Putting just a few minutes of work every day toward a goal is a wonderful way to make progress toward that goal over time. If you feel those few minutes just aren’t available to you, try this highly effective strategy:
Get up 15 minutes earlier in the morning. During those 15 minutes, take one action toward achieving your goal.
That’s it. You just made more time in your day! And, you worked toward your goal.
“Habituation” is one of those scientific terms that sounds too technical for most people to pay attention to.
Here’s how Merriam-Webster defines habituation: “decrease in responsiveness upon repeated exposure to a stimulus.”
Let’s break this down. “Decrease in responsiveness” means you stop paying attention to something. You may stop seeing it, feeling it, or hearing it. “Repeated exposure to a stimulus” means that the same thing is happening over and over.
Unfortunately, having the same thing happen over and over is exactly the way most people try to learn new skills and build mastery. You’ve probably heard that repetition is important in building a new skill, and this is totally true. However, if you’re mindlessly repeating the same action over and over, your brain – because of this concept of habituation – will stop paying attention to what you’re doing!
After a while, repetition becomes a waste of time since you’re no longer being responsive the activity.
You want to figure out just how much repetition you can use to maximize your learning. Not enough repetition, and you don’t learn the skill effectively. Too much repetition and you no longer get any positive results from it.
One way to get more out of repetition, and avoid the perils of habituation, is to focus on only one aspect of your skill at a time. If you’re doing a repetitive task to master a skill, focus on one thing for five or so repetitions, then switch to focusing on something else for another few repetitions. Keep up this process. Effectively, you’re focusing on a different aspect of the “stimulus” and fooling your brain’s natural tendency to stop paying attention over time.
Don’t get me wrong. You absolutely need habituation to get through your day without going crazy. While you felt your socks as you put them on your feet this morning, you do not want to notice the feeling of those socks throughout the day. That would be distracting and terrible.
It’s just that you may find yourself losing your focus and not paying attention when you really, truly need to pay attention. Your brain will shut out things automatically if you don’t remind yourself to refocus and start paying attention again.
By knowing about habituation, you can learn information and master skills more effectively.
Most people assume that these statements are true:
1. Studying information will lead to remembering that information by putting it into my long-term memory.
2. Practicing a skill repetitively will make that skill part of my muscle memory.
3. When I go to work tomorrow, I’ll remember important conversations I’ve had today.
What if these statements are false, or at least not totally true but more like possibilities?
Sleep researchers have discovered a process they call “synaptic pruning.” Synaptic pruning means that, during sleep, the brain gets rid of some of your synapses, which are the connections around the neurons in your brain.
Essentially, it’s like potential memories are cut away. Now, this is a good thing. It stops your brain from being cluttered with unimportant information that never makes its way to long-term memory. The New York Times ran a headline that said “The Purpose of Sleep? To Forget” in its article on this topic.
It’s a very good thing to cut away much of the information you’ve been exposed to in the course of your day. Think of all the random people and cars you’ve seen, all the unimportant sounds you’ve heard, and anything else that has no relevance or importance to you.
If you’re trying to learn a lot of new information, or if you’re working hard to master a new skill, this brain pruning can also be a bad thing. What if everything you’re trying to remember gets cut away when you sleep? These things are extremely important to you, and you want them to stay in your brain!
The idea of pruning has many implications for you as you master skills. You’ve got to do all your mastery work in such a way that your brain recognizes that work as something highly important so those memories get kept while other, less important stuff gets pruned away.
Make sure that your learning and mastery strategies are the best ones available to give you the best shot at keeping what you’re learning in your long-term memory. Everything you do must be done to maximize efficiency and effectiveness.
In addition to the New York Times article on synaptic pruning, I also recommend a Scientific American article on this fascinating subject.
Today’s strategy for increasing your focus is specific to learning new skills. It works best for skills that have are physical and also have a mental component to them.
The good news? This focusing strategy will give you amazing results.
