Ran across a fantastic article by Roy M. Wallack in the Los Angeles Times:
“How I got my 89-year-old dad to crush it in the gym”
Definitely worth a read. My takeaways from this inspiring story:
When you’re serious about focusing on one thing right now, it’s best to cut yourself off from everything else that might distract you or make you think about something different. Here are several easy steps to shut out the world so you can actually focus on the task at hand:
All of these steps can be taken very quickly. You might not even need all of them. For many people it’s just one or two of these that cause all the distraction and undo your ability to focus. Experiment with what works for you.
Taking your thoughts at face value can lead to undesired outcomes. This is especially true when you make a quick decision about what to do next in your quest to achieve your ultimate goal.
Your brain can play tricks on you. Psychologists and other researchers call these tricks “cognitive bias” and I call them Brain Bias.
A common Brain Bias in your decision making is “What You See Is All There Is” thinking. WYSIALI is the acronym I’ll use.
WYSIALI works like this:
You make decision looking only at your present circumstances, your present surroundings, and your current knowledge. It’s as if you’re trying to make a decision about the larger world while trapped in a windowless room that doesn’t give you access to anything outside your own immediate experience.
Let’s think about this: Your present circumstances may not allow you to see that your decision will be limited and possibly limiting. You’ll view the possible decisions you can make based on changing where you are now rather than on the most likely way to get the outcome you desire.
Our current knowledge can be incomplete. What we know is also based on our personal assumptions – which may or may not be true. And, in some cases, our knowledge is actually wrong!
If you’re making a decision based on your current situation (what you “see”) with your current knowledge (which is limited at best), your brain may just be biased against the decision that will be most successful for you.
This WYSIALI decision making is very common in the employment world. Very often, people make decisions focusing on leaving their current job rather than on the pro’s and con’s of the new job they’re considering. They’ll even ask co-workers for opinions about whether or not to take the new job. Unfortunately, your current co-workers are in your current situation. They’re also looking through the lens of “what they see” now. If you’re looking for advice on an important decision, get that advice from people who are not in your current situation. They’ll be more objective about the decision.
Be very careful of the WYSIALI Brain Bias. Always look for ideas outside your current situation and knowledge before making an important decision.
Here’s another 10 Minute Virtuoso Tip:
If you’re tight on time and only have 10 minutes to work on your skill today, do ten 1-minute drills.
Use a timer and focus like crazy for just one minute on a single aspect of your skill. When the timer goes off, switch gears. Start the timer again and immediately focus on a different detail.
This hardcore, super-focused, crazy fast strategy will pack in ten different details in ten minutes!
There are two big issues with phone calls for people who feel they need more time in the day.
First, getting a phone call when you don’t want to talk can be annoying and distracting.
Second, many phone calls go on far longer than you want them to.
Together – taking long phone calls when you don’t want to talk – your phone may be the cause of your thinking that you need more hours in the day.
Here are two phone strategies that will miraculously create more time in your life:
Strategy 1: Schedule the Call
Schedule when you’re available to talk on the phone. There are two great ways to do this: (1) Set up a specific phone call appointment time when you’ll talk to someone. You can even designate a window of time in the day when you’re willing to talk on the phone. (2) When you start a phone call, specifically tell the other person how long you can talk, and then stick to this ending time!
Strategy 2: Initiate the Call
Never answer your phone. Always call the person back when it’s convenient for you. Keep doing whatever it is you’re doing. Be focused. Be productive. Get your work done. Work toward your goals. Then, when you need a short break or have the time to talk, return the call.
Some people feel that these two strategies are unfriendly or even downright rude. If you feel this way, ask yourself this question: Is it more important to talk right now, or is it more important that I take action creating the life I truly want?
In yesterday’s blog post, I listed 8 strategies to help you overcome being a perfectionist.
Today, I’m giving you a handful of resources for exploring this topic more. If you’re interested in learning more or getting a new perspective, try the resources on my list. And, if you’ve got additional resources for helping people overcome perfectionism, please leave a comment with the resource and a link to it.
As I’m writing this, Nance’s talk isn’t yet available at TED.com. It is on YouTube. And, you can also watch it right here on my blog:
Search “perfectionism,” “perfection,” and “perfect” at TED.com, and you’ll get a wonderful list of interesting videos to watch. Warning: This may eat up a lot of time in your day!
Brene Brown is one of the most important people working today to help us understand vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame – all topics that intersect with perfectionism. Unlike many academic researchers, she is an engaging and interesting presenter and writer. I highly recommend her work.
Perfectionism. Is it a wonderful attribute to have? Is it a defect?
