Freestyle Mind

Short Vacation

2010-07-22T20:44:00+02:00

I’ll be spending the next 7 days in the mountains. No internet connection, only vegan food, and 10-12 hours per day of martial arts, meditation and related activities.

It’ll be great for me to step away from the computer considering that I spend a lot of time with it every day.

Two years ago I did the same program and it was really hard, but it’s certainly worth it. When I get back at the end of next week I’ll only have a few days before packing again and leave for Madrid. I’m still looking for an apartment to rent in Madrid though.

I want to apologize if there will be a lack of new posts here during the next week, and if something catastrophic will happen, I will not be able to fix it until I get home.

I hope that all of you will have a good time!

Too Many Things That You Want to Do?

2010-07-21T11:55:00+02:00

If you’re anything like me, there are a lot of things that you’d like to do, but somehow you never have enough time to actually do them. Perhaps you want to learn something new, or you want to start a new projects.

I used to have the same problem, and even though I’ve not yet figured out how to do everything I want, I’m pretty happy with the system I’m currently using.

I’ll use my current situation as an example here, but the concept should apply to everyone in a similar situation.

Step 1: What do you want to do?

Let’s start with a list of the things that I currently want to do. Here’s an example from my personal list:

study internet marketing
write blog posts like this one
study mac/iphone programming
study math
study general programming (algorithms, interpreters, compilers, etc)
workout

Note that I included only the things that I really want to do right now in my life. There are other things that I’d like to do like learning new languages or practicing some new sport, but these are the ones that I genuinely want to do right now in my life.

I suggest making a list like that with the things that you’d like to do on a daily basis.

Step 2: How much of it do you want to do?

Now it’s time to figure out how much time you’d ideally want to spend on each activity on your list. You may want to group similar activities if you want. For example in my case I can group together writing blog posts with internet marketing, and studying general programming with studying math.

The reason I’m grouping together similar activities is that it’s perfectly fine for me to switch between them. For example I can study math one day and programming the next day.

Make a second list with your grouped activities and the time you’d ideally want to spend on them on a daily basis. Here’s my new list:

internet marketing/blogging – 2 hours
mac/iphone programming – 4 hours
math/programming study – 1 hour
workout – 1 hour

Now that you know what to do, and how much of it, it’s time to figure out when you’re going to do all these things.

Step 3: Finding the time

If you sum up the hours I wrote aside each activity, you can easily see that I would need 8 hours each day to accomplish them. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m having an hard time finding all that time each day.

The truth is that the number of hours that I wrote aside each activity is the ideal time that I’d like to spend, but I can do less hours if needed. Each day when I wake up I carefully plan the activities that I want to do based on my time available. You can do this task the evening before if you wake up early. For example let’s say that you want to exercise thirty minutes and work on your side project for 2 hours. You can plan to exercise from 6:10am to 6:40am, take a shower and then work on your side project from 7am to 9am. You can do something similar in the evening if you are a night owl.

There is nothing new here that you didn’t already know. Yet I found that it’s easy to get sidetracked when you don’t have a clear list of things that you have to do. When you know that from 10pm to midnight it’s your time to work on your side project, you’re not going to procrastinate on other activities like browsing news online.

One of the most common causes of procrastination is that you don’t know exactly what to do. On the other hand, trying to plan everything in your day can easily become overwhelming, that’s why I’m not a big gtd fan anymore. My idea is to only plan for the big things in your day, the rest will follow up by itself.

My last advice is to keep a daily log of the activities you do, and to review it weekly. Here’s an example from my own log:

There will be days when I can accomplish more, and days when I get less done. The important thing to remember is to know exactly what you want to do, and then to plan each day in advance. Once you have a plan, follow it, don’t spend time checking email or reading news. If one day you fail to follow your plan, don’t feel bad, instead learn from your experience and do better the next day.

Note that some activities may have more impact in your life than others, so try to do more of them if you’re in doubt.

How To Become Your Own Personal Coach

2010-07-19T09:00:00+02:00

What are the things that you can do today? Not tomorrow, not next week. Today, right now.

