1 quote, 1 thought, 1 tip

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

 

1 thought

Are you being useful? Or are you being wasteful? Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. How are you spending that time?

Every day, in everything that you do, you have a choice between being useful or being wasteful. This is not a call for you to be a utilitarian machine, focusing exclusively on being productive, efficient and effective. But it’s about being aware of the choice you make with the things that you do. When you choose to do something, you are choosing NOT to do something else. 

You have a unique niche in this world that only you can occupy. There is a place that you can be most useful to the world. However, finding that niche is going to take time, effort and plenty of pain. Often, some of us choose to be wasteful with how we can be useful, because finding that out is painful. 

It’s about committing to the process, however painful it is. What do I mean? When you chase something, you may not get any approval. No one may appreciate you. That can be discouraging. You’re filled with self-doubt about whether it’s the right path. 

But don’t do it for the approval. Do it for the contribution you will make. Even if one person is impacted, that’s enough. 

So don’t chase the crowd. Don’t be wasteful with what you have, fearing that you won’t have outrageous success. Just be useful to one person.   

 

1 quote 

At the end of that day, Peter hit me with a challenge. I was on the cusp of leaving my faculty spot at Stanford, betting on a self-created path, and I was scared. ‘It seems to me you spend a lot of time worrying about how you will survive,’ said Peter. ‘You will probably survive.’ 

He continued: ‘And you seem to spend a lot of energy on the question of how to be successful. But that is the wrong question.’ He paused, then like the Zen master thwacking the table with a bamboo stick: ‘The question is: how to be useful!’ 

• Jim Collins, in the foreword to The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker

 

1 tip

Today, first knowing how you are spending your time helps you to be more aware about how you might want to spend it better. This week, take a sheet of paper, and track every single activity and the duration of the activity. Track it for one week.  

After that, looking at the activities you have chosen to do over the week, decide if you want to do more or less of them. 

 

John

liveyoungandwell.com - Work Your Love