A IS ATTENTION. It’s where the art of being successful starts; all twenty-five other characteristics are dependent upon this one. To be successful at something, to be able to say “yes, I achieved that” or “yes, I can do that now” or “finally, I’m on the path which I wanted” we must give it – whatever we want – attention. Attention means we give our desire, our goal, three types of focus: appropriate dedicated time, appropriate dedicated energy and appropriate dedicated mindset. Without the consistent application of these three factors we are unlikely to achieve our goal; success will not be ours.
Isn’t it a fairly obvious point? Well, not necessarily. In this increasingly busy world we have become very good at thinking and talking about changes we wish to make. But there is a difference – a big difference – between thinking and talking and actually doing. The danger is that as we think and talk we often feel we are doing. And as we talk more and more about losing weight, or writing our book, or learning that language, or gaining promotion and yet nothing changes we begin to feel disillusioned: why are we not getting what we want? We complain that we have been “working on this for so long”. Not true. But with sufficient attention, we will get the change we want.
For example, have you talked about:
- making a million
- losing some weight
- getting out more
- writing a book
- doing an MBA
- watching more foreign films
- learning yoga
- sorting out your finances
- getting up earlier
- simply doing anything different to your current routine, and then noticed that nothing happened?
That’s what we want to change. We want to ensure that our intellectual wish becomes our physical reality. Remember: think is not walk. Neither is talk. Give real attention and gain real results: maybe not instantly, maybe not as easily as you would like. But it will happen.
So, the three factors are: appropriate dedicated time, appropriate dedicated energy and appropriate dedicated mindset. What do “appropriate” and “dedicated” mean? By appropriate level, we mean sufficient time, or energy or mindset to raise this issue into our everyday consciousness: it’s literally “on our mind”. By dedicated we mean you allow nothing to come in its way. You may have noticed that there are only a few things each day upon which you can truly focus. These are the things which are in your everyday conversation or, more colloquially, in your face. Make this goal one of them.
Appropriate Dedicated Time
Factor one in developing, improving and achieving what you want is to shift from occasional mental attention on the skill or topic (i.e., an almost random thought about a change you might like) to maximizing mental (i.e., keep thinking about it until it’s happening) and physical (i.e., keep doing it until it works) attention. This of course requires that you dedicate time. Follow this procedure.
- Decide clearly what it is that you want. For the moment we are going to assume that you know. Perhaps you don’t. Or you are a little vague or concerned that your idea seems too simplistic or naive. Whatever, when we look at C for Compass, you’ll know what to do. So we will assume you do for the moment.
- Open your diary: paper or electronic. It is going to get a new use. No longer is it just for recording appointments and occasionally listing “stuff to be done”. It’s now a planning tool too, for getting things to happen. Mark when and for how long you are going to dedicate time to this change that you want. Make it a block of time – not just a point of time. For instance, write “10–3, Saturday, water colors” not “10, Sat, water colors”. Blocks of time dedicate the time to a cause. Points of time have a habit of merging with other points of time.
- Whatever happens, stick to that time. If you do have to cancel a time, make a new time. And keep doing this if necessary. You are wiring your body to be accepting of change and that you will get what you want eventually. This latter point is critical. Don’t give up. Be persistent. Be attentive.
Remember that you can always find time for what is important. But you need to make it important to you. If something which is important is not getting done then you will need to change your priorities. Remember that time is easily sucked away. On average, adults in Europe watch 3.5 hours of television per day. Do you really need all of that TV? Don’t whinge when you can’t get the time for your gardening, writing, reading in the large chunks you would wish; simply take what you can. Maybe it is the case that you can’t get half-days for your writing; do it in one-hour chunks instead. Or maybe you can never get enough time to travel to anywhere interesting to develop your photographic skills. So take your camera shopping and practice on something ordinary.
Appropriate Dedicated Mindset
Factor two is your mindset. Approach the change or goal with an absolutely determined mindset. Don’t allow anything to come in the way. Be accepting of natural, limiting mindsets such as “this is going to be hard”. Yes, it might, but that needn’t stop you. Be aware that the way you are thinking will have subtle and not-so-subtle effects on the results that you get; the personal psychology of how you approach this goal will probably be the biggest of the three factors. We will do a lot more work on this when we look at B for Beliefs. As an introduction think about how you will react if your plans don’t work out initially. Will you see it as failure? Or as feedback to try a different approach? Will you insist on having half-days for your writing or will you try and work with just 90 minutes? Notice how your mindset affects the way you behave.
Appropriate Dedicated Energy
Factor three is your energy. Put some oomph behind your project. Now decide actually to do something in those times which you have scheduled. Go for that walk, work on your MBA, do whatever you have promised yourself that you will do. Energy builds. Once you start you will get improved results. See Compass Point 2 – mind/body (in C for Compass) for more on building energy. I often work with individuals who liaise internationally in global markets. A common goal such individuals would like to realize is language development. Here’s such an example.
David’s career was simply not going to progress until he acquired fluency in everyday business Japanese. He had of course known that for years; he spent about 30 percent of his time in Japan on behalf of his UK parent organization. But he had got nowhere. He’d used tape sets, grammar texts. He had received coaching at home and in Japan. There was very little to show for it.
But now he was up against it; his last review had stated in writing that unless he got to a respectable level in Japanese within the year his company would need to replace him with a local specialist. That coincided with an interesting dinner party conversation here David had expressed a worry that he just wasn’t a linguist. “Not necessarily true,” the woman next to him replied, “you simply aren’t giving it enough attention.”
It rang true for David, so he went for it.
- Dedicated time: He scheduled 45 minutes every day. Everything else which could go, did go. Whether he felt like it or not, he worked alternate days on grammar and vocabulary. And as he made progress most days, he actually began to enjoy it. Previously he had fitted it in when he could, which was never.
- Dedicated mindset: He got really focused on making this work. And he got really focused on what would happen if it didn’t work. Previously he had tackled his language work with increasing resentment.
- Dedicated energy: He made sure he worked on it every morning, his best time. Previously it had tended to be the end of the day in hotel rooms. Nine months later David had it cracked. He was regularly congratulated on the standard of his Japanese.
80 percent of success is turning up.
WOODY ALLEN
Let’s now take some other specific examples.
So you want to get fit?
- Give it appropriate time. Decide the level of fitness you would like. If in any doubt at all start at the level of walking and taking the stairs. Open your diary (paper or electronic): mark in five 20-minute chunks; do make sure that they are blocks of time. If you can’t do anything this week, then do it the following week. Make it happen.
- Give it appropriate mindset. Be aware that other people get fit, even after years of inactivity, so that there is no reason why you can’t do the same.
- Give it appropriate energy. This one could be circular! Start small. Have a good night’s sleep, get up and take that exercise. Notice how much better you sleep the following night.
So you want to write a book?
- Give it appropriate time. Every day write three pages. At this stage don’t worry too much about the quality, simply get used to writing. Once you have become a writer, then you can write a book.
- Have an appropriate mindset. Don’t worry about whether it will get published, don’t worry about whether anyone will think it is good. Simply concentrate on a) becoming a writer, and b) writing the book.
- Give it appropriate energy. Choose the best time of day for you and reserve it for your writing.
So you want to get promoted?
I suspect you’re getting the hang of this now!
- Time: set up four conversations with people who can help.
- Mindset: “I’m now ready for the next stage” not “I wonder if…”
- Energy: warm up before conversations.