What are the things that if you would accomplish today would make a big impact on your life? What can you do right now? I recently started to ask myself these questions every day, and they really help me to stay on track.

Some people spend a lot of money to hire a coach that will tell them things that they already know. You already know that you should work on your most important things everyday, that creating something remarkable is better than searching for the quick fix. Yet the reason we hire a coach is that even though we know what we should do, it’s easy for us to forget it. We have so many things to do and remember that it’s often impossible to keep track of the big picture. Or is it?

The job of a personal coach is to help you stay on track so that you can grow your business and personal life. You should definitely hire a coach if you have the opportunity, but you should also know how to be your own personal coach. The main reason is that at the end of the day you can only blame yourself if you didn’t achieve your goals.

So how do you become your own personal coach? The answer is through habits. In my experience coaching works because you exchange money on a regular basis for a specific amount of time with another person. You can’t miss it. Having a regular schedule is what makes the thing work well. It’s unlikely that you’ll see great results with only one or two sessions.

In order to become your personal coach you have to schedule a fixed amount of time each day in which you can critically analyze the areas of your life where you want to grow. For me twenty minutes every morning are enough, but you are encouraged to experiment with other combinations.

What you do in that time is completely up to you, but here’s how a typical session “goes” with myself:

I quickly review what I did the previous day (I keep a journal of what I do every day).
I write down the things that I know I have to do today.
For each area of my life where I want to improve, I ask myself: “What are the things that I can do today that would have a big impact on my life?”. I write down the answers together with my previous list.
I schedule the things that I’ve written starting from the most important first.
I start working on them.

For this to work, I highly recommend having a journal of your accomplishments. Think of it as a log of your activities, but where you only write the important things that you did during the day. It also helps to have a list of the areas of your life where you want to work every day. My list consists of work, health/sport, my blogs, study.

What would happen if you would do this every day for the next year?

Freestyle Mind Weekly Update #2

2010-07-18T18:25:00+02:00

This post is part of a series where I share my updates on personal development challenges and other stuff that doesn’t need a separate post.

Internet Marketing Update

Two weeks ago I started an internet marketing challenge here on this blog. This week I’ve made some serious progress and my market samurai page is already showing in the first page for two competitive keywords (particularly in the 3rd position for “market samurai review”). My other website is still not showing up in google, but this is quite normal in the first weeks if the website is new, so I’m not worrying too much.

So far I’m spending less than 15 minutes a day to rank these websites. The bulk of work is creating quality articles, however I only need to do that once. You can read my technical update here in case you’re interested.

Health and Martial Arts

I think I’ve found a very nice sequence of exercises to do everyday in less than 15 minutes without any equipment. The sequence consists of ten series of 10 pushups, 10 abs and 10 frog jumps (you can do them in place). You can vary intensity or repetitions of course.

Study

I’m still studying some math and computer science stuff. I’m proceeding slowly but I make sure that I do something every day. Right now I’m studying discrete math which will help me to understand some advanced computer science stuff, and I’m reading essentials of programming languages.

Other Stuff

Some time ago I told you how creating a blog and document your learning process can open up many opportunities. This week I received a job offer on my cocoa development blog, which unfortunately I had to turn down as I don’t feel very competent yet. That demonstrates once again the power of blogs.

Thirty-Day Happiness Challenge

2010-07-15T19:10:00+02:00

I’ve spent the last few days putting together a step by step guide for finding happiness, and I think I’ve come up with something good. Below is a list of 30 little things and action steps that you can do for finding happiness. Each of them wont take much time to complete but all of them combined together can be very powerful.

The following list is intended to be read and applied one entry a day for thirty days. I recommend you to bookmark this page if you decide to join the challenge. Also feel free to share it with your friends if you find it valuable.

30 days to happiness – the challenge

Read and apply one element from this list every day for thirty days.