There are definitely times when doing something less than perfect can be disastrous. For instance, figuring out the location of a planet two years from now so you can land a probe on that planet. This type of calculation needs to be perfect.
There are also times when being less than perfect is better than being perfect. A great example is getting a birthday greeting delivered to someone on time. It’s much more important that this person hears from you on their birthday than that you write and rewrite until you have the perfect wording – but send them the birthday card a week late.
When it comes to skills you’re mastering, information you’re learning, and optimizing your performance, being a perfectionist can stop you from making the forward progress you want (and need) to make. You can waste valuable time trying to make everything perfect instead of moving forward and taking action.
If you suffer from perfectionist tendencies, here are some useful strategies for addressing perfectionism:
Optimizing your performance means that your performance is as good as it can be given your circumstances. Optimal performance is much more than “Success vs. Failure” or “Winning vs. Losing.” It’s about improving, having personal bests, and continually working toward your goals.
The concept of performing perfectly is a dream or a myth. The reality is that even those people who have achieved the highest level of mastery in their field perform at a less-than-perfect level every time they perform. Hall of Fame level baseball players fail 7 out of 10 at bats. World-class salespeople fail to close deals. Virtuoso musicians miss notes. This is part of the human condition.
It’s important to recognize that each of us has ideals about the effectiveness of our performance. Our ideals are based on our own standards and expectations. There is not a Universal Truth that gets applied to every single person on earth regarding what everyone’s standards and ideals should be.
It could be that your Standards are higher than those of other people. If that’s the case, your Standards may not be the best and most healthy Standards for you to carry through life. Can other people meet your standards? If the answer to this is “No,” then try to apply Standards to yourself that you would feel good applying to a friend or loved one.
If you’d like to have a really bad day, compare yourself to the person who is the absolute best in human history in your field. Rather than going through this exercise, which will for sure make you feel inferior and dissatisfied, compare yourself today to where you’ve been in the past. Recognize your accomplishments. Notice how far you’ve come. List past challenges that you’ve overcome. Know that you’ll have challenges in the future, and you’ll be able to overcome those as well.
When learning a new skill or absorbing new information, that can be a time when being a perfectionist is useful and beneficial. You want to be as close to perfect as possible when things are new so you get off to a good start. Later, when you are engaging in the skill or using the information you’ve learned, you’ve got to be more flexible and in the moment. Of course you won’t be perfect every time you execute the skill. That’s to be expected. Let go of the process you used to master a skill and switch your thinking to accepting what happens during the execution of that skill in the real world.
You may have created your own set of Expectations based on what you think about yourself and the world. Have you revealed these Expectations to an expert in your field? Do they agree with you, or do they suggest that you’re being too hard on yourself?
It’s important to know how you define success. You can define what success looks like for you. And, you can also say why that’s your definition of success. Thinking about why you’ve defined success in a specific way will sometimes lead to the realization that you’ve been unfair to yourself.
Every list I put together to help you be your best has one important thing in common: You don’t have to use the whole list. Finding even one strategy to help you overcome your perfectionism will be useful. Disagree with one of these strategies? Fine. Don’t use it! Found the perfect combination of two of the strategies? Congratulations. That’s fantastic.
Let me know what strategies are working for you.
Here’s another Brain Bias that affects you, me, everyone we know, and every other person on earth: Attentional Bias.
We are all affected by what we most pay attention to and think about. Our very perception of what is real and how the world works is affected by our recurring thoughts.
If your recurring thoughts make you think you can’t perform at your best when you most need to, then I recommend that you question this default way of thinking and create a new set of recurring thoughts that will serve you better.
What you spend most of your time thinking about is up to you. Pay attention to your thoughts. Question why you have them. Make adjustments where needed.
If you feel this is impossible to do on your own (which, by the way is an example of this Brain Bias!), find a therapist, counselor, performance coach, trusted friend, mentor, or colleague to help you. Your very life may depend on it.
Here’s another easy strategy to magically manufacture more hours in your day:
Shut down social media.
I’m not saying to close all your social media accounts. I am saying to log off of social media, close your apps, and take a break from the endless viewing of updates, likes, dislikes, shares, and whatever else you’re spending time on in the social media universe that is taking you away from what’s actually important to you.
Shut down social media for an hour, for a day, for a week, for a month. Whatever you’d like, it’s your choice. Just shut it down!
Here’s a terrific TED talk by Patty McCord, former chief talent officer of Netflix. She outlines a set of policies that humanize the experience of work and can be helpful in all settings where teams need to perform effectively.
The most important is Lesson 6: “Your company needs to live out its values.”
But, my favorite is Lesson 7: “All startup ideas are stupid.”
