Do the First Things First

“Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things.”

C.S Lewis

If we are alive ten years from now, where are we going to be?

I want to guess that very few people’s answers today will turn out to be remotely accurate in their very next decade.  

Those are the few with crystal clarity on what their life is all about. They are the ones who know what they stand for and how to best spend their time each day. 

Going forward, I challenge you to leave the group of ‘wandering generalities’ for the class of ‘meaningful specifics.’ The rare class of very few people who have learned to put the right things first, everyday of their life. 

So, dare to put God above all else in your own life. Then try to prioritize values, principles, and relationships. Extricate yourself from the trap of only making a living. Choose to make a significant contribution by learning to focus on what really matters. 

Basically, this is a matter of self-leadership and self command. It is an issue of making solid plans for the future and taking immediate control of our actions in the present.

Steven Covey, the author of, ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ explains this nicely when he said: “Putting first things first means organizing and executing around your most important priorities. It is living and being driven by the principles you value most, not by the agendas and forces surrounding you.”

To get to a desirable destination, we need to put the right thing first in our day to day lives. Doing this vastly simplify our lives, saves us from costly error of daily distraction, and it guarantees that we won’t fail to achieve our heartfelt aim in the end.

Now, if you are unsure whether you are on track or off track, answer the following questions. Your answer should help you gain the clarity you need to elevate your game to an optimal plane of performance.

Question 1: Do you live everyday with the end in mind?

Question 2: Do you live your life by principles or by impulses?

Question 3: Are you always in control of your time and attention?

If we are to be honest, most of us can’t answer all three questions with a resounding yes.

You see, frantically rushing around to get everything done has nothing to do with efficiency and peak performance as the former US President, Dwight D. Eisenhower rightly discovered. 

He said: “The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first; a process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.”

Without a doubt, our best chance to end well in life comes from living with purpose, living by principles and intentional putting the right things first.

If we don’t make the necessary changes now, we may end up at the end of our lives wishing for a second chance to start over, which would be painful too late.

Therefore, begin a change right away by suspending everything else until you finish the next most important thing in your world.

Deliberate Practice

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is (deliberate) practice.”_Vladimir Horowitz

Practice births mastery.

I have learned that there is a science behind mastery and acquisition of skills; it is a concept known in the world of peak performance as deliberate practice.

For starter, let’s talk about what the concept entails? 

Basically, deliberate practice (or methodical practice) is an art of doing something conscientiously and systematically for the purpose of getting better. 

It’s the tool that we need to become proficient at any skill, no matter the level of our innate talent as a Swedish psychologist, K. Anders Ericsson explains to us on the function of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expertise. 

He makes clear in the following sentence that the technique of deliberate practice is the ultimate difference maker in the acquisition of real skill.

His exact words go as follows: “The differences between expert performers and normal adults are not immutable, that is, due to genetically prescribed talent. Instead, these differences reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance.”

With the good news that mastery is not just a gift endowed only to prodigies, we need to realize that deliberate practice is not what we do in just a dozen of times to achieve excellence, rather; it is what we do again and again without end.

However, to be clear, deliberate practice is not the same with rote learning or mindless repetitions; it’s all about conscientious rehearsals that actually lead to real improvements. 

You see, experts are not experts because of their superhuman abilities; experts are experts because they are committed to relentless practice to improve their skills and knowledge.  

That is to say, mastery is less about what we are gifted with at birth.  It's more about how committed we’re to keep getting better at our craft. 

Now, let’s get clearer on how you can make the most of your own practice sessions.

Three Critical Success Factors of Deliberate Practice

We are going to extract three essential factors of Deliberate Practice from Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the bestselling book, ‘Outliers: The Story of Success.’

He highlighted these three factors in the following single sentence:

“Practice must be focused, determined and in an environment where there’s feedback.”

As you can see, the first factor means that each practice must be narrowed to down to a specific element of the skill in view. Since we can’t master everything at once; we therefore need to home in on a specific target, one step at a time.

The second critical factor of deliberate practice means we must be determined to put in the work regularly until we achieve our focused objectives; we can’t dabble our way to mastery. Excellence demands commitment.

And lastly, the third indispensable factor of skill acquisition is that there must be feedbacks on every session to accurate assess the effectiveness of our practice.  

Certainly, feedbacks are important. Without them; we may never make significant improvements toward the class of excellence.

Furthermore, to maximize our potential through the tool of deliberate practice, we need to keep challenging ourselves by improving on our strengths and devising means to address any area of fundamental weakness in our learning. 

