Mental Models — How Successful People Stay Focused
From: http://theactivethinkingblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/mental-models-how-successful-people.html
If you’ve been to a book store or even a magazine kiosk lately, chances are you’ve seen Charles Duhigg’s new book Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business floating around. In preparation for this book, he interviewed a crazy number of successful people — almost 500 of them — to find out what makes them different from others. What he found is 8 principles that all of those successful people have in common. I recommend the read, but today we will talk about how successful people stay focused, from chapter 3 of the book.
How do successful people stay focused? It is such an easy trick that it will blow your mind!
They create Mental Models.
Successful people narrate to themselves what they are going to do, while picturing what the expected outcome will be. When distractions come along, it’s easy for them to stay focused because they already have a narrative inside their head of what they have to do — and it’s easier to follow that narrative.
This is so incredibly powerful! Easy, fast and tremendously effective! I have increased my productivity exponentially using this trick.
Let’s go through the steps:
1. Think about what you want to do. Sounds redundant, but this is an important step because right off the bat it keeps you focused on what you want instead of what you don’t want. This works better with a smaller goal or task. What you’re looking for is a goal that you already know how to accomplish. For example: Write a book, get through the workday, maintain a blog, etc.
2. Go through the steps in your head of how you will accomplish this task/goal, while narrating it to yourself.
Let me give you an example: I have been using this trick to go to the gym and it really works. I usually go during lunch, so in the morning, I start picturing myself going to the gym and narrating what I will do once I get there. “I’ll do 15 minutes of cardio, then the leg press at 200 for three sets, then three sets of leg curls…” and so on and so forth. When time comes to go, it is incredibly easier to just go because you don’t have to have that conversation negotiating with yourself whether you want to go or not. You already have an expected outcome from the gym session — so you just follow that plan.
Please try this! I promise you it will change your life.
3. Add some NLP Power. This is something I threw in for an extra kick. Those of you familiar with Neuro-linguistic Programming will know what I mean. To add more power to this mental model, make the picture in your head brighter and larger. Make the gym look big and powerful, make it sunny and bright. This helps the idea of going to the gym to seem much more positive and pleasurable and it will help take some of the dread out of the task.
One thing to keep in mind is that your narration not be tedious and long. My gym narrative lasts a minute, maybe. I stay focused on what workouts I will do; I do not narrate things like: In the locker room, I’ll put on the left sock and then the right sock, etc. You do not need to go through every single minute detail of what you’ll do — just the main important ones. Narrating should not feel like a chore, just a natural, fun, part of the process.
So will you try it? Add some mental models to help you achieve goals and tasks you have been procrastinating on as well as important tasks you must achieve on the long and rewarding journey to reaching your goals.
I mean, if around 500 successful people all use mental models, what are you waiting for?!