Start a journal. In order to make our journey memorable, we need a way to keep track of it. Today you assignment is to start a journal’ to keep track of the next 30 days. You can use whatever you want from a spiral notebook to text files on your computer. You should write down on it your impressions after completing each assignment or wherever you experience something special that you can relate with this challenge. Writing a journal is a good way to express and liberate your emotions, and you can extend its usage to other areas of your life as well.
Make a donation. Making a donation is a great way to build happiness, both for you and for those receiving the gift. You don’t have to necessarily spend any money to make a donation, indeed you could deliberately decide to give away something that you own and you don’t use to someone who really needs it. Today your assignment is to donate something. You can either publish an ad on craiglist or you can make an anonymous donation to some association if you have the opportunity.
Take a bicycle trip with your family or friends, or alone. Perhaps it’s been a while since the last time you joined your family or friends for a bicycle trip, but doing that would be really a nice alternative to the usual stuff that you do everyday, so today you’re going to invite someone to join you for a bicycle trip, or you can do it alone if no-one can join you. If the weather isn’t nice you can always organize something different at home, just be creative.
Call someone that you haven’t called in a while. I’m sure that you would be happy if an old friend or relative would call you to hear how you’re doing. The truth is that most of us will wait as long as possible to call old friends, perhaps because we feel like we would disturb them if we’d call. Not today. Today your task is to call someone that you haven’t talked with in a while. It can be a friend or a family member. I’m sure that both of you will be happy to hear each other.
Change the way you greet your day. Waking up in the morning is always hard. Somehow we always want to stay in bed more time when the alarm clock rings, but that’s not always possible. Here’s something different that you can try tomorrow morning. As soon as your alarm clock rings, jump out of your bed, open the window and take a big breath of fresh air. As an alternative you can go outside for a 3 minutes walk as soon as you get out of bed. This is a great way to kickstart you day!
Fix your room. This is something that you can do in 15 minutes or less. Today your assignment is to order in your living room, or the room where you usually work. The simple act of ordering your desk will clear your ideas and you’ll feel better after it. If you have a lot of disorder in your room you can repeat this assignment in the following days until you feel satisfied.
Make a list of ten dreams you’d like to come true in your life. If you had no limits or infinite resources, what would you do? Today your assignment is to make a list of ten things that you’d love to do if you’d have the opportunity. For example you might want to visit a foreign country or try a new experience. For some people it may be hard to write down ten dreams that they have, while others may want to write more. If you’re in the latter category, feel free to write as many dreams as you like, but write at least ten of them.
Go shopping. Some people (especially girls), love to do shopping. Here’s a secret: you can go shopping without having to buy stuff. Visiting shops and trying clothes can be done for free. And if you feel that you would spend all your money, leave your credit card at home, that way it’ll be impossible to spend all your hard earned money, but you can still shop around, try new clothes, or check out the latest high tech gadgets.
Organize a lunch together with your family. Eating together with your family or your friends is a good way to build happiness, especially if you do something a bit out of the box. A good idea might be to organize a picnic with your family or friends if the weather is nice, or perhaps a lunch at home could also work. The important thing is to get together with the people you love and share some happy moments.
Give a rose to someone you care. Donating a rose (or another genuine present) is a good way to make another person’s day, especially if it’s an unexpected gift. Your assignment for today is to buy a rose or an equivalent gift and to donate it to someone you care. You can also give it to a random person in the street if you feel adventurous.
Make a list of five things that you appreciate in your current life. A few days ago I told you to make a list of ten dreams you’s like to come true. Today you’re going to do something a bit different. Make a list of five things that you already have and that you are grateful for. It could be your kids, your home or something you bought that you really wanted. Sometimes it’s useful to remember about what you really have instead of wishing for something that you don’t have.
Smile to three random persons in the street. This might sound a bit strange for some people, but let’s try something more challenging today. Today your assignment is to go for a walk and smile to three random persons and see their reactions. If for some reason someone will ask you why you were smiling, just told them that you felt particularly happy.
Do something that you don’t usually do, like a new activity. Doing something that you don’t usually do (aka exiting your comfort zone) is a great way to grow, as long as it’s something exciting. Today your assignment is to go out and do something that you never did before. It can be anything, as long as it’s at least a bit challenging.
Read a good book. Reading can be a very pleasant activity. Most people think that they don’t have enough time for reading, but today you’re going to prove the opposite. Even if you only have five minutes, read a few pages of a book that you like. If you do this every day you can easily finish a book in just a few weeks, and if the books are good, even five minutes of reading every day will make you feel better.
Kiss someone. When you kiss someone in the mouth your body releases a substance that makes you feel happy. I know it might be hard to complete this assignment without a willing partner, but if you can, make some love today.