The less-than-good news? This strategy has to become a permanent part of your practice regime. It’s not something you do only occasionally.
To see real forward progress in your skill set, you’ll need to zero in on the exact issue that is holding you back. This means two things:
1. You will clearly identify the issue.
2. You will work on the issue in isolation, that is, not combined with related skills.
To improve your skills, focusing on a specific aspect of the skill is an essential focusing strategy. Being vague won’t help you!
Here are some specific examples:
FOR PRESENTERS:
Let’s say your audiences are not following your call to action. It may be that your call to action itself isn’t strong enough or compelling enough, or it may not be an action that your audience feels will solve a problem they have.
On the other hand, your call to action may be perfect, and the real issue is the opening of your presentation. You may be starting your presentation in a way that does not create trust with your audience. If they don’t trust you, the world’s best call to action will fall on deaf ears.
First, identify exactly what the issue is. Then, work on just that issue. Come up with new ideas. Practice your physical presentation for that opening section. Practice over and over. Trying to fix your entire presentation is likely unnecessary. You must know the real issue that is stopping you from having the success you want.
FOR ATHLETES:
Let’s say you’re a tennis player, and your serves are not landing the way you need them to land. Since there are many components to creating the perfect tennis serve, simply practicing your serve over and over is unlikely to improve your skills.
Instead, you need to work with your tennis pro, or find a serve coach, and isolate the exact issue that needs the work. Then, you’ll practice improving just that issue. Could be your weight distribution. Could be the angle of your elbow and how that affects your racket placement. Could be your grip. Could be how tightly or loosely you hold your racket.
There are dozens of potential issues that need your focus. You must determine the real issue and zero in on it while practicing.
FOR MUSICIANS:
If you’re a musician, you may find yourself playing through an entire song over and over again. You may do this even if there are two specific locations in the song where you often make the same mistake. There is no reason to practice the entire song, hoping that the problem will fix itself.
Instead, work on just the specific area that needs your attention. Even when you’ve isolated the notes that need the work, you’ll still need to zero in on what’s causing the issue. Do you understand the rhythm? Can you get from one note to the next comfortably? Are your muscles tightening?
Determine the issue and focus only on that single issue to create a breakthrough in your skills.
FOR EVERYONE:
Once your attention is focused on the exact issue that you need to master, practice very slowly, accurately, and deliberately. It’s at this very point that you’ll be starting the process of building a new, successful muscle memory. Only through intense focus will you fix the problem.
The number one thing I hear from people who want to learn a new skill (or improve a current one) is this:
I don’t have time to practice.
They wonder where they’ll get the time. They dream of having a 25th or 26th hour in the day. They just can’t see how they can fit in practicing this skill into their incredibly busy lives – even though they say that improving the skill is important to them.
Here’s a deceptively simple strategy:
NEVER skip a day.
Now, I know this sounds silly if you feel you already don’t have enough hours in the day. I get it.
I also know that if you commit to this strategy of practicing your skill every single day, no matter what, you will start to feel like time is being added to your days. It starts with a real commitment to practice every day.
Did I say every day? Yes, I did. Every day.
No matter what, even if you only practice your skill for one minute, practice every day. Count the days. Really, keep track. See how many in a row you can do. If you skip a day, start over with the counting.
See if you can get to 100 days in a row. 200 days. 365 days. 500 days. 1,000 days. Keep going, every day, no matter what.
Our brains control everything about our lives: how we perceive the world, what actions we’re willing to take, our dreams and desires, how we react to everything around us, and so much more.
What if our brains aren’t designed to help us achieve our goals?
If that’s the case, and current brain research seems to say that it is the case, then we need to figure out ways to work around the normal function of our brains. Instead of trusting that all our thoughts and reactions are in our best interests, we need to ask ourselves if those initial reactions really serve us.
In short, question your brain!
