Most achievers, myself included, fall into the trap of trying to do everything themselves. My logic has always been I can do it better than anyone else and by the time I explain how to do it, I could have been done it already. The problem with this thinking is that it stagnates growth.
While I am a firm believer that every business owner must take a personal role in the marketing, sales and systematization of their business, they should not be spending time doing the grunt work. Not only does your to-do list pile up to unreasonable levels, it stifles creativity and takes your focus away from more important parts of your business and personal life.
Another reason people do not want to delegate is because of the costs of hiring another person or service to take over some of their tasks. The problem with this thinking is that you have to evaluate how much your time is worth and what is the opportunity cost of doing it yourself.
As I mentioned in How to Conquer the World without Feeling Stressed or Overwhelmed the key to being fulfilled and stress free is to make sure you are spending time on all the major areas in your life. Typically, they consist of 6 main areas for most people:
- Physical and Health
- Emotional Mastery
- Spiritual
- Relationships (Intimate, Family, Friends/social)
- Financial
- Career
However, if you have lost that balance, how do you quickly regain it? When we are reactive we are rushing to put out the fires that have developed in our lives. Once we have that area handled we realize during that process another area has been suffering, so we rush to fix that area which creates a never ending cycle. In a worst case scenario a sense of learned helplessness can develop.
The Wheel of Life
A great metaphor I first heard from Anthony Robbins is the concept of the Wheel of Life. Read More
A recent email from a reader:
Hi Hersh, I stumbled across your Twitter profile and have been following along for a few days now, I’ve also spent some time exploring your website. I really like your view of life, and have been trying to shape my own life in similar ways.I’ve been itching to know what advice you have for maintaining such an active and balanced lifestyle…
Meanwhile, I value the time with my friends, girlfriend, and family. I’m having some difficulties balancing everything, without running myself into the ground. Do you have any strategies/suggestions you can share to help maintain a balanced lifestyle and keep energy levels up? I look forward to any words of wisdom… Thanks! - Phil S |
This is actually one of the most common questions I receive… how am I able to accomplish so much without feeling overwhelmed or stressed? For those that don’t know, I’m actively involved with four companies at once, workout daily, practice the martial arts, have a ton of hobbies/interests, socialize, spend time with family and take care of my household.
However, I used to get those same feelings of stress and overwhelm. I would feel drained and so exhausted by the end of the day. Often times this would manifest into physical warning signs from my body – like stress headaches that would get so bad I would have to waste hours trying to sleep them off.
Now I have gotten to a point where I rarely, if ever, feel stressed. Even in the face of major life challenges I am able to deal with them in a clear headed and stress free manner.
Here are the set of 15 principles I use to eliminate feelings of stress and overwhelm from my life: Read More
These are the goal setting techniques I learned early in life that have been instrumental in helping me to develop the passion to live life to the fullest. I was first exposed to goal setting when I was 18 and a friend introduced me to multilevel marketing. “You get two friends and they get two friends and they all get two friends… and we all make money.” While personally I am not really fond of that business model, my experience with MLM companies taught me how to dream big.
Later I really honed my goal setting process from people like Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins and Napoleon Hill.
Brainstorm your goals
I break my goals down into different categories:
- Personal Development Goals – anything I want to learn or improve.
- Thing Goals – anything I want to do or experience.
- Financial Goals – how much to want to earn (monthly, yearly), contribute, budget, invest, save, pay off debts and loans, put towards a house, retirement, etc.
- Company Goals – individual goals and milestones for my companies, including financial, product development, number of clients, etc.
I normally play some music and just start writing non-stop on anything I can think of in each category. I do each one individually for about 5 minutes each. I don’t limit myself or try to be realistic during this process.
Set a time line when you want to achieve the goal
After I brainstorm each category, I place a time limit when I want to accomplish the goal.
- 1: within one year or less
- 3: 3 years or less
- 5: 5 years or less
- 10: 10 years or less
- 20: 20 years or less
99% of my goals tend to be within the 1-5 year plan currently.
Choose your top one year goals in each category
Next, I decide which are the top 3 or 4 one year goals in each category and write a paragraph next to each goal on why it is an absolute must for me to achieve and what I will lose in life by not following through and going for it. The more detailed you are with your goal and why you must achieve it, the higher the level of drive you will have to take action.
You should now have 10-12 exciting goals! Read More