Imagine how your ideal life would look like, and write it down. What would you do if you would have no problem of money or location, and you could do whatever you want every day? Today your assignment is to try to answer that question. This assignment is different from the one you did for your dreams list as this time you should concentrate on what you would do on an average day if you wouldn’t have to worry about anything. Perhaps you’d like to travel or relax under a palm in some exotic country. Only you know the answer to that question. Write it down.
Listen to some nice music. Music can make or break your happiness. I don’t know why, but some people like to listen to music that makes them sad, perhaps you did that too once or twice too. Not today. Today your assignment is to find some music that energizes you and makes you feel better. Listen, sing, dance, enjoy some good music!
Do some exercise. Physical exercise is an essential activity for your body and for your brain. Contrary to what some people might think, you can increase your intelligence and happiness by exercising, because exercise helps your brain to function more properly. Today your assignment is to find some physical activity that you can do. It could be dancing or 10 minutes of jogging, you decide. By the way, you should really repeat this assignment every day, it will be very worth the time.
Surprise yourself and the people around you. I’m sure that you have some habits that you know are bad but that you think are impossible to break. Your assignment for today is to pick one of them and do the opposite. For example if you are a smoker, avoid smoking for today. Or if you usually sleep till late, wake up early instead. Surprise yourself and the people around you.
Analyze your words and how you interact with others. The words that you use every day have a strong power on your emotions and on the emotions of the people around you. For example if you use words that invoke fear, doubt, pain, you may end up experiencing those sensations. Your task for today is to analyze the words that you normally use and eventually to try to use more empowering words instead. You’ll be amazed at how powerful the words that you use every day can be.
It’s your choice how you react to external events. When something happens, it’s your choice to decide how to react. Today you’re going to choose to be happy, regardless of what will happen. It’s as simple as that.
Focus in the now. We spend far too much time thinking about the future or about past moments of our life. Here’s the thing: past and future are only an illusion, what really matters can only happen in the now. Every planning as well as the actions you may take to achieve your plans can only happen in the now. Stop worrying about what will happen in the next hour or tomorrow, focus in the now, it’s there for you to enjoy. Here, right now. You know what to do.
See the half-filled glass. Every event that we experience in our life is presented as an opportunity, but it’s up to us to decide which kind of opportunity we want (positive or negative). Your task for today is to think about some recent events that happened in your life and to try to figure out the good part of them. Perhaps you learned an important lesson or you were able to make a change that you wanted from a long time. Make the habit to see the positive side in all situations, despite of how circumstances present themselves at first.
Start a saving account. Today you’re going to do something for your future self (but you’ll still feel a sense of gratitude immediately). Your assignment is to open a saving account (possibly a free one) and to regularly put some money on it. You can start with just 50 dollars per month which would be enough at the end of the year for a small vacation, or you can save them for tough times.
Watch a good funny movie. I don’t usually watch tv but I occasionally watch some movies. I don’t know why but for me movies can be very powerful, and I especially like the ones that make me happy (or where I can laugh a lot). Today your assignment is to find a good funny movie and to watch it. Do this on the next weekend if you don’t have enough time, but don’t forget it.
Spend some time with your kids, or with your pets if you don’t have kids. Today your assignment is very simple, but I guess simplicity is part of happiness after all, so I’m perfectly fine with it. If you have kids, today you should spend more time with them than usual. If you don’t have kids, perhaps you may have some pets. If you don’t have neither kids nor pets, spend some quality time with your partner.
Laugh. Laughing is at the core of happiness. It’s very difficult to be sad and laugh at the same time. It’s also very easy to kill a sad moment with a good laugh, and that’s what you’re going to do today. Today your assignment is to laugh as much as you can (but without being ridiculous). Perhaps you could start by saying something funny or by watching some pranks on youtube.
Say yes. If you’ve watch the “Yes Man” movie, then you already know what you’re assignment for today is, otherwise, keep reading. Today your assignment is to say yes, to everything. Well, not really to everything, but to all those things that wouldn’t harm you, but somehow you always say no. You never know what kind of opportunities you’re missing until you say yes to them.
Do one step that will move you closer to one of your dreams. Today you’re going to take the list of dreams that you wrote a few weeks ago and start working on it. Take one dream and define an action that you can do right now that would move you closer to your dream. Perhaps it’s searching for some information online or making a call. Do it, do it now, those are your dreams and you should follow them.
Just be happy. Today is the last day and there’s no real assignment to complete. You’ve done a lot of things in these past thirty days and I hope you’ve had a good time. From now on I’d like you to always keep in mind that happiness is just a state of mind that you can enter whenever you want, and hopefully you’ve learnt that by taking this challenge. Congratulations!

