There is a fantastic life planning system that I learned from Tony Robbins called RPM.
It’s designed to change the focus from ‘to do’s’ to outcomes. What’s the difference? Well I find that to dos can become a never ending list you work through for the rest of your life (or indeed that you never get through). I also find that if I’m a bit underenergised and I look at a list of things I ‘have to’ do, then I’m very prone to procrastination.
Tony’s system helps you re-align with the purpose- or the “why the heck am I even doing this?”
I know I can easily forget the WHY behind anything when I’m in the flow of my work day. I had a mini breakthrough today while using the RPM system that I think is worth sharing.
It may seem tedious at first, but a crucial step in the RPM system is to look not only at outcomes but the reason you want it. I sat down to plan my day today and thought twice about whether I would use RPM for my film a day habit. This is something I decided to do this year to make a little movie each day to share online.
The reason I didn’t want to do it went something like this “Well look, I know I need to make a movie anyway, so I can just put in on the calendar or carve an hour or so out of my day to do it, what’s the big deal? I don’t need some fancy system for that”
WRONG.
I decided to do it anyway and I’m glad I did.
As unnecessarily time consuming as it seemed, I followed the process:
What’s my outcome? To have a film that I’m proud of that I want to share with the world and shows me at my best. Hmm pretty good start, certainly glad I wrote that down, it hadn’t been that clear in my head…
Why do I want that? Well… I want to act! I love acting and creating, I want to use my hard earned skill and entertain some stranger. I want to cast a vote for the type of creator I am- one that works every day. I want to make something I’m proud of that will exist forever- this one time investment will keep working for me and entertain people for years to come! Woah, where did all that come from! I couldn’t believe how much I had to say about why I wanted this outcome. The best part was, the more I wrote the more associated I became with these reasons. I felt them more in some symbiotic loop.
It was only later that some old thoughts came back: Well I want to make a film every day… what am I supposed to do write that out every day? Come on what a waste of time, I can just get on a make the thing rather than spend time doing all that…
And there was my breakthrough. I do have to do it every day. That’s the difference that makes the difference I think. If I take the time remain connected to my purpose each day, I will have more access to the resources of someone who is inspired.
Yes it’s work, but that’s the point. I don’t think it comes naturally to do hard things. And if we just schedule it and expect the ‘why’ to be searingly clear for us, we may run out of steam. This is especially true when it comes to the important non urgent stuff, it’s easy to cast it aside in your day to make way for the inevitable day to day things that need our attention now. We have to make them urgent otherwise we’ll never get around to the things that make the real difference.
Take the extra couple of minutes before you engage with these tasks that really matter. Engage with your why each time; make it a habit. Go on, do the hard thing. Every day.
