Identify Your 'One Thing' for Ultimate Productivity and Success
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Kelly: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to the Productivity Genius Podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Fifield. And in this episode, we'll uncover the one thing you can do to make reaching your personal goals and dreams easier. We'll explore why identifying this one thing is so important. I'll share my personal one thing and how it's changed my life.
~And then finally, the episode is going to be a little interactive. I would love for you to share some of your ~And finally, this episode is going to be interactive. I'd love to hear from you. We'll talk about that in a minute, but first let's talk about the idea of this podcast. So really it is inspired by Gary Keller's book, The One Thing.
If you haven't read the book,~ I've read it multiple times. It's one of those books that I like to revisit every once in a while. ~I've actually read it multiple times. ~And~ if you're interested in productivity, time management, and then just general personal development, you'll absolutely love it.
I'll put a link to the book in the show notes, but more important than that book, I think in this episode,~ the thing, the.~ The biggest takeaway for you, hopefully, is going to be you discovering your one thing.
I'm going to ask you a few questions. Just jot down your answers. This will take you about five minutes. [00:01:00] If you're driving or something like that, ~then just decide right now. Okay. I don't like, I do not want you if you're driving, of course,~ I don't want you writing anything down. So if you aren't able to take a moment now and actually ~do.~
Answer these questions, then just decide right now what time today, at what point in the day today are you gonna whip out a piece of paper and answer these questions? You just need five minutes. So I'll wait while you decide. Okay, good. You've decided , and it's on your calendar. You're not gonna forget ~because it really can be ~because you're going to give yourself the gift of doing this work.
~ Here are my questions for you. So~ Here are my questions. You can ask yourself. What things do I want that I don't currently have? When I see other people's accomplishments, which ones am I a little envious of, or maybe
downright
Kelly: jealous?
~What do I know deep in my heart, and maybe even am afraid to tell anyone that I really could do with my life if I wasn't?~
What do I know deep in my heart, and maybe I don't even share with people? That I believe I could do with my life.
What things do I want to do that I keep pushing off because I don't believe I have time?
And give yourself like maybe two minutes, doesn't have to be a long time, to really think about those things that you're currently [00:02:00] not pursuing that you really would love to.
Once you've done that, ask yourself, why don't I have these things already? What's been getting in my way?
What do I think is in the way of me having it in the near future?
If I decided, okay, I'm going to pursue these things, what would be challenging about that?
So once you've identified the things that you actually want, the things that maybe you don't have now, the things that maybe you haven't made time to pursue,~ it's time to start, ~now it's time to solve for that. Gary Keller's focusing question in his book, The One Thing, is what's the one thing that you can do that such by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary? I absolutely love this question. Looking at the things that you decided you want to be doing or wish you were doing or want in the future or goals or things like that, let's think, what's the one habit or skill goal, maybe relationship or ability that if [00:03:00] you accomplished it or improved in that area would have the most significant positive impact on your life. If you're doing this work now, definitely pause and think about what would help me the most in my life if I were good at this one thing, or if I was consistent with this habit, or if I had this skill, or if I achieved this goal, or improved this relationship, or had this improved ability, and maybe you want to brain dump a bunch of possibilities, and then narrow it down.
Which one of those would have the greatest impact on my life?
If you don't have time to answer this now, you definitely want to set some time aside to think about this.
This can be the most efficient use of your time in your entire life. If you can identify one thing that if you were to achieve it, do it, learn it, be better at it, it would make everything in your life easier or better.
In fact, I'll print out that question at the top of the show notes so that if you are coming back to [00:04:00] this, that you can just open up the show notes and you don't even have to listen to the whole episode to this point. Not that it took that long, but let's make it as efficient as possible.
When you answer that question, you're going to have the key to dramatically improving your life and you have the answer. The answer is in you.
Because you know all of the pieces of your life and how they work currently. You know your dreams and the things that you wish were better. And so you can identify one thing that if you were to improve that one thing, would impact your life the most. Now identifying it doesn't necessarily mean you will dramatically improve your life.
Because you might identify it and then... Not pursue it, but at least you'll have the answer, your personal answer for the one thing you need to make the most positive impact on your life.
~Now~ Once you narrow down that answer, so I suggest you bring up a bunch of ideas ~and then kind of look at them and judge them and ~kind of look at them and decide which one do I think is the most powerful? Which one would make the [00:05:00] greatest impact?
And once you've chosen, give yourself time to really imagine all of the ways that this would help. You want to get your brain excited about the possibilities. You want to create some motivation to take action. ~So think, ~So ~like~ what would the future version of yourself be thinking when you've made those improvements?