I hope you enjoyed this list, now make sure to bookmark this page and to complete one action per day for the next thirty days.

Freestyle Mind Weekly Update #1

2010-07-11T13:40:00+02:00

This post is part of a series where I share my updates on personal development challenges and other stuff that doesn’t need a separate post.

Internet Marketing Update

As you may know, last week I started an internet marketing challenge, where my goal is to to build and rank 6 websites or pages within 90 days. It’s been only a week but the results are encouraging (already talking about money). It seems that when you create real value then google has no problem rewarding you. I’m not going to share the technical stuff here, but you can read more about that here.

Health

Something I want to do is to train hard every day. However this week I’ve done next to nothing. This is an area where I have to work more for sure. I hope that when I’ll move to Madrid next month I’ll find a gym where I can continue my martial arts training, otherwise I’ll have to invent something (it’s difficult to practice fighting techniques alone).

Study

I began to study very hard again. As you may know, I’m a high school dropout but I’ve been a self learner since then. Now I’m focusing my time studying math and computer science stuff. This stuff is hard, but when you study for yourself you’re free to choose what you want to learn and no-one else is telling you what to do.

Other stuff

This week I bought a notebook dedicated to writing my dreams and goals. The “process” is the one described on achieve anything in just one year, and I’m really liking it. I’m also experimenting with some new goal setting techniques, which I can’t wait to share with you.

Tomorrow I’m leaving for a 3-day trip to Barcellona with a friend. I won this trip this winter. Thank you law of attraction.

By the way, you should really keep a journal where you write down your accomplishments. I found that it’s really helping me, especially because after a week or so I can quickly review what I did and what I have to do more.

Book Review: Achieve Anything In Just One Year

2010-07-09T16:18:00+02:00

Disclaimer: I received this book for free (the author was kind enough to send it to me), but the post below is only my genuine personal opinion.

I don’t usually do book reviews here on freestylemind, but sometimes I read a book that is so valuable that I want to share it with you. Today I want to talk about achieve anything in just one year, a book written by Jason Harvey that it’s all about achieving your dreams and improving all the areas of your life.

Before reading the book, I had some doubts. There’s a lot of hype in the tile, and I’ve seen (and read) countless of books that make this kind of promises but delivered poorly, so I wasn’t expecting a lot from it. Despite that, I had to change my mind after only a few pages.

The first thing that caught my eyes was that this book is not structured like all the other books. In fact it is designed to be read one page per day for 365 days. Every page contains a powerful quote, a lesson and an assignment. It wont take more than 10-15 minutes every day, but they will be very well worth it.

Let’s talk about the content of the book. From motivation to goals, from making plans to developing your social skills there’s everything. But best of all the content is highly practical and it would be virtually impossible not to improve your life (leaving home the boring stuff).

If this book was written by me, I would have titled it “Change Your Life In Just One Year”, because I really believe so. The original title might be a bit misleading, but the content is very good.

By the way, I read most of the pages before writing this review, but I’ve now started again from the beginning and I’m going through it a bit every day, like it is supposed to be. It’s fantastic to wake up every morning with a quick 10 minutes motivational read, and the exercises are easy (though powerful) and don’t take much time.

If you want more information about the book, you can visit its amazon page here. Personally, I highly recommend it.

