xDay 13: The Slight Edge

— the following is paraphrased from the book “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson —

Every moment of every day you face one of two choices: practice a simple discipline (a positive action) or make a simple error in judgement.

Errors in judgement are comfortable.

Simple disciplines are EASY – but uncomfortable.

Either of those decisions, practiced consistently over time, will compound and have significant results in your life.

But it takes TIME for those results to manifest themselves.  Especially when you’re practicing the simple disciplines.

Many people give up on their simple disciplines because it seems like nothing is happening.  But the truth is, by the time you start to see results from the simple disciplines, 90% of the work is done (remember pumping the well? yep. just like that;).

 

So what can you do???

Stop focusing on the results, and instead start focusing on the simple disciplines.

That’s really the only thing we can control.

And that’s really the only thing that will GET US TO THE RESULTS {eventually}.

 

Now.

Grab some paper.  Answer the following questions (being as honest with yourself as possible).

 

  1.  How much money would you need to make every month to REALLY get excited about your business?
  2. What would you DO with that money? BE AS SPECIFIC AS POSSIBLE: don’t say “I would pay off my bills,” instead list out each bill in the order you would pay them off. Then write down what you would do after all of your bills were paid off. And then write down what you would do after THAT.
  3. How much time would you be willing to commit each week to create that income?
  4. How many months would you be willing to work those hours each week to make that income?

 

Your “simple disciplines” are the Income Producing Activities we talked about earlier.  And now you have a road map (#1-4 above) of what you want to accomplish in the long-term.

If you are intentional AND consistent about performing IPA’s during your business hours (the amount of time you identified in #3) you WILL achieve your big, long-term goals.  Zero luck is involved!!:-)