Why Success Comes From Focusing on One Thing
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You can achieve anything you want in your life.
You can build the career you want, you can write and publish a book, you can become a yoga instructor, you can travel the world, you can learn how to play the guitar and you can learn how to speak Italian.
You can do all those things in your lifetime — but you can’t do them all at once. And, more importantly, you can’t excel in any of those fields, if you’re not willing to invest consistent hours into mastering them.
Too often though, this is the trap we fall into. We spread our energy too thin by going after too many things at the same time. As a result, we don’t end up achieving much.
Personally, I’ve fallen victim to this kind of thinking a few times. I wanted to travel the world and launch a project from scratch. I wanted to write a book and build a company. I tried to do them at the same time, but of course, that wasn’t possible.
But all that changed when I came across this Russian proverb that transformed my understanding of what it takes to succeed:
“If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.”
If you want to create sustainable change in your life, you must choose “one thing” and you must go deep in that thing. You must choose—and chase—one rabbit .
And that’s the secret to mastery: You do one thing, you do it every day, and you did it for years.
Why “One Thing”
The “one thing” strategy is a time-tested approach presented by bestselling authors Gary Keller and Jay Papasan in their book: The One Thing—The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results.
It implies that you can succeed at anything in life as long as that anything is your “one thing.”
It sounds simple, but putting it into practice can be a challenge. That’s because we’re all quite fickle. We tend to lose interest in things very quickly. And in this modern age, our attention span doesn’t really help us, does it?
But when you look at all the greats throughout history, you begin to understand the power of the “one thing.”
Bestselling author Adam Grant writes that “quantity is the most predictable path to quality. If you want to be original, the most important thing you could do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work.”
Picasso amassed over 1,800 paintings in his lifetime, but only a fraction of them was praised and acclaimed. Shakespeare produced 37 plays and 154 sonnets, but only five of them became famous.
They both produced a lot of work—but they also focused on one single thing:
Picasso painted and Shakespeare wrote.
This same principle of mastery is also exemplified by Bruce Lee’s words:
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
Mastery and success come from pursuing one thing and doing that one thing for years.
Chase one rabbit. Practice one kick. 10,000 times.
So my question to you is this:
What’s your “one thing”?
What’s the one thing you really want to excel at? What’s the one thing you want to focus your energy on? Is it blogging, or painting, or stock investing, or exercising to get in shape? Is it launching a poetry page on Instagram, starting a podcast, learning a new language, teaching yoga or setting-up a community project to raise awareness about a cause?
Whatever you choose, you must choose only one. And you must make that “one thing” your priority.
And the reason goes back to this: we all have a limited amount of energy. If we chase too many things at once, we drown our energy and clutter our minds with chaos. Instead, if we learn to direct our energy onto one thing at a time, we can go far in that “one thing.”
My advice is to choose something you love—something you gravitate toward and truly enjoy because you’ll need that care and conviction to keep you going on the inevitable days when you feel like giving up and quitting.
I chose writing and I used this exercise to help me find out my one thing.
This doesn’t mean that I quit everything to write. And it doesn’t mean that writing will always be my “one thing”. In fact, there are a lot of other interests I would like to explore such as public speaking, coaching and social entrepreneurship. But for the time being, it simply means that writing is what I will dedicate my time and energy to for a prolonged period of time so that I can excel in it and, in turn, move my life in the direction I please.
This is the kind of thinking you should have: excel in your “one thing” and then branch out.
The Four Things You Must Do After Choosing Your One Thing
Once you’ve chosen your “one thing”, here are four things you must do to make it easy for you to commit to it.
Prioritize it. You brush your teeth everyday because it’s a priority. You shower everyday (I hope) because it’s a priority. Now’s the time to carve out a time block in your calendar for your one thing. If you make it part of who you are and you prioritize it, you’ll devote a slot for it in your daily schedule.
Start Small. Keller and Papasan write that “going small is realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.” If your “one thing” is writing, then “start small” means write for an hour a day. If it’s getting in shape, then “start small” means going for a 30-minute walk every single day.
Stay Consistent. The key to any sustainable change is time. And consistency is the only path towards progression. The easiest way to stay consistent is to create an environment that supports your “one thing”. For example, you can change your home screen on your phone to ask the question “Did you do your ‘one thing’ today?”
Say no. Saying no means ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. It’s recognizing that not all things matter equally—but your “one thing” matters most. Look—your time is finite, and so is your energy; so you must learn to say no to everything that doesn’t positively contribute to your “one thing”.
What’s The “One Thing” You Want to Succeed in?
My one thing this year is writing. That’s it. That’s all I’m focusing my energy on. It comes before work, before exercise, and before leisure time.
I’ve made it my priority.
Writing is the “one thing” I do every day, five days a week. Somedays, I go into a flow and four hours pass by. Some days, I struggle to put in more than a 20-minute session. Other days, I brainstorm new article ideas. It doesn’t matter — what matters is that I’ve made my “one thing” my priority and I’m showing up consistently to make it happen. I’m tracking it and witnessing the progress week in, week out.
In fact, four months later, I’ve published over 40 articles and my writing has been viewed by more than 100,000 people.
That’s the power of the “one thing”.
You start small, you create the environment for it, you go deep into it and stay consistent. Give it the time and attention it deserves and watch how far you will go.
The key, of course, is to stick with it over time.