The Smart Way to Implement Habits

2010-07-07T13:00:00+02:00

Editor note: This is a guest post from Eduard Ezeanu.

During our lifetimes, we develop hundreds of habits. If you think about it, stuff like talking, walking, tying your shoes and riding your bicycle are all habits. They are all automatic patterns of thinking and acting which you implemented at a certain point, and now you do them naturally.

Beyond the age of 7, it seems that implementing habits gets harder. The context is no longer of such a nature that habits develop almost on their own. You actually have to follow the right steps to effectively develop new habits.

I think that most people struggle with implementing habits and creating change in their lives because they lack a certain understanding of how human learning takes places, how habits develop, so they try to implement them in deficient ways and they get nowhere fast.

What I’m gonna share with you are my ideas for effective habit implementation, in congruence with the principles of human learning.

Make it meaningful. Why do you want to develop a certain habit? I find that very often, we want to implement habits which are not particularly meaningful to us. We may want to learn to wake up at a certain hour or do a certain task, but it’s only because other people have told us we should. With that kind of a reason, it’s hard to get excited about implementing a new habit. So, make sure you choose habits which are first of all, meaningful for you.
Focus on one at a time. As a general rule, the more things you try to learn in parallel, the harder it is. If you only give a small piece of attention to each habit, the mental associations which constitute it will not grow fast enough, and no actual habit will develop. This is why I recommend that any time, you only work on one habit. Depending on the actual complexity of the habit, you may actually work on 2 or 3, but it’s best if you take them one habit at a time. Anything else is rather an exception, which reinforces the general rule.
Get to the threshold. A certain way of thinking or acting becomes natural, automatic, after you practice it consciously a number of times, which can be quite large for more complex habits. You usually have to reach a certain threshold, and then it gets much easier. The common problem is that a lot of people give up working on a habit before the threshold is reached. Don’t do this! Realize that you need to get to this threshold to make it worth your effort, and focus on a habit long enough to get there. Only then, move on to the next habit.
Schedule it. Another thing which is common is that what doesn’t get scheduled doesn’t get done. You can decide to start practicing something, but then you get caught up in your daily responsibilities and never actually get to it. The trick is to put that practice in your schedule. This means that you reserve time, energy for it, and a reminder to do it at the scheduled time. I recommend that you put the things you practice where all the important things go: in your written agenda. Give it the same status a big business meeting might have and you will see it happening.
Make it fun. Even if you decide to implement a habit which is meaningful for you, it may still be a struggle in terms of motivation if the actual activity is not fun. The process is at least as important as the destination. This is why it can make all the difference in the world if you find ways to make implementing a habit fun. Explore options, put your creativity to work, and you will find them.

I had a problem at one point with implementing a jogging habit, because although it was meaningful to me, I found all the actual running kind of boring. Then I decided to make one change to this: I started listening to my favorite audio-books while running. It made all the difference it the world. Running actually became fun, and I would also get my ‘reading’ done at the same time as a bonus.

Implementing patterns is not hard, if you do it the smart way. Apply the right principles and you make it a process which is both fun, and productive. When you do implement habits the smart way, in time you create changes and you see results which can be mind blowing.

Eduard Ezeanu is a communication coach with an attitude-based approach. He teaches people how to put their best foot forward in communication and get top notch results. He also writes on his blog, People Skills Decoded.

23 Years

2010-07-06T07:45:00+02:00

Today I’m turning 23 years old, and I decided to write a short post to celebrate the event. This morning I woke up at 5.30 and did some exercises outside, then I had breakfast and now I’m writing this. My house is completely empty so I had some time to think.

It’s incredible how much life changed for me in the last 5 years when I first got into personal development and later started my first company. Back then I knew little about productivity, success, etc. My only concern was having enough money to party all nights and enjoy life. But, things can change, and I’m glad they did for me. After my not so successful business I started doing programming consulting (still doing) and I’ve been very lucky to work with awesome people all around the world. Even though I was hit financially last year and had to pay a huge amount of money, I’m almost debt free now (last rate to pay), and I still think like I haven’t missed anything. I now work from home and I’m relocating to Spain next month in order to learn a new language and enjoy a new country.

