 How do you stay focused in a world filled with so many distractions? How can you accomplish more by doing less? How do you knock down a big goal that seems impossible at the moment? Hi, I'm Aaron Tupas of Positively Brainwashed and in this video I will cover the one thing by Gary Keller and explain why not everything is equal, why multi-tasking is a myth, how disciplines can turn to habits, discuss how to make the most of our willpower, how to balance our work and personal lives, and lastly talk about some important focusing questions to help us toward success. Growing up, I was a juggler, did yoga, could memorize hundreds of numbers, was a break dancer, studied over 10 languages and much more. I was good at these things, but I never reached world-class level because I did too much and there wasn't enough time in the day. My mind was way too scattered. It would have been better if I had just focused on one thing. The lesson here is that we have only so much time that it's better to specialize than to be a jack of all trades. Like not everyone deserves a gold medal in the Olympics, it belongs only to the people who put in the work, time and was dedicated to their one thing. For Mike Phelps, it's swimming. For Usain Bolt, it's sprinting. It's very rare to find someone who is a master of more than one thing. Our goal should be to take our to-do list and to turn it into a success list. That is to keep applying Pareto's 80-20 principle and to narrow it down until there is only one thing left. I made a video on the 80-20 principle and it's many layers. Just remember not to get hung up on the numbers. In reality, it could be 90-20 or 65-10 or whatever. But once you establish your one thing, Gary says to aim to do it for at least four hours before doing anything else. The second myth is multitasking. This was just a term originally used to describe computers that could switch tasks in such a fast pace that it simply looked like they were doing multiple tasks at the same time. But unlike computers, we can actually do multiple things at the same time. Like walking and talking. But like computers, we can only focus on one thing at the same time. Like multitasking is just an opportunity to screw up more than one thing at the same time, like I just did. And it's one of the reasons tragedies like a toddler being left in the bathtub happens. But believe me, multitasking, like juggling, is just an illusion. In reality, I'm just catching and tossing one ball at a time. And remember, distractions from all our social media and cell phones can make us lose momentum. A 10 minute distraction can cost us another 10 minutes trying to get back to being focused. So do your one thing in an environment that you won't get distracted. People often think that we just simply need more discipline to accomplish more. But success is really like a short race or a sprint that's fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over. When you discipline yourself, you're essentially training yourself to act in a specific way. And so many times, when you see others who look like disciplined people, what you're actually seeing is a person who's trained a handful of habits into their lives. Research from the University College of London suggests that it takes an average of 66 days to form a habit. So remember, once a new behavior becomes a habit, it takes less discipline to maintain. Try to build only one new habit at a time. Next, willpower is not on call. It's like a battery that can run out and once it runs out, you will revert back to your default behavior. So Gary says to user willpower first on what matters most, which is our one thing. I talk more about why our willpower is not reliable on one of my videos. Next, Gary says to picture juggling five balls representing work, family, health, friends and integrity, with work being made out of rubber that if you drop it will bounce and the rest being made out of glass that can shatter. He says to separate these for counterbalancing purposes. Now when it comes to work, it's okay to be out of balance and neglecting other less important things for a long period of time while you're focusing on your one thing. This is the only way to produce extraordinary results. But when it comes to your personal life, you can't neglect any of it for too long or you'll feel like you have no life. So what you want to do is ask yourself this focusing question. What's the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary. You can ask this question for any aspect of your work or personal life for both short-term and long-term goals. But avoid asking questions like, what do I do next? Instead, think big and ask yourself what your someday goal is and then work your way backwards. Ask yourself, based on your someday goal, what is the one thing you can do in the next five years? Then based on your five year goal, what's the best thing you can do this year? Keep doing this until you have figured out what's the one thing you can do right now. As for me, my one thing I've chosen is to make videos like this and to positively brainwash the world. Now imagine your goals were like dominoes. Dominoes have the power to knock down another domino 50% bigger than itself. So if you line up all your goals and keep knocking down your one thing again and again and again, over time you will knock down a football player, then the Leaning Tower of Pisa, then the Eiffel Tower. Before you know it, Mount Everest, and eventually you'll reach the moon and beyond. Thanks for watching. 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