The good news is that your lack of a natural gift is irrelevant – talent has little or nothing to do with greatness. You can make yourself into any number of things, and you can even make yourself great. It’s nice to believe that if you find the field where you’re naturally gifted, you’ll be great from day one, but it doesn’t happen. There’s no evidence of high-level performance without experience or practice.

They conclude that practice makes perfect but it has to be practice that is focused on improving performance – challenge your comfort zone in that area – and gives you feedback:

The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call “deliberate practice.” It’s activity that’s explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one’s level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.

The article then goes to the business side:

How do you practice business? Many elements of business, in fact, are directly practicable. Presenting, negotiating, delivering evaluations, deciphering financial statements – you can practice them all.

Still, they aren’t the essence of great managerial performance. That requires making judgments and decisions with imperfect information in an uncertain environment, interacting with people, seeking information – can you practice those things too?

The key according to the article is to change your mindset: Instead of merely trying to get it done, you aim to get better at it. It is about constant improvements, Kaizen, and seeking feedback and ways to measure your progress.

In summary, change your mindset – aim to get better at what you do – and then practice to make you great.

Celebrate What’s Right With The World teaches what a powerful force having a vision of possibilities can be for you. Do you have a vision for your organization? More importantly, do you have one for yourself? One that gets you excited every morning and keeps you open to possibilities.

Dewitt Jones talks about the importance of focusing on what’s right in the world instead of what’s wrong. He also talks about “when we believe it, we will see it”.

What about the Law of Attraction? Can’t you just sit on your butt all day and manifest what you want through the power of intention? That would be a gross misunderstanding of how the Law of Attraction works. When you focus single-mindedly on what you want, you’ll begin to notice new resources appearing in your life. If you don’t take action, however, those resources will dry up and you’ll be no closer to your goals.

I am not keen on the Law of Attraction, there are too many that think that manifesting is all it takes. To sum it up, Attraction = Attract + Action.

Update March 21, 2009.
Over at The Discomfort Zone, Tim Browson’s blog, is a guest post by Sean Platt, Writer Dad and Ghostwriter Dad. The post The Secret Is, You’re Busted is a great post with many great comments (mine included).

See also Is The Law of Attraction A Con?.

The Positivity Blog has a post about How to Handle Criticism: The Top 7 Tips from The Last 2500 Years.

Negotiations are part of life, The Bridgemaker tells us How to Improve Your Negotiation Skills.

The Bridgemaker also gives us A Guide to Creating Success | 24 Essential Actions You Can Do Beginning Today.

Billionaire Woman posts about Break Out Of Your Money Box, your money comfort zone.

Chris Garrett writes about Overcoming Your Own Constraints.

The Change Blog gives us 5 Daily Practices to Help You Keep Your Edge.

Zen Habits tells us How To Find That Elusive Balance Between Work and Life. There is also Five Great Ways to Conquer Your Fears.

Constraints make us focus. They force us to zero-in on a specific purpose. The less material we have to work with, the more resourceful we must be. Can you sum up your entire outlook on life in one sentence? Do you have a personal motto you live your life by?

The mission sentence is mainly for your own use:

When you define your mission sentence, you craft a powerful tool for yourself. You create an abbreviation of all your goals, values, and passions… a guiding symbol of your life’s story. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a phrase others will understand. It’s not for them or for promotional purposes. It’s for you.

Creating a mission sentence is a great exercise, it helps you stay focused. My mission sentence is “I am making the world a better place”. What is yours?

Your purpose has nothing to do with your degree, your resume, your career, or vocation. Your purpose is independent of all those things. In fact, it’s much bigger than any of those. Purpose has to do with your creative self expression. It has to do with what makes you feel alive. It’s something you do, where at the end of the day you think “I made a difference.”

Jonathan gives a four step exercise where you answer the question “What is my true purpose in life?” or “How would I want to be remembered when I die?” There is also a part about aligning your job and your life purpose.

The exercise comes from How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes where Steve Pavlina writes about how he found his life purpose.

See also:
How to find your passion

As a coach I use the tag line Unlocking your potential. It is your life, make the most of it!. Jonathan’s post is highly relevant, potential is a fussy term. Jonathan writes that:

Even though we may not ever be able to measure our potential, we can develop habits to help us grow. Here are 7 essentials I’ve found to ensure that you are the best possible version of yourself.

The seven essentials are:
1. Have an open mind.
2. Seek out new perspectives and contexts.
3. Ask for what you want.
4. Help other people succeed.
5. Think different.
6. Work smart, not hard.
7. Change your auto-response.

This is a great list and each is point is explained in the post.

You can read more by Jonathan over at Illuminated Mind.

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?

Curly: This. [holds up one finger]

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.

Mitch: But what is the “one thing?”

Curly: [smiles] That’s what you have to find out.

I remember that part from watching the movie many years ago. It stuck somewhere in my mind but did not make much impact at that time. Now when I am older and (hopefully) wiser I realize that Curly’s law makes a lot of sense and summarizes things nicely.

One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.

Just do one thing – How to find your passion.

Do one thing at a time – Zen To Done and Getting things done.

Do one thing at a time and be fully present – Mindfulness. ]]> http://fortyplustwo.com/2008/09/06/the-rule-of-one-or-curlys-law/feed/ 2 http://fortyplustwo.com/2008/08/14/authentic-blogging/ http://fortyplustwo.com/2008/08/14/authentic-blogging/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:58:00 +0000 bengt http://fortyplustwo.com/?p=375 Continue reading →]]> I subscribe to ProBlogger and got Authentic Blogging in the mail. That post leads to The Authentic Blogging Manifesto which is a great post that I can relate to. Maria Gajewski tells about how she got hooked on writing for social media like StumbleUpon and forgot about the real reasons for blogging. She has created her own blogging manifesto which goes like this:

Blogging is an activity done by people for other people. Blogging is a form of communication. From now on, I will blog for humans, not for search engines or social media websites. This may or may not result in any type of monetary compensation, but money will never be my primary motivation in blogging. I will market my blog by communicating with people who may share my interests.

That is a mission statement that works for me too. Being authentic is important, in blogging as well as in other parts of life.

Maria calls her blog Never the Same River Twice, a great name.