Five years ago I thought this lifestyle was impossible to achieve in this short amount of time, and it’s not like I’m doing anything special. Five years might seem like a long time, but the secret is, that time is going to pass anyway, so it’s up to you to make it worth it.

Five years ago I was a high school drop out with no future (that’s what they said, I never believed that) and today I’m location independent and I do what I love. It’s sad that I see my old friends still in the same situation as fie years ago, but the reality is that they did nothing to change. Perhaps the reason is that they don’t know that it’s possible to change your life, whatever you want it to be.

If there’s one lesson I learned is to never, never quit. Successful people try, fail, then try again, but never quit. If something doesn’t work you can try something else, but never give up. Whatever situation you might be right now it’s possible for you to change it, you just have to try until you get what you want.

I feel like there ‘s going to be a lot of change in the next year, but I don’t know yet what will happen. Hopefully I’ll be writing another post like this.

The Quick Fix Does Exist

2010-07-05T09:25:00+02:00

There are two kind of people in the world, those with patience, and those without it. I’m part of the second group, and of course sometimes I wish I’d be more in the first one. My actions are mostly driven by curiosity, and curiosity is perhaps the biggest motivator for me.

Curiosity itself isn’t bad, on the contrary it’s a great way to discover and learn new things. It’s only when you’re trying to achieve something non trivial that curiosity might play a bad game on you. If you’re anything like me you know how easy it is to get sidetracked when you’re working on something hard and the first difficulty comes around. It’s easier to try something new rather than trying to make working what you already have. If I only could be more patient I would complete more projects and achieve more goals, or would I?

I thought a lot about the role of patience in achieving goals and I came to the conclusion that patience per se is not the missing ingredient. Achieving a goal is only a matter of figuring out exactly what you want as well as figuring out the single most important action that can bring it to reality. Let me elaborate on this last point.

Everything we get in life is the result of some specific actions that we or someone else did before. There are exceptions, but strictly speaking you or someone else has to do something if you want to see results. If you try to analyze a specific outcome, you’ll find that it is often the result of many sub activities, but only a few of them provide for the 80% or more of the outcome. The rest is only added noise that doesn’t directly help to achieve a goal. I like to call these activities core actions, because they are responsible for 80% or more of the outcome.

Identifying what these core actions are is the single most important element of success. Once you have a goal, ask yourself what is the core action that you can do to achieve that goal, and then make sure that you spend most of your time doing it. Now, this is easier said than done, most of the times the most important activities are the ones where we procrastinate the most. This could be caused by a lack of knowledge, or perhaps they’re really boring activities. In the first case you must fulfill the gap you have by studying and researching around the subject. You can’t skip this part because you’ll never be good at something unless you fully understand its core actions. It doesn’t matter if it takes a week or a year to learn about them, once you have acquired all the necessary knowledge you’ll be able to achieve success much faster.

If you don’t want to do some activities, you can always delegate them. Just make sure that you understand what it needs to be done and that the people working for you have the necessary knowledge. Delegating a core action frees you from your main job and in some cases it allows you to duplicate your efforts, but make sure you can trust the rest of your team.

Note however that you can’t always delegate to someone else. For example if you are a student it would be hard to delegate your study to someone else, same is for artists and writers. That’s not a problem however because you are providing value by focusing on core actions, so your efforts are still worth your time, plus chances are that you enjoy what you do.

It is clear that the quick fix does indeed exists, and it involves identifying and executing the core actions that will enable you to achieve a goal. It is quick because while other people are spending their time doing every kind of unrelated activity, you’re focusing your energies on what’s really important.

Now this may sound like a lot of theory, but in reality you can apply it to virtually every activity. Ask yourself what you want, and make a plan for it. Make sure that you spend most of your time executing your core actions and you’ll get what you want much faster than you ever thought possible.

As a final note, don’t make it personal when you try to identify your core actions. Pretend to be another person that is inspecting your business, and leave your feelings for later. This is sometimes necessary in order to avoid situations where you would tend to leave out some activities only because you don’t enjoy doing them. That’s a mistake that you want to avoid.