Are you dividing your focus?

Here at the Jolly Zoo, we’ve been working hard on decluttering and reorganizing our space and it feels so good.

Decluttering is something I wanted to do for a long time, but I never even began to tackle it because it was such an overwhelming project. I mean, my house isn’t huge, but the whole reason I need to declutter is because there’s So. Much. Stuff.

Finally, I had to take things to a Mel Jolly Level of Strategy and say, I’m just going to do one small section at a time. JUST ONE.

If you’ve ever taken a class from me, you’ll know I spend a lot of time preaching the gospel of…

JUST PICK ONE THING

Why?

Probably because it’s advice I hated and resisted for so long. I’d hear productivity experts and self-help gurus tell me to work on just one thing and I’d think…

If I only work on one thing at a time, it’ll take me forever to make any progress.

Past Mel was so wrong.

As it turned out, my method of working on 47 things at a time didn’t work. You see, I’m great at big picture planning. But that often means I’ll see about 47 things that need to get done to get me to the big picture…

• Start a podcast
• Write a book
• Film a free class
• Create a training program

And because I could see all those things in the big picture, I’d try to work on ALL OF THEM AT THE SAME TIME.

Guess how many I was able to finish with that method?

Zero.

Now, if only I could’ve held out until I finished all of them at approximately the same time 5 years from now, that might have been really gratifying.

But the thing is, never finishing anything makes me feel kind of crappy.

Maybe you’re the same way? Maybe you like feeling a sense of accomplishment? Maybe you like feeling like you’re getting somewhere?

Everything changed when I finally realized…

Working on one thing at a time would mean accomplishing my goals quicker.

Imagine you have 10 soccer balls and you’re trying to get them across the field. Every day you get 10 kicks. If you spread your kicks out across all the balls, it’ll take forever to get any of them to the goal. But if you use all 10 kicks on the same ball every day, think about how quickly you’ll get that ball across the field. Then you’ll be able to move onto the next ball.

When I heard a speaker at RISE BUSINESS use that example last year, things finally clicked. I still catch myself trying to work on everything at once, but when I bring myself back to that example, I’m able to get back on track and actually accomplish my goals.

So how about you? Are you trying to work on too many things at once?

Do you need to set a goal for just this week? Or this month?

Do you need to just focus on your health for the rest of the year?

Do you need to commit to focusing on your side hustle for the next 2 weeks?

Do you need to commit to looking at all the balls you’re trying to kick and just picking one?

Whichever you need to do, I challenge you to make that choice this week!

You’ve got this!

Mel