My last post got a lot of positive feedback but left a lot of questions as to how… How does one eliminate the noise and distractions in their life?
Being overwhelmed might be more of a problem for organized, focused people than you would think. In my case, I started with a focused purpose, but as my resources increased, more opportunities and options came my way, making it harder to stay on task and ultimately diluting me in any one area. The minute you start to be the “go-to” guy for people, the more demand for your time exists. From there, you can easily become distracted from what your priority was or should be. You can see how this can be a slippery slope for people with the best of intentions.
How can you begin to discover your priorities and/or get refocused on what is important?
I was jettisoned into a desperate situation where I was quickly required to reevaluate my life and had a lot of time to think about it. At the time, I wasn’t experiencing or learning this to share with anyone else; I was just doing it to get my life right…desperately. Dying taught me a lot about living.
The book “Essentialism”, by Greg McKeon, summarizes how to get this done better than I can. In it, he gives three steps to clear the noise and get refocused. Explore, eliminate, and execute.
1. Explore: First we have to explore the what, why, and when of our purpose. In the age of over information, we often find the WHAT to be everything the WHYto be what is popular, and the WHEN to be now! He mentions that somewhere in the middle of all this is the “highest point of frustration You might be feeling that now. If we can narrow our search with harder questions like “What do I feel inspired by?” and “What meets a significant need in this world?” it filters the overall opportunity noise significantly, whereby we can now find the WHAT to be the right thing, the WHY to be the right reason, and the WHEN to be the right time. In my case, the right thing was to live, the right reason was for my family, and the right time was today. I know it seems oversimplified, but when I had my “marching orders” clear and focused, I was already halfway there.
2. Eliminate: This could very well mean saying “no” to people who you love and opportunities that you would otherwise attract and even appear good. This might be harder for some than others, but I quickly had a lesson in how precious time is and decided that if I cannot be of service to others, in some capacity, I just wasn’t going to do it. This meant giving up a lot of things that I frankly do not even miss but having that focus also eliminated any guilt that I would have about saying no or disappointing other people. I think you will find that most of what you eliminate you can easily live without. I have.
3. Execute: This is the action of the first two. To be honest, they are not really independent of one another, I just think authors like to put things in bite-sized pieces that are easy to remember. The call is to not only move towards your priority and/or purpose but remove all the trivial things that do not align with your most sacred goals, or priority.
It took no time at all for me to wake up and realize where my energy needed to be focused. All I needed was to be blessed with enough energy to point in a direction. When faced with desperate situations, this becomes an easy choice. I write these so that hopefully you can see this the same way without having to go through what I did. My priority today is to help as many people as I can and make the world a better place, if only for allowing me the privilege to stay in it. Once that was aligned, it made every other action under it not only more clear but rewarding and enjoyable.
I am always willing to help.
