The Scientific Argument for Mastering One Thing at a Time

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1. Intro

What are the key lessons we can learn from the successful people who have successfully achieved multiple goals in their lives?

One of the key lessons is that it is possible to improve one area at a time.

I’m not talking about getting rid of everything and starting anew in one area. For example, I don’t think learning a new language is worth doing if you also don’t speak English or have been living somewhere else for more than a few months. You need to be able to say something in those languages, and then you need to learn English, so that you can articulate what you want to say in English.

In life, there are many areas we would like to improve but which seem too big or challenging for us to tackle all at once. The key thing is not to throw your energy into an area where you lack the abilities needed because that isn’t going to make any difference and your time will be better spent improving other areas.

2. What is Personal Development?

“Personal Development” is a highly popular topic among entrepreneurs and the natural result of a person who has seen the importance of all these above topics. It is also extremely popular with marketers, in particular those who have recently inducted themselves into the Lean Startup movement and are trying to increase their efficiency.

Like many entrepreneurs, you are probably wondering what it means to be “personal development” as much as you are wondering what it means to be entrepreneur. Clearly, making money is the first thing you should do, but “personal development” is about much more than that. It can also mean learning new skills — improving your English for example — or even just having fun. The idea of getting better at something does not have to be limited to one area of life; there is no reason why you cannot be good at everything and still call yourself “personal development” (maybe I should get my own personal development book out there as well).

In any case, one area where a lot of people will agree on is that pursuing personal development can help you develop your personality and make you more attractive to others. People who are good at learning new things tend to go through life feeling confident and capable; they feel like they know exactly how they want their next project to turn out, which makes them more attractive than someone who feels uncertain about his direction in life. This is because when you feel like you know exactly where you want your future project to end up, that project feels like it will follow a certain path. You won’t feel like anything important will happen unless it does so in line with your plans (and so on).

While many people think that being personally developed tends to mean being able to set goals for yourself, this isn’t always true. Being personally developed doesn’t mean reaching some arbitrary goal each day or even once every week; it means being able to tell yourself: I am going through this experience because I want this experience/goal/possible outcome to happen for me . Then: I am going through this experience because I want this experience/goal/possible outcome to happen for me . And if something happens along the way: I am going through this experience because I want this experience/goal/possible outcome to happen for me . These three sentences have three different types of meaning depending on whether or not

3. How to Achieve Great Things in Life

There is an argument to be made that if you want to become a great person, you need to master at least one thing at a time.

I’ve met people who have achieved a lot in one area and become unbalanced, struggling in others. It’s not just what they did (e.g., writing books, lifting weights), it’s the way they did it. For instance, a lot of people have a lot of success as writers when they write fiction; but when they are trying to write nonfiction pieces, they tend to struggle.

Some people are highly organized and efficient; others are scatterbrained and messier. Some people can code like no tomorrow; others can’t do math or physics for shit (though I know plenty of people who can).

What does it mean for you? It means that the way you do something is important — it’s not enough just to have skills or talent; you have to focus on using them effectively in order to achieve your goals and needs. When your goal is not achieving any more than you already do, the few extra skills might be more important than the ones that will make you happy once those things are done (e.g., if writing nonfiction helps get you closer to your dream job as a writer with which you already feel comfortable).

4. How to Set Goals the Right Way

What goals do you want to achieve? Do you want to:

Do you expect your life to improve? If so, then how much improvement do you expect? How long do you think that improvement will last? Do you expect the improvement to happen in a few years or maybe over a decade?

Do you expect the improvement to happen after a year or two at best? Are there any other specific circumstances that would prevent your life from getting better than it is now (e.g. physical disability, illness, family disfunction, financial crisis)?

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes” or “maybe”, then I recommend putting time and effort into specific activities that will help you achieve those goals. Don’t just throw everything at one thing and hope for the best; instead work on answering these questions in advance and create habits for yourself that will help you reach your goals sooner rather than later.

5. The 1-2-3 Method for Achieving Goals

Goals are not just a distraction; they’re a great motivator. Without them, we’d all be guessing which of us are the most in need of motivation and which of us are most likely to get it. And what goals do you think people would have? Others would have goals like finding their next book deal or getting into their dream job, but we would all want to do things that are more meaningful to us. Goals give us a clear picture of how our lives should be and how we can improve them.

I personally believe that goals should be obvious, something you can easily grasp and accomplish, but I realize how much work it takes to do so. The 1-2-3 method is designed to make it easier for you to reach your goals by taking away some of the confusion about what exactly your goals are and how you can reach them.

The 1-2-3 method is simple:

1 = 1 thing (like writing)

2 = 2 things (like becoming a better writer)

3 = 3 things (like lifting heavier weights at the gym)

This is one way to achieve your goals because there is no other way I know of! Just think about where you stand right now — that’s where you want to be! You can change it by just doing these specific three things every day. If you don’t already have a timeline for this process, develop one now so that if and when you run into any roadblocks, they will be easier to address.

6. Conclusion

The scientific argument for mastering one thing at a time is that the more you focus on one thing at a time, the better it will be for you.

And so it’s with writing, which has proven itself to be just as good as a sport in terms of focus and productivity. And I’ve been doing this for years now, with some success: I’m not going to tell you how many hours a week I spend on my writing or on improving it or on anything else, and I’m not going to tell you what kind of work space or computer I use. You will have to judge if any of those things make sense to you.

But what I can do is show you an example of how well they work. This isn’t an article about writing itself; it’s about the way it works to improve your work.

This post is an excerpt from my book Mastering One Thing at a Time , where each chapter focuses on one topic:

• The first chapter focuses on discipline: How disciplined are we? If we aren’t disciplined enough, then we won’t be able to improve our skills (and our quality) as quickly). That chapter explains why focusing on one thing at a time makes sense (and why school is wrong), and defines the discipline needed (the 4-step process).

• Chapter 2 introduces the second step — practicing — which is about practices that seem most likely to improve your skills: taking breaks, following up opportunities, working slowly… these are all things that we can do much better than we think if we don’t give them any real attention right now (and before they become habitual). This chapter explains why these practices are important and why they should be done now; and also gives some ideas for how they are done (practices such as taking frequent breaks might require building in some scheduled time into our lives). Of course, there are many variations in practice here; but this chapter will help you see them all clearly.

• Chapter 3 introduces something new here: Mindfulness. Mindfulness is described as “paying attention in the moment”. It’s difficult to explain when reading something like this — but let me try anyway: It’s difficult because there are so many words needed here and so few things tangible that can be observed when someone pays attention in the moment without relying on memory or external cues (such as rolling eyes or smiling when someone says something