How would it make your relationships or your emotions, your finances, your health better? What would that be like? How would your life be different? How would that feel? How would you be different? How would it impact the people that you love? How would your thoughts be different? What would you stop doing? If this isn't crazy exciting when you think about this possibility, and maybe almost a little scary, you haven't found your one thing. When I found mine, I was both super excited and scared. The scared emotion came from the fear of really disappointment. Once I imagined how awesome my life could be, I could also instantly access disappointment thinking, oh my gosh, but I might never achieve that.
~Which is funny, this is how,~
And this [00:06:00] is how it often is for me and I bet for you too, right? It's funny how our brains work. We think of this like, amazing future, that would be so awesome. And then we think something like, but I might fail at it. And then we feel disappointment because, thinking I might not be able to do it, or I might fail at it, or I might not be good at it, or ~something like that.~
~So then ~thinking something like, ~I might fail at it, or~ everyone will know that I failed at it, or it'll be embarrassing, or I'd be so bummed if I didn't achieve it, ~then we feel disappointment in the moment. ~That makes us feel disappointed right now, like we're disappointed about the idea of not getting it.
So then what we do is we decide we're not even going to try, because if we try and we fail, then we'll feel disappointed. But then this cements our future disappointment, right? Since if we don't try, then we guarantee we definitely won't reach that goal, and are therefore definitely disappointed in the future.
So to avoid that feeling of disappointment now, we just guarantee our disappointment in the future. It's wild how we do that, ~but that is often the process that we go through when we're thinking about our goals.~
But that's often the process, at least for me, disappointment is the thing that shows up that often stops me [00:07:00] in my tracks when I'm considering pursuing a goal.
~Now ~But now that I'm aware of that, it's actually quite liberating because I see when the feeling of disappointment comes up when I think about something ~that I would,~ that I want, then I know, oh, that's something I really want. Because disappointment always shows up, for me at least, when I'm thinking about something I really want.
So, rather than trying to get rid of that disappointment, I use it as a tool. I'm like, Ooh, okay. I feel the disappointment. I see it there. And that means that this is probably something I really want. And so I just have to recognize it. And for me, I just let disappointment be there with me. Yes, I see you, disappointment.
Thank you for showing me this is something I want. I understand you're trying to protect me from failure.
And it's okay. I've got you. We're going to be fine. We're going to try this anyway.
~Now, my personal one thing in 2017, I decided to focus on, probably not surprising to you to be listening to a podcast on it, but back then,~
~so my personal one thing back in 2017, you may have heard me talk about this before on the podcast. It probably doesn't sound weird to you because you're listening to the Productivity Genius podcast. So me choosing in 2017 to focus on productivity to you probably doesn't, probably makes a lot of sense.~
~However, at the time, since I was disaster in all things, productivity, time management, all of those things, it made, it was a crazy idea.~
~I was the furthest thing from someone who I would identify as a person who was productive or good with time management. So at the time, it was a very scary thing for me to commit myself to. However, doing basically the exercise that I just described to you, I decided that being more productive was the one thing that would allow me to reach some of the goals that I had.~
~That would allow me to reach big goals, to have better relationships, to spend more time with my family, and get lots of control in my life. So I decided that if I could be more productive and manage my time better, then that would have the biggest impact on my entire life.~
~Now, honestly, if you've listened, now, honestly, you may have heard me say this before. I thought if I went all in for one year, I would figure it out. I was wrong. It took me about five years to finally master time management. A lot of failure, a lot of trying all different kinds of things. To no avail, reading tons of books, trying lots of systems, and it wasn't until I really found life coaching and realized that, oh, this is all just about the way that my brain works, and learning how my brain worked, and working with a coach to uncover that thinking that was in my way.~
~It wasn't until I did all of that work that I finally mastered this. So the good news for you is you've found my podcast, hopefully a lot earlier, hopefully you haven't spent five years trying to figure this out, and you just decided to get amazing at productivity and we're at the very beginning of your journey.~
~That way we can really fast track it.~
~And I'm still honing my skills. I know that at this point I could switch my focus to another one thing and become amazing at that. Um, and I do have a few things in mind that when I decide to go all in on my next one thing, I have two areas that I'm considering. I'll let you know, but I'd also love to know what your one thing that you've decided to focus on.~
~I would love to hear what it is.~
~Now, my one thing is still productivity, even though I have definitely mastered this at this point, I'm still getting better at it each day. I'm still learning about my own brain, learning about,~
~I'm still testing different things. I'm still getting more and more productive each day.~
~It's like I keep unpeeling these different layers. And it just keeps getting better and better. So I don't have any intention of moving on to another area of focus any time soon because I'm still making such amazing, I'm still making such amazing progress and I still think there's so much more for me to learn and to go deeper in.~
~But if I were to choose another focus, the two areas that I think at some point I will take on as a new one thing would be either emotional mastery, because I know that my emotions are what fuels all of my actions and will allow me to~
So, personally, in 2017, I chose my one thing. Now, you're listening to the Productivity Genius podcast, so it's not surprising to you most likely that [00:08:00] productivity was the thing I chose after doing that exercise that we just went through. But at the time, it was very scary and I didn't have a whole lot of confidence that I was going to master it.
