By Paul Yung
Happy November everyone!
It’s the end of the year feeling once again, and for me this is the end of year rush as we prepare to finish 2024 strong and prepare for 2025. Next year’s calendar is set, the annual budgets are discussed and of course the Christmas business is about to begin.
What an exciting time!
Have you ever wondered how some people get exceptional results while others who seem to be putting in a lot of effort are getting dramatically different results and eventually give up?
Whether it’s getting fit, starting a business, kicking a bad habit or working on your relationship, this roadmap is a good guide.
Let’s use the analogy of getting fit. If you put in no effort into getting fit, you don’t go to the gym or watch your diet, what kind of result can you expect? No result, right? This one’s pretty obvious.
What if you put in some effort, and for the purposes of this discussion we will call this poor effort. What result would u expect? Poor results? No. you will get no results.
But that’s so unfair! We put in some effort, where is the results we deserve?
People get super motivated, go to the gym two to three times, everything hurts, and they don’t see any results. They think, going to the gym isn’t right for me, let’s try something else.
And this pattern plays itself over and over again for every new sport or hobby they try from boxing to pickleball and they get disappointed because, well, no results!
In fact, some people start seeing negative results, because every time they finish a session, they reward themselves with nasi lemak and ice cream.
This is the first point where most people get stuck and give up and yo-yo, meaning they bounce back worse to a bad habit. To overcome this point, you’ve got to take what you do more seriously. Get a coach, work out with friends, eat healthier, change your lifestyle. You move on by putting more and better effort.
Now, if we were to put in good effort, surely, we would be getting good results right? Life has a sense of humor. Good effort leads to poor results. This is better than no results, but it may not be satisfying enough for us to continue putting in effort.
This is the second point where people give up. They think, well, I’ve put in good effort, didn’t work out for me, time to move on. Now I want to be clear, there ARE THINGS you should walk away from. But this shouldn’t be a consequence of laziness, it should be because we consciously don’t like where we are headed, like if you’re in a toxic relationship.
If you decide to keep going, then be aware that this second point, good effort leading to poor results tends to be the most frustrating point.
To overcome the frustration and move on from this second point, remember, that for us to see any results, we need to put in at some effort for a sustained period of time for our body and mind to adapt. It’s not about hitting the gym 3 hours straight once a week, it is about hitting the gym every day for 30 minutes each time. The same applies to our relationships as well. It’s not about playing with your kids every Sunday; it’s about spending the 30 minutes with them every day. Build consistency and be patient while continuing to put in good effort, the results will come.
Next is great effort. Now we’re serious. We’re eating healthier, we get a personal trainer, we start working out more consistently. What kind of results can we expect?
Surely great results? Unfortunately, no. With great effort we can expect good results.
This is a very interesting point on the learning curve because we’re much better than most people at what we do, remember, most people gave up at point 1 and 2 above.But we are not a standout performer.
This third point is what I call the inflection point. At this point, most people would be contented and whilst there’s nothing wrong with staying contented, this is not the place where legends are made. This third point is the decision point, to keep going and be great or to stop here and live well.
As Jim Collins says, good is the enemy of great. Don’t stop at the third point, that’s the inflection, that’s where your results are multiplied many folds because the next level is exceptional effort. This is where the great results are, the mind-blowing results.
This is where we wake up earlier, work harder for longer and more consistently than anyone we know on whatever we are focusing on. This is when you start hearing people calling you crazy, or a machine.
Reaching this point takes more than exceptional effort, it’s also driven by passion, vision and purpose. Not to say that you will know what your passion and purpose is starting out, in most cases we get more passionate as we get better at the things we do. So keep at it.
I wish you a wonderful November and may your effort and results be exceptional!
