Some quiet thoughts to review over the weekend – enjoy!

2 Hours
Day after day, year after year, it’s the interactions we have at home that have the biggest impact on who we become.

Public school is an essential part of our culture. But the inputs and foundations that parents create are essential and they are truly difficult to outsource.

What would happen if you figured out how to spend two hours a day, every day, without electronics, with your kids? Looking them in the eye, being present, doing projects, setting standards, raising the bar, learning, seeing, hearing, connecting, challenging, questioning, being questioned…

What do you want to give up first?
……See, this is what it really all boils down to: Time. Energy. Mental and physical overload. When your life is already overfilled, it is very difficult to gain the power to make the major, positive changes you need to actually get somewhere.

In other words, if you want to create more wealth and happiness in your life, you might need to clear some space for it first. So what are you willing to give up first? What do you want to say No to?…..

Maslow

The first pleasures in life are the physiological ones that keep you alive: food, sleep, breathing, and so on. If you don’t have these, nothing else really matters. But if you have enough of them, you quickly start looking up the pyramid for the next level: security, or things that help save you from worrying too much.

If you have basic security, you are finally happy enough seek out family, intimacy, and friendship. From there, you move up to confidence, and earning and cherishing the respect of others. If you are lucky enough to have all of that going on, you get to roam around in the exotic land of self-actualization, being creative and moral and working on personal growth.

How Consumerism Chips Away at the Pyramid
Oddly enough, the flaw in our rich world is a tripwire that we have set up way down at level 2: security. Our consumer culture encourages us to look upwards and earn respect, sexual intimacy, confidence, and even self-actualization with the new Toyota Highlander or Ford F-150, when doing so actually destroys our security. By draining our money, luxuries like cars make us desperately insecure and dependent on constant employment. And by keeping us seated and inactive, they drain our strength and health so our lives become even more precarious.

Forget about giving 110%
I believe that much of the unhappiness on the planet comes from wanting a 100% result on any action you take, whether it’s in your business life or personal life. In other words, you will not take action; will not attempt to do anything, until you’re guaranteed it’s going to be 100% successful.

I’m not saying that there aren’t other things involved in unhappiness because there certainly are, but the desire for the 100% — for perfection — is often the cause. I can think of periods in my own life where I was unhappy in my personal life or business life. Or how I was handling my health, my fitness, or different kinds of relationships. When I looked at these instances more closely, I began to see the commonality. The one common factor was my desire for a perfect outcome.

I noticed two things:

• When I did take action, I was always disappointed because the result was never 100%.
• Where I could have taken action, I didn’t because I couldn’t be guaranteed a 100% outcome.

Why even bother trying?
This notion of 100% is a “killer” thought. It kills your optimism; your sense of adventure; your desire to do anything new, better, and different in your life; and your willingness to have new experiences — all because the only satisfactory outcome is reaching 100% success.

The result of this 100% mindset is that you become more frightened and more cautious in life because you don’t have any experience at all of actually achieving 100%. This doesn’t sound like any kind of life to me, and I’m sure it doesn’t to you either.

It’s not brain surgery.
My solution to this no-win 100% experience was to “re-engineer” my brain.

For many years now, on my first attempt at anything new, I’ve been aiming for an 80% result. On my second attempt, I see how I can take it another 80%. At 80% of the remaining 20%, the project is now at 96%. Another attempt at 80% and I’m at a perfectly acceptable 99.2%.

I simply am never looking for the experience of getting to 100% perfection. Really, unless you’re a brain surgeon or an air traffic controller, for example, 80% is good enough. For entrepreneurs, who tend to be perfectionists, this mindset is truly liberating.

Because I’m not putting pressure on myself to achieve perfection, aiming for 80% takes away the stress. It also makes me much easier to live with. Everyone appreciates this benefit of the 80% Approach, myself included, since, most often; I take my 80% and delegate the last 20% to people whose talents are uniquely different than mine. Each person does their specialized 80% and hands the project on down the line until it’s done.

“Perfectionism represents a belief system about how life should work — not how it actually works.” Dan Sullivan

My 80% mission
I am very dedicated to eliminating from the planet the notion that we need to achieve a perfect 100% result. I believe you’ll always be able to get a better 80%, but you’ll never get to 100%. And 80% will, at the very least, get you started!

Just imagine if every child were taught this liberating mindset. They would live happy lives. Instead of parents, teachers, and mentors suggesting that none of their efforts are worthwhile unless they get to 100%, what would happen if they introduced The 80% Approach?

Why not experiment with the possibility of just trying The 80% Approach to get started, knowing that your first 80% will lead you to the next 80%, which will be even bigger and better?

I challenge you to make 80% your new 100%.