In an article which wrote the other week I explained that if you wanted to master something then it needed to become your only focus. If you wanted to make yourself the best of the best, then nothing short of 100% commitment of your effort would be adequate. Why waste time on other things? The truth is, if you want to be a world beater then you have to leave no stone unturned.
However if you just want to be better than most at something, better than 80% of the population then your method of learning should be very different.
I hear a lot about the Pareto Principle, and you probably do too. The idea that with 20% of the work that is possible you can achieve 80% of the success. Or that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your clients. I strongly believe in this principle, as I have seen both of these come true when the maths is worked out.
For example, how much effort does it take for someone to go from 20% body fat to 10% body fat? For most that is relatively simple. All you need to do it to eat good food and train hard. But to go from 10% down to 8% is extremely difficult for most people.
20% of the world's population control 80% of the world's wealth
The list goes on....
It's all about efficiency and using your best resources effectively whist not wasting time on things which offer you little return on investment.
So how does this apply to personal development, and self improvement?
You can use the Pareto principle to get yourself 80% of the way there without putting in any more than 20% of the effort; and what you have to do is very simple.
We are all machines when it comes down to it. We are a bunch of moving parts connected together by a series of nerves, all controlled by a central computer in our head. Just like a computer we have hardware (our brains) software (our learned actions) and are receptive to change.
If you have a computer and you would like to change the background on your desktop what do you do?
You look through your pictures and you decide there is nothing stored which is producing the idyllic back ground you crave. Want you really want is a picture of a beach paradise. So you search on-line and find the best picture you can, copy it and set it as your background. Now every time you open your desktop you're greeted with a pleasing picture:
Your brain works in exactly the same way.
If you want to achieve new results then you have to be prepared to learn a new set of behaviours (download a new picture). You have to be prepared to some degree to give up who you are in order to make way for what you would like to become.
You have to find someone who has already done what you want to do and learn their behaviours. Instead of clicking a button on your screen you have to overwrite your habits in a different way. You have to repeatedly, consciously and deliberately behave differently until you have rewritten your programming. Soon afterwards you will start to produce these behaviours naturally and you will achieve the same level of success that the person you modelled has achieved.
The alternative in both situations requires a lot more hard work for very littler extra benefit.
If you want a beach paradise on your desktop, but you would like it to be perfect, then you'll have to go and take the picture yourself.
You'll need to research the best beaches all over the world, invest in a high quality camera, travel the world and then spend weeks editing pictures to get the best possible picture.
If you want to be the best ever, then you'll need to experiment continuously with what works and what doesn't so that your results are the best you could ever achieve.
Do you see that with a huge amount more effort (80%) you're only really going to be a little better? If you want to win the Olympic final or become one of the richest people in the world then that is exactly the level of effort which needs to be applied. However to be better than most, you need only model those who have already achieved.
So what do people who are very successful in the gym do?
There are a few characteristics that I have noticed which are common of those who own the gym. We're no talking about diet or lifestyle, although these things tend to go hand in hand. We're just talking about those who train the most effectively.
Successful gym goers:
Turn up early
- This may seem like a pointless detail, and some of you reading this might regard this as over the top; but it's the truth. The people that do the best always turn up early, they arrive with between half and hour and 15 minutes to go before their session.
- What they use this time for is meditation, not the sitting in a field thinking about inner peace meditation, but the type of meditation where they stretch, foam roll and focus on what they are about to do.
Don't chat once training has begun
- Once their workout has begun, you don't want to distract them. Some people are more forgiving than others but generally once in 'the zone' their focus is 100% on the task at hand.
- I appreciate that some people like to have a social while at the gym and that's fine because we're all different, but if you are really serious about getting results leave the chat until afterwards.
Believe there is nothing you can't do
- To be the best you can be you need to unshackle your mind from the chains of self doubt. You need to believe that you can do anything that you are challenged with.
- "Belief in limits creates a limited individual "
- Why would you want to be realistic about what you can achieve? If you limit yourself to being realistic then you are limiting yourself to mediocrity. So what if you fall short? You don't fail until you stop giving 100%. There is no plan B.
Be obsessive
- Every detail counts, the precise technique, the precise tempo, everything.
- Set up your weights so you're ready to go from the off, ask why you're doing everything.
- Never do anything just because you have been told to, trust no one implicitly. If they know why then they won't mid you asking
Do not allow yourself to be outworked
- One of my favourite quotes is from Will Smith:
- “The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I'm not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be out-worked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things you got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there's two things: You're getting off first, or I'm going to die. It's really that simple, right?
and he looks good:
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