One Week at a Time
Focus to achieve flow
Focus your efforts on your weekly goals to achieve more and have less stress.
Extra Bonus: when you discipline yourself to focus on one week at a time you’ll discover you’re able to do more than you thought.
Get Real
Most of us have a mix of long-term and short-term plans. Everyday you’re confronted with tasks that are urgent and tasks that aren't.
That’s the real world. That’s how everyone operates. Obviously you can’t eliminate that altogether.
But…
You can change up your mindset. Fix your brain to where you’re only focused on the week’s tasks that are relevant for you right now, this week.
How do I do that?
First, plan. Write down what your long term goals are. Next break these down into what you can get done this month, this week, today.
Remember that note-taking is like having an extra brain. Get everything down on paper so that you can see it. When you’re visually confronted with all that you’re responsible for and want to get accomplished, it will help you organize it all better.
As I’ve mentioned several times before, visualization is a key to any success, and this helps you do that.
Week by Week
After you’ve done that, focus on what you need to do this week.
What that means is you should only spend mental energy on accomplishing the things that you’ve set aside for one week to get done. Don’t worry about larger goals - just focus on checking through this week’s goals.
What’s the big deal?
This sounds...basic, right? So why is it a big deal?
I’ll give you four reasons. Then I’m going to tell you the real reason it’s important, but try not to skip ahead.
1 - Empty brain is an efficient brain
This is the concept that your brain is a machine that works for your happiness and success. It’s incredibly efficient, but like any machine it uses energy. Time spent worrying about the future is wasted energy and makes you less efficient at accomplishing goals that are relevant right now.
2 - Avoid getting overwhelmed
Your big goals in life are your long term plans, and big goals make us happy. But thinking about all the different steps it takes to get there can also overwhelm you.
When you’re laying the foundation for a house, it requires concentration and energy to get it right. You don’t want to distract yourself with what color you need to paint the bathrooms before you need to.
3 - Get in the flow
Psychologists define ‘flow’ as the state you’re in when you’re so focused and engaged on the task at hand that you hardly notice anything else. Not only is the flow state more efficient, but it’s more enjoyable and produces much less stress.
Worry and distraction prevent you from entering a flow state. You can’t prevent every distraction, but you should control what you can.
4 - Process-oriented mindset vs. Goal-oriented mindset
A process-oriented mindset is where you are dedicated to the process that leads to the goal. It doesn’t mean you can’t want the goal - this is just a mindset and isn’t 100% literal. But it just means you have to identify with the process on some level to succeed.
The best example I can think of is going on a diet. Plenty of people lose weight in the short term only to gain it back. That’s because they hate the diet and exercise it takes to lose the weight. So when they hit the goal, they give up the process...and gain it all back.
You have to identify with the process if you want to achieve a goal that lasts. Real change only happens when you start with identity.
When you focus on one week at a time, this helps you develop a process-oriented mentality.
Finally...the big reason
But here’s the real rub...
It’s a bit of a paradox…
When you’re focused on one week at a time...when you’re able to put your long term goals on paper and get them out of your mind...then your brain performs a shift and you realize what you truly can and truly can’t wait for.
There are some long term goals that really are long term goals. They require time, sacrifice, and hard work to get there. That’s life.
But there are some long term goals that are only “long term” because we put them in that category. We trick ourselves into thinking it takes longer or that we can’t achieve them now. So we label them “long term” so that we don’t feel bad or to fool ourselves out of working for them.
But once you put them on paper and mentally put them out of your mind. Once you focus on one week at a time and start noticing what you can accomplish when you’re focused, you realize two things.
1 - You’re capable of doing more than you thought.
2 - You’re impatient for the long term goal and you don’t want to stop thinking about it.
When you start putting these two things together, your brain starts making practical steps for how to achieve that long term goal RIGHT NOW and the things you’re working on day to day start getting you closer much faster than you realize.
It’s easy to put things off by pushing your goals into a distant, ideal future, but once you force yourself to focus on one week at a time, then your brain finds a way to force the issue, and make your goals happen a lot faster.
Work with Anthony and hit the rocket fuel 🚀button on your success!
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