“It’s not our fault our generation has short attention spans, Dad. We watch an appalling amount of TV.”
Yeardley Smith
Information Overload: excess amount of information being provided, making processing and absorbing tasks very difficult for the individual because sometimes we cannot see the validity behind the information
Wikipedia
We live in interesting and exciting time. Growth rate of information is staggering and growing each and every day. We have more information available to us than in any time in history.
We can learn anything we want and get any information available to us with a push of a button. It is very convenient. It seems that we should be happy and appreciative that now we don’t have to spend our precious time going to the library and doing research that might take days, weeks or even months. Paradoxically it causes more frustration and disappointment and makes us feel more unhappy and unfulfilled.
Attention span is dropping with each and every day. The more information becomes available the more we need to be selective on which information to process and which to ignore. It causes our attention span go down dramatically.
“The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds - the same as a goldfish,” said the BBC in 2002. “Our attention span gets affected by the way we do things,”
Here are several major causes of information overload:
- More information than we can process
- Value of information decreases
Performance, health and happiness are grounded in the skillful management of energy
Tony Schwartz
Many factors responsible for how we feel on a daily basis. In fact there are so many factors that it is hard to be aware and recognize everything that influence our mood and satisfaction. Fortunately there is one concept if understood can help us to become aware of how we feel each and every day and why we feel in a certain way. And this concept is managing our energy in systematic manner.
Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz wrote book called: “The Power of Full Engagement“. They introduce the concept of Energy Management.
Managing Energy, not time, is the key to high performance
System they introduced is not new but the way they lay it out is profound. I have very similar concept of 4 energy levels, but I never realized it until I’ve read this wonderful book. In fact it is probably one of the best books I can’t recommend highly enough.
Tony and Jim work with professional athletes, most of the time with tennis players and they are highly respected authority on high performance and full engagement in work and in life.
4 Fundamental Sources of Energy
There are 4 fundamental sources of energy.
1. Physical
2. Emotional
3. Mental
4. Spiritual
Here is 5 fulfillment quotes that is good to remember:
“It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit.”
Denis Waitley
“As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found–in himself.”
Erich Fromm
“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity.”
Viktor Frankl
Talent is defined as any recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied
Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton. Now, Discover Your Strengths.
What most successful people have in common? I mean really successful people who the best in what they do, people like: Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet. What make them so special? Maybe Michael Jordan was born with basketball player written all over his face? Was he gifted player from birth or he acquired all of his skills through practice? Do inborn talents have anything to do with that?
The real question we want to answer here is: Do each of us born with special natural talents or we acquire everything through practice and repetition?
Recently I came across a blog post “How to be great: rising above the talent myth”. In this post writer argues with the fact that we born with special talents and insists that everything we acquire is through practice and repetition. Also he point out to article written by Geoffrey Colvin, senior editor in Fortune Magazine. He wrote a book “Talent is overrated.”
Geoffrey wrote:
Scientific experts are producing remarkably consistent findings across a wide array of fields. Understand that talent doesn’t mean intelligence, motivation or personality traits. It’s an innate ability to do some specific activity especially well.
Definition described by Geoffrey assumes that talent something external. Activity to do well is an external factor, not internal.
Welcome, if you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!I came across Scott Young’s post “Should You Work on Your Strengths or Weaknesses?” It is good post and it makes point that we need to focus on passion and not on strength.
First it didn’t make sense to me, [...]
Self Fulfillment is a process. I was thinking about choices we as humans make and came to realize that there are two types of people in the world. Those who do what they love for a living and those who don’t. I is actually quite obvious and profound at the same time.
One power we always have available to us is a power of choice.
There are several choices we need to make to get to that level.
What is the solution that will make it possible to get from making a living into category of having an enjoyable fun lifestyle where is making a living and having fun is all the same.
Here is several important steps for self fulfillment which can not be ignored
1. Stop Blaming or Complaining and Take Responsibility
Recently I get involved into not so pleasant conversation with my friend. He sent me a facebook email blaming me for something I’ve done.