Incidentally, apart from the direct gains in expertise that we will obtain with deliberate practice, there’s an amazing windfall. As our skills improve, we experience a quantum increase in confidence and self-esteem: a wonderful byproduct of deliberate practice.

Finally, realize that the most important difference between top performers and lowly amateurs is nothing but a good volume of deliberate practice.

Making a Lasting Change Happen

“Be the person with embarrassing goals and impressive results instead of one of the many people with impressive goals and embarrassing results.”_ Stephen Guise

For many years, I struggled to wake up early because I didn’t have an idiot-proof strategy that would ensure performance, no matter what. 

But today, I am proud to say I am a bona fide early-riser, thanks to the idea of simplicity and tiny steps.

And I am using the same small idea to make other significant changes in my life.

When we know the right strategies to adopt, lasting change is not so hard.

From personal experience, I have realized that the secret to making a lasting change happen lies in the power of baby steps, which many of us tend to dismiss.

Make no mistake about it: baby steps are not trivial; they are powerful.

In fact, baby steps are so powerful that we can achieve anything through their application if we are willing to imbibe the relentless propensity of toddlers in our pursuit. 

Since baby steps induce prompt action, they are the key to making things happen in the world of results. This is especially true when it comes to the formation of good habits; mini steps make our desired behaviour a lot easier to establish into a habit. 

So, whether we want learn a new skill, do a new thing or make a great change, the secret of success lies in making a start in a very small way as Stephen Guise, the author of “Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results” put it: “One small step + desired behavior = high probability of further steps.”

You see, the trick of this strategy is that we are minimizing the initial investment of time and energy to lay a firm foundation that our eventual success will be built upon.

Since the initial step is incredibly small, it is very easy to get it locked into our day. 

Then, over time, those baby steps will eventually become a part of our life.

On the other hand, huge leaps usually end up not being a part of our life at all because they take a lot of effort to integrate. 

Interestingly, baby steps strategy can be applied in all areas of our lives. We only need to decide where we want to change and make each step incredibly small, especially at the start.

Finally: know that baby steps are the key to success at almost anything in life; every accomplishment is an aggregation of tiny steps. 

In the words of a transformational leader, Marci Shimoff: “To make the quickest progress, you don't have to take huge leaps. You just have to take baby steps—and keep on taking them. 

In Japan, they call this approach kaizen, which literally translates as 'continual improvement.' Using kaizen, great and lasting success is achieved through small, consistent steps. 

It turns out that slow and steady is the best way to overcome your resistance to change.”

‘No’ is a Powerful Productivity Strategy

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”_Hans Hofmann

A few years ago, I read a short but interesting book entitled; ‘Eat that Frog,’ written by an American productivity strategist, Brian Tracy.

At the beginning of the book, Brian writes about his extensive research on time management, maximum efficiency and personal effectiveness for more three decades. 

With that wealth of knowledge and experience, he concluded that to get control of our time and life, we don’t have to work too hard, we only need to change ‘the way we deal with the never-ending river of responsibilities that flow over us each day.’ 

He said we would get control of our life and ‘activities only to the degree that we stop doing some things and start spending more time on the few activities that can really make a difference.’

In this direction, the author of ‘Greatness Guide’ Robin Sharma puts the same concept across to his inner circle in the following powerful words: 

“Focus. Focus. Focus on your burning priorities.

Say no to everything else; life is short.

You only get one shot at great.”

As we can see, the true experts of peak performance have all realized the special importance of the negative-seeming word ‘NO’ when it comes to getting significant, positive things done. 

Evidently, no matter how many efficiency tips we aggressively master, we can never get everything done in any given day. 

Why? 

Simply because of a simple truth; there will always be more to do than we can ever do in any 24-hour day.

Whether the period is a day, a week, a year, and even a lifetime, we can’t ever get everything completely done but we can intentionally get really important things done.

So in the face of that undeniable truth: the way out is to say ‘no’ to things of little or no significance so we can conserve time and energy for things of true significance.

In the words of an American author, Scott Belsky: “It is only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that really matter.”

Though saying no to distractions can be hard, yet it is an art that will improve with practice. And, once we see the benefits of deliberate prioritization— by elimination— in our work and lives, we will never go back to the way of frantic busyness again.

Greg Mckeown expressed the same idea in his book, ‘Essentialism.’ Below is relevant quote on the subject at hand from his wonderful bestseller. He writes:

“Only once you give yourself the permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”

In finality, never forget that: ‘No’ is one of the only high performance tools you will ever need to get maximum results in life with minimum use of your time and energy. 

So instead of surrendering your agency to the urgency of everything, set your own priorities and lead—by choosing to jettison anything that stands in your way.