But what I decided in 2017, if you haven't heard me say this before, I decided I was going to give myself one full year to focus on just becoming more productive. So every single book I was reading was about productivity. Every single system I was trying was something about time management or productivity.
It was my singular focus for that year. ~It's the only thing I was trying to.~ It was the only area I was trying to make improvements in, and I thought if I did that for one full year, went all in, I considered myself to be decently smart. I figured I could figure it out in a year, and I was actually wrong.
~I just hadn't found my answer. I just, In that time, I just didn't discover what I needed to discover. It took me about five years. Well, probably four years. ~It took me about, probably, I don't really remember when I discovered life coaching, maybe three years. And I don't even think I made that connection that that was going to be the answer for figuring out the productivity thing.
I think I just kind of liked listening to the [00:09:00] concepts of life coaching and, and thought work and mindset. And I was ~doing, ~kind of just consuming that for fun. ~Um, ~and it wasn't until I connected the two that I realized that was the key for me becoming wildly productive and mastering this. ~So after kind of then, so then I kind of,~
~so then combining those two things, really, I guess, I mean, productivity was my one thing, but it wasn't like I wasn't So then that~ I went that direction and looked at mindset, thought work and adjusting my brain rather than just trying to change my actions, but learning how to change. me at the core, change my brain to be a productive brain.
~That's what the lasting, permanent, amazing changes.~ That's when the lasting, permanent, amazing changes happened in my life and allowed me to become wildly productive and great at time management and ~reach all of these goals that I had been hoping to reach and start really,~
~and~ start knocking down these goals that I had been dreaming of for so long.
Now, I don't tell you that to try to convince you to make productivity your one thing, it's Changed my life in so many amazing ways. It's still after all of these years of study, still the thing that I focus on. I haven't [00:10:00] switched my focus from that. There are other areas that someday I want to go all in on.
Like I would love to go more into emotions work because I know that my willingness to feel my emotions. My awareness of my emotions, all of the work around emotions ~is,~
is huge and, ~um, ~definitely worth an investment of deep focus. If that's the area that you choose, I highly recommend you check out Lauren Brown. She has an amazing program, on mastering emotions ~that I was, ~That I took last year that is so good. I'll link her information in the show notes as well So if you're interested in pursuing emotions work I would totally head over ~to ~and start following Lauren as well And then the other area that ~I think~ someday I'm really gonna go full force all in on is my money Mindset ~not only just money mindset, but also managing money I know that my, I could do good mental work on that.~
I know I have some limiting beliefs when it comes to money. And so that's a whole area that at some point I'll go deep and explore. But for now, my more limiting belief when it comes to money, or at least the one that I did [00:11:00] used to believe is that I didn't have time for all of these money making activities.
And now that barrier I've broken down. So, if you decide that productivity and time management are your one thing, ~then you have found the best place. Then you're exactly where,~
then I am so happy you have found me because that is what I want for you. I want you to become wildly productive, but a lot faster than it took for me. I want to shortcut your journey. I don't want you to have to take five years ~to be,~ to enjoy the life that I'm enjoying now.
In the show notes, I'm going to put a Google form. I would love to hear some of your ideas on this. If you have chosen productivity to be your one thing, what do you think your biggest challenge is when it comes to being more productive or with time management? What's in the way? ~Why do you think you can't become more productive or this whole time management thing doesn't fit in your life?~
~If you've chosen a different one thing, I would love to hear it. Most likely, if you have a one thing,~
~I think when we really go deep and focused on one thing, we find really powerful habits or skills or~
~ideas that Probably everyone could benefit from. So I'd love to hear what area you're going to explore. What are you going to make your one thing? Are you ready to commit yourself? How long are you going to give yourself?~
~You deserve to live an extraordinary life. So I would love to hear what is the one thing. That you're going to pursue and focus on.~
~You deserve to live.~
You deserve to live an extraordinary life. ~I would love to hear the one thing you're going to focus on to help yourself.~
~So~ I would love to hear the one thing you're going to focus on
To make achieving that life a reality.
~So~ Remember in the show notes, I'll have that focusing question that I had asked [00:12:00] that you can explore if you didn't have time to answer these questions while you were listening. I'll also link you to Gary Keller's book. I'll link you to Lauren Brown, the emotions coach, and I'll also link you to that form where you can share your one thing or tell me what's in the way of you becoming wildly productive.
~You can also reach out to me at ~
~productivitygeniuscoach on Instagram if it's easier for you to just send me a DM. ~Okay, next episode is gonna be so good. It's on habits. We can actually take this one thing work and transform it into some habits that will make achieving our goals
a reality. But until then, have an amazing week.
