Your Success This Year Is Determined By What You Tolerate
Mar 28, 2022I have been reading the book “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown. In the book, he says you can’t overestimate the unimportance of almost everything. Almost everything is unimportant. There’s a few things which are truly making the big impact in who you are as a person, and in the results you’re getting in your coaching life.
I bring this up because at this time of year, a lot of coaches tell me how they are already off track again, even though they had great intentions starting the new year.
Do you know how much time you are spending doing things that are unimportant?
As we are now 4 weeks into the new year, I want you to do a quick audit of your life to see where you are at. Besides how much time are you spending on the unimportant, I want you to ask yourself, are you making the impact you want? Are you getting the results you want? Are my truly desired results, the key outcomes, the key indicators, are those getting better?”
Ultimately, to find the answers, you need to do an 80/20 analysis of your life. The 80/20 rule, often called the Pareto Principle, is where you figure out on what you are spending most of your time and energy on. This principal helps understand that 80% of results in life come from only 20% of activity, or 80% of our output comes from only 20% of our input.
And actually, if you really look at the 80/20 rule, it’s honestly more like the 90/10 rule, maybe even the 95/5 rule. 95% of results come from only 5% of things you do.
Are you spending enough time on your 5%?
If after your 80/20 analysis, you find that you are off track already from how you intended to be this year, then you must look at your process and realize, “Okay, my process is not working right now. My daily behaviors are off. I’m probably focused on the 80% of things that are only getting me 20% of the results. Or the 95% of things that are only getting me 5% of my results.”
Quick personal story. During a coaching session that I was having with my coach about 4 years ago in which I was sharing that I was frustrated with the progress I was making in my life and in my career, this is what my coach told me:
She said “Your life is a product of your standards. Your life is a product of what you’re willing to tolerate, as Tony Robbins would say. So, if you have bad relationships, bad health, if your time is wasted and not spent well, it’s because you tolerate these things. You don’t have high enough standards, you’re willing to settle for less than you truly want in your life, and your environment is supporting your bad beliefs, and your bad behaviors.”
BOOM! What she said hit home because it was true.
If this is also true for you, “What the heck is currently going on in your life that’s not ideal? That’s not the best? That’s not according to my highest priorities and values.”
What are your daily habits? What foods are you eating? How much time do you spend on social media? Are you wasting a lot of time and energy with certain people? How many subpar and mediocre things are you allowing to show up in your life?
What things are you tolerating?
Doing a life audit is something you should do every 2-3 months. Look at your life, look at your environment and your relationships, your performance, your results, and give an honest analysis about what’s currently happening and showing up.
Most coaches don’t do these types of analyses because they are too busy to stop, take a step back, and really take a look at their daily behaviors. If you are not getting the results you want, when you take a serious look at where your time and focus is going, you might find that you’re not focused on your core values and priorities, and you’re not focused only on the best things that matter.
When you get laser focused on what you want, you have to have high standards about how you use your time. You have to do these types of 80/20 style analyses and look at what are the true things that matter most to you.
Good luck! If you want my help, please reach out to me at [email protected].
P.S. If you have found this article helpful, please share it with your staff or other work colleagues! Studying time and energy management over these last 8 years and applying it to my coaching and recruiting has been a game changer for me. I am committed to helping coaches get more important work done in less time so more time can be spent with family and friends. Thanks!
