to measure your “conation” — what naturally drives you to accomplishment.
I’m a 6-3-8-3 in Kolbe speak. This is a very naturally entrepreneurial score. What it means is I’m great with new ideas and starting things, not necessarily so great on follow-through and sticking to repetitive systems for implementation.
I tend to gather just enough information to get the whole picture, but not all the raw data. I’m adaptive, and always on the move. And I’m imaginative — I work well in my head, better than with my hands.
If I find a productivity tip or something else that works really well for me, it’s likely to work well for other people who have similar Kolbe scores as I do. That is, unless we’re greatly in conflict in some other area of our life, such as having a certain set of knowledge.
But for someone with a vastly different Kolbe score, my tip may totally miss the mark!
This is important to recognize in taking any advice, from anyone.
The more like you the person is from whom you’re getting advice, the more likely it is that the advice will work for you.
If you find someone who acts, thinks, and behaves totally differently from you, you may want to be very careful about taking their advice. What works for them might not work for you at all — no matter how hard you try!
Which leads me to what I really wanted to share with you today…
One of the most important things you can figure out is the answer to “what makes you tick?”
I’ve had an interesting experience this month. Last Tuesday I wrote about exercise, and how important it is for your productivity. And because many of the benefits are biological, I’ll assert that it holds true regardless of your personality type, natural drives, or anything else.
Exercising will make you more productive.
But as I’ve continued with my own exercise this month, I’ve been learning another lesson.
I started the month with a goal to get to 2,000 reps. One rep is one kettlebell swing, and one push up. I can do them in whatever grouping I want, 5 swings and 5 push ups, 20 swings and 20 push ups, etc. And whatever I complete back-to-back is considered a set. Example: earlier today, I did a ladder set of 5, 10, 15, 15, 10, 5 of each, for a set total of 60. (That’s a new “max set” record for me this month!)
I set up a spreadsheet to track all of this. I put in my goal, the days in the month, and enter my sets on the lines for each day. From this, it calculates all sorts of things, and gives me a nice pie chart of my progress toward my goal.
Today, just under halfway through the month, I’m at 62% of my goal of 2,000 reps for the month. I’m actually pacing to hit the 2,500 reps stretch goal I’ve now established for myself — at my current pace I’ll do 2,562.67 reps before the end of the month!
As soon as I set it up to calculate my daily average, that’s when things got really interesting for me.
I saw that to meet my goal of 2,000 reps for the month, I had to average 64.52 reps per day. At the time, I was just under that — mostly because I didn’t do any on December 2nd. After that, I started doing at least 80 reps per day, to get my daily average up.
It took a while, but my goal became to actually boost my daily average above 80 reps. As I write this, it’s at 82.67. And I’m not even done for the day.
I also set it up to calculate my max day, and my max set.
The most reps I’ve done in a day was on December 10th — I did 140 reps that day. The most reps I’ve done in a set is 60 — the ladder set I did earlier today.
At the beginning of this month, I was barely motivated to exercise. (That’s why I started this in the first place.) Today — two weeks later — I have a TON of motivation.
Part of why I’m telling you this is no doubt to brag about my accomplishment (let’s be honest!)… But an even bigger part is to show you the hidden lesson…
I was talking to my coach today, and he made an interesting comment about all this.
He said, “I like how you’ve turned this into a game.”
I hadn’t even realized it. But he was totally right!
In tracking all of this, and having it update all the stats…
And then in trying to constantly improve my stats…
I have totally turned this into a kind of challenge game against myself. What can I do today to best what I’ve done so far in this challenge? What can I do to keep me on track for “winning” — AKA hitting my original goal and then my stretch goal?
The “gamification” of this personal exercise challenge has me motivated to not only complete it, but to exceed my initial goals!
This is powerful. Because I’ve found something that works for me. This is something that makes me tick.
The question then becomes…
“What can I do to apply this lesson in other areas of my life?”
This is the kind of thing you need to look out for, too.
I’ve got nothing against trying out things that work for other people — in fact, I strongly recommend it!
However, what’s far more important than what works for some guru…
What’s far more important than what works for me…
What’s far more important than what others say will work for you…
Is what you actually try and find works for you, that you can then continue to apply in your life.
And once you find something that works, the even bigger breakthrough comes when you ask, “How else or where else can I apply this to achieve my goals faster, easier, and with less stress?”
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets
