Tips On How To Achieve More By Doing Less by Tiffany Dufu, CEO & Founder of The Cru

Tiffany is a nationally recognized woman leader expert and a best selling author who is clear about her life purpose and exudes confidence. She believes that our lives are made easier when we know what our purpose is and why we are on this planet. That’s why she founded The Cru! To help people find and achieve their purpose.

Some people feel that purpose is derived from some existential experience. But I don’t know anyone who was walking down the street when the sky opened up and a booming voice exclaimed, “you are here to save orca whales!” Purpose is just a decision that is inspired by your experience. The experience that inspired Tiffany had to do with learning to let go of things that didn’t serve her, or as she puts it, drop the ball.

Tiffany wrote a book called Drop The Ball since she spent the first half of her life terrified to drop the ball. Dropping a ball back then meant that she was failing to take timely action, that she was disappointing herself, her family, her community, and her entire race. As in, “if I mess this up, they are never going to hire another black person ever again.” So for her, dropping the ball became an enormous amount of pressure.

She got to a point in her life where something happened and she could no longer keep all the balls in the air. They started dropping left and right. It doesn’t matter what that final event was — we all have a story. For some of us, it’s having your first child. For others, it may be finally obtaining that promotion you always wanted only to realize it’s a lot harder than you imagined. For many of us, it could be this crisis right now that we are living in.

But what if we re-wrote the narrative? What if dropping the ball meant dropping unrealistic expectations that all of us feel pressure to have, or that other people project onto us? What if we were able to figure out to meaningfully engage other people so that we can execute on our passion in a way that makes our world better and allows us to give a greater return to the world?

For Tiffany, that’s exactly what she sought out to do. She had to learn how to drop three, key balls in order to help her to achieve more by actually doing less.

The first ball was this unrealistic expectation about who she was “supposed” to be.

We all enter the world playing “roles”. If you were born a girl, your first role may have been assigned “daughter”. Even though we are born in different parts of the world, we all ended up with very similar job descriptions with what it means to be sufficient in these roles. And that doesn’t just mean being “a” daughter, but being a “good” daughter. These are universal expectations. Even though we have so much diversity, we somehow all feel pressure to fulfill similar job descriptions.

When we talk about dropping the ball on these expectations, it starts with becoming really clear with what makes us “us”, separate and apart from what matters to other people. Our narratives about what we are to expect to ourselves always come from outside of ourselves. They come from what we observed when we were growing up, popular culture, advertising, etc. Getting clear about what matters most to you, really requires some soul searching and digging deep within yourself.

Now, if you’re reading this thinking “I have no idea what roles I’m playing or if I’m living someone else’s narrative”, try this exercise.

Try writing down all the roles you think you play. This could be: sister, mom, daughter, manager, etc. Pretend for each one of those roles that there is a “good” description. For each role, ask yourself “what does a good x do?” Write it out. Then answer the question, “how do I know that that is what a good x does?” By doing this, you will discover that you are not the source of the expectation of yourself. This can be a very daunting realization especially if you’re an extremely ambitious person who feels they are in the driver’s seat of their own life. It’s only after you’re clear what matters to you, that you can move on to the second ball to drop.

The second ball to drop is another unrealistic expectation about what you are “supposed” to do.

This is especially vital right now when we are all working and living in the same space with the “quarantine productivity police” preaching spring cleaning and sourdough starters. Dropping this ball comes from focusing on creating a strategy screen for what you should focus on and what you shouldn’t.

You can practice this one by taking some time to write down everything you think you are supposed to do during the day. Going to the gym, walking your dog, preparing for a meeting, write every single thing down and then write down how long you expect each of these items to take. Then, total them.

In Tiffany’s experience working with women on this exercise, she found that not one had a sum that amounted to less than 24 hours, even though we’re all bound by that time limit. And, a lot of the women didn’t even have sleep on this list! No wonder so many of us are feeling so much pressure during the day that we can’t get it all done! What we are expecting to do is humanly impossible given our time constraints!

After swallowing that pill, the key is to get clear and realistic about what your highest and best use is. Your highest and best use is a combination of what you do extremely well with minimal effort combined with the things that only you can do (that may be callous or irresponsible to delegate to someone else). This becomes an important strategy screen when life picks up again. Is responding to this birthday party invite right now your highest and best use? Be confident in your decision to focus your energy on, or utilize that highest and best use in an effort towards what matters most to you.

The third ball to drop is this fear of asking for help.

It’s really hard for many of us to do this one because at the end of the day, it’s ego. Our ego can get in the way of being vulnerable enough to let people know what we need. But let us be the first to say, that none of us are alone. One of the most powerful things you can do to move your life forward is to engage other people in that process.

Keep in mind as you are making an impact in the world, doing whatever it is you need to do to get through this crisis, this is a journey to take yourself through. Becoming clear on what matters the most to you, rather than what matters to other people. Becoming clear on what is your highest and best use to achieve what matters most to you. Becoming clear of the people around you and the resources are out there to help you develop the community you need in order to be able to move forward.

This blog post was adapted from our Opening Keynote Speaker Tiffany Dufu, CEO & Founder of The Cru.

At The Cru, their algorithm matches circles of ten women who collaborate to meet their life goals together. Whether your intention is professional (that you want to get a promotion or keep your job in the midst of all of this) or personal (you want more instagram followers or lose ten pounds). They match circles of accountability partners to help you find your “cru”.