Being Busy is Not Enough

“The essential question is not, “How busy are you?” but “What are you busy at?” ~ Oprah Winfrey

You are very busy, right? That’s great. If I may ask, what are you busy at? It is not enough to be busy. What you are busy at is what holds the key to your success or failure in your chosen venture. If you are busy at what is not helpful to your course, you are merely dissipating valuable energy in the wrong direction. Being busy doing what will get you favorable results is what helps your course. Have you ever heard of the cliché “motion without movement?” Sitting on a rocking chair is motion but no movement. You remain on one spot merely rocking away. You are busy ok, but you aren’t making any progress from the spot you are on.

Take for instance you want to run a 100 meters sprint in a competition. You may have trained really hard and psyched up yourself for the race. When the competition proper commences, no matter what amount of energy you put in the race, you can never win if you do not race towards a well-marked-out finishing line and actually finish the race. No matter how hard and fast you run, without keeping to the rules, you can never win the race. The direction and pattern of your race determines whether you will win or lose the race. Running a business of your own follows a similar pattern. You can never get favorable results if you are unable to do things in the direction of getting those results. Meaning, all actions you take in the course of your business either individually or collectively must be geared towards the direction of achieving the goals you’ve set for your business. In other words, being busy is just not enough to see you through. What you are busy doing is what gets you the coveted prize.

Get busy right now because…. “No pains, no gains. To get the prize, you must pay the price.”

Why Little Things Matter

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.” ~ Jimmy Johnson

You will end up an under achiever and a loser if you are the type always wanting to do big things while ignoring little things. If you are, advise yourself henceforth to value little things. Little things always add up to make big things. That is the trick. When a job at hand appears so big, it may be frightening. But, broken into small parts, every job becomes simple and achievable. Little things matter, believe me. If you still think little doesn’t matter, try sleeping in a room with just one mosquito buzzing around your ears, you’ll get to appreciate my drift better.

The chap who gets to win any marathon race may not be the strongest or fittest athlete on the field but the one who puts in a little extra effort to finish the race. Sprints are won by one hundredths of a second and the winner goes away with undiluted fame and maybe even millions of dollars as reward. The little split extra second gets to make the real difference in the entire race. That is how extraordinary a little extra can make a huge difference in our businesses and everyday lives. Going the extra mile to achieve is therefore one huge motivating force in our daily lives. You may appreciate the thinking of renowned author David Joseph Schwartz on this subject when he concludes that, "The person determined to achieve maximum success learns the principle that progress is made one step at a time. A house is built a brick at a time. Football games are won a play at a time. A department store grows bigger one customer at a time. Every big accomplishment is a series of little accomplishments." Can you now see exactly why little things really matter?

Get busy right now because…. “No pains, no gains. To get the prize, you must pay the price.”