He ended relationship with his girlfriend couple of weeks ago. He got mad at me because I talked to her already ex girlfriend on a party. He didn’t expect me to talk to here because they weren’t together anymore. He was blaming me that I betrayed him in some way. I had really hard time to understand, how is that talking to her make me betray or disrespect my friend.
We all have different rules for how we behave and expect others to behave. We are all unique
In my last post I cover several most important Leverage Points and how to take advantage of them. If you don’t read my previous article, please click on Information Age or How To Avoid The Biggest Mistake Most People Make and read it.
One of the leverage points is importance to know your strengths, or to me more precise, your talents so you can gain advantage of them.
What the key to have fulfilled, happy and worry free living? It is knowing what your are good at (your natural talents) and being able to take advantage of this by matching those knowledge with choosing your business, life partner, friends, team members…. Choices are limitless.
But the first step is to know what you really good at.
Do you know your talents?
You would be surprised on how many people wouldn’t be able to answer this question.
According to Gallup study, after surveying 10 millions of people they find out that 7 million oft them don’t have an opportunity to focus on what they do best. They stating that people who are not playing to their strengths 6 times less likely to be engaged on their job. Those people are completely different people when they not playing to their strength.
This is pretty scary. You are probably heard that in US more people dying on Monday mornings around 8- 9 Am then in any other time. Job unsatisfaction is really a big issue. Why do you thinks this happening? It is simply because most people are in the wrong place and doing things they shouldn’t be doing in a first place.
photo credit: FredArmitage
As you may be aware we are living in time of crisis right now. At least we been told we are. Almost Everyone talk about it. Even if you like me and don’t watch a TV, you probably hear word crisis everywhere you go. People complaining about loosing their jobs, lack of security, job cuts, low income potential, economy suck and on and on and on…
Does everything that bad for real or there is someone who thriving in those times and shoveling even more money, having even more opportunities available then ever before?
If you look in world of Internet, it seems like there are so much different opportunities available, it is ridiculous. You do not even have to have your own business, product or service. You can promote others people products, do various projects for others.
Multiple opportunities become available all the time and number is growing each day. More and more people start to realize that job security is simply a joke. It is just do not exist anymore. More and more people thinking about going in business for themselves so they don’t have to depend on someone for their income.
If there are so many opportunities available then why so many of us struggling to meet the end needs and a lot of us afraid to even start a business in one form or another?
According to Michael E. Gerber in his famous book “E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It” he stated that 40% of business failed in a first year, and from those that remained 80% failed in the next 5 years. He discusses the several key reasons why it is happening and what you can do to avoid it.
The basic ideas of this brilliant book is that you should spend more time working on your business instead of working in your business.
In other words
photo credit: _ Night Flier _
There are so many things to do in life, so many places to visit, so much to accomplish. There is load of information coming our way from multiple sources. Are your head spinning already?
Unfortunately, there is so much time in a day. What we can do to capitalize on various opportunities that promise to bring desired outcome? There are must be some effective strategies so we can spend our time wisely, have more free time and at the same time reach our desired results.
Information overload has been a big issue for me and still is. It is so easy to jump into new thing, then jump into another new thing and do it again and again…
Let’s look at specific example. Could you remember time when you wake up in the morning, check your email and the next thing you know, 2 life hours gone somewhere. Sounds familiar?
One of the biggest insights that help me manage information that coming my way and to use in efficient and effective manner can be described as Concept of Leverages. What is leverage? Simply put, leverage is a power to act effectively.
I discovered that in life in order to get desired outcome we need to be aware of several Leverage Points that we can take advantage of, that will bring you desired outcome fast and with highest probability success. After Learning and applying various concepts I can define several most important leverage points to take advantage of:
Leverage Point N1 - Thought
Did you notice that when you jump into doing something fast without thinking about it first, it is possible to spend significant amount of time doing it, to later realized that it can be done in much more effective and efficient way.
