The Enemy of the Great is the Good:

(The following is based on: 4 Disciplines of Execution CD with speaker Chris McChesney from the Franklin-Covey Company)

            As I have stated in one of my earlier post I am a huge self-help geek.  I love to read the books, attend seminars and listen to the CD’s constantly.  Franklin-Covey has one on accomplishing what it calls your “W.I.G.” which stands for your Wildly Important Goals. Among all the great things it discusses as obstacles that get in the way of achieving your goals is trying to do too much.  That to obtain your goals you have to say no to things that are merely good and focus your energies exclusively on the great.

            I have found that this is a very important key for me.  I am the queen of multi-tasking.  So much so that I actually hate to sleep because I can’t do anything else while sleeping and that annoys me.  It feels like I’m wasting time just “laying there”.  They recommend you focus on only three WIGs at a time.  I have found it very helpful and I have created my three however; I keep trying to add or focus on other things.  This leads me to becoming sidetracked.  For example currently I am looking for new employment.  Instead of putting most of my energy into this I’ve derailed myself by trying to create artwork for an art show I be participating in October.  The one is my WIG the other is not but it is something that will eventually be a WIG when I’ve completed one of the others. Because I have not focused on finding employment I do not have the time and resources that the new job would give me so I can do quality artwork.  And down the spiral I go.    

How do you do it?  How do you focus like a laser beam on what you truly want?  Franklin-Covey recommend weekly meetings and keeping a score board to keep track.  But when it’s only you doing these things it’s hard to maintain the necessary discipline.  If you only have 3 runways you can’t land 4 planes at one time.  There will be a crash! Which could not only take out one of my WIGs but could take out the others as well.  You just have to make the decision daily to keep with your goals.  It’s a struggle but if I can overcome it I would take a giant step forward in making the life changes I want to achieve.