Here are just a few reasons to question your brain:
So, ask yourself these questions on a regular basis:
I’m going to explore these, and many other, ideas about the brain in this blog. Understanding how your brain works against you is important to your success and satisfaction in what you’re accomplishing with your life. Just about all of my coaching clients are negatively influenced by the natural way the human brain sees the world. These people are constantly fighting their natural tendencies in order to create thoughts, words, and actions that allow them to achieve their goals in life.
If you have big goals you want to achieve, you’ll have to overcome the natural workings of your brain and give yourself strategies that will allow you to get the success you want.
My job is to show you these strategies. Your job is to use them!
You can search “Question Your Brain” to see my blog posts on this topic.
Whenever you sit down to focus intently on a task, it’s important to know exactly where to start. A lot of time can be wasted trying to remember what you did the last time you worked on the task. This is especially true if it’s been a few days since you last put in the work on this task.
Here’s an easy solution:
Each time you complete an item on your goal list, or work part of the way through a task, write down what you accomplished. This can take well under a minute, and you can keep this log on paper (like in a notebook or on a Post-It), in your phone, in a voice memo, in email or text format, pretty much anywhere that works for you.
Just be sure to take a few seconds and write down these three things:
1. What you got done today.
2. What still needs improvement of attention.
3. Where to start tomorrow.
When tomorrow comes, seeing these notes will get you focused immediately and save you a ton of time.
In yesterday’s post I introduced the concept of the Parthenon Principle, made famous by success expert Brian Tracy.
Let’s take a look at how you can strengthen individual components of your overall efforts to create positive changes in your outcomes. You’ll focus on the essence of the Parthenon Principle:
Not Using the Parthenon Principle:
Outcome: |
With the Parthenon Principle:
Outcome: |
Not Using the Parthenon Principle:
Outcome: |
With the Parthenon Principle:
Outcome: |
Not Using the Parthenon Principle:
Outcome: |
With the Parthenon Principle:
Outcome: |
The Parthenon Principle gives you an easy-to-use framework to improve your outcomes by focusing on small changes to individual facets of your work. Making small changes to multiple aspects of what you’re doing is much easier and less time-consuming than attempting (and likely failing) to make a big change to one facet of your project.
Rather than having tunnel vision, the Parthenon Principle guides you to see all the interrelated parts working together for your success. See if you can make improvements in each of these “pillars” that will support your overall effort.
I love the Parthenon Principle because it meshes seamlessly with my Ten Minute Virtuoso method. When you’re making small changes to each “pillar” of your project, these changes can often happen in short bursts of focused activity rather than taking over your entire life. I’m always looking for strategies that allow people to improve their lives by spending short amounts of time to get a lot accomplished. The Parthenon Principle is just such a strategy.
Anything important that you’re working on – your career, building a business, improving your presentation skills, becoming a better performer or athlete – takes dedication in order for you to see the type of success you want. Success and positive outcomes take work, time, and effort.
This isn’t news to you if you’re trying to improve something in your life. The question is: What type of effort is the best type of effort?
One answer to this question is beautifully illustrated by Brian Tracy’s Parthenon Principle.
The Parthenon Principle acknowledges that every large-scale effort is made up of several small parts (think of the columns of the Parthenon) that support the overall effort. Strengthening and improving each of these parts by a small amount will have a big influence on the strength of your overall effort. Making each of the parts just a little better will give you a big net effect in our outcome.
Think about the columns that are supporting your project. What can you do to make small improvements in each of these columns?
I’ll look more at the Parthenon Principle, and how it applies to specific areas of life, in tomorrow’s post.
A sure way to slow down your work and feel like there’s never enough time in the day is by being constantly distracted.
If you’re serious about creating more time for what actually matters to you, try any or all of these time-creating strategies that destroy distractions:
Experiment with one or more of these ideas until you find the perfect combination that makes more time in your day.
Practice behind a locked door. Put your phone in airplane mode when you practice. (Your metronome, tuner, and music player apps will still work.) Do whatever you can to avoid distractions.
