From the time we’re young, we’re told to choose one goal at a time and give it everything we have. Many of us follow this conventional wisdom, but what happens when the path to meet said goal is multifaceted?
I can give you an example from my days playing college volleyball: to win a match, you have to pass well, run an offense, have a defensive strategy, serve tough…Against some teams, you target a player on serve. Others, you run certain offensive schemes against to exploit their defensive weaknesses.
Our lives are just as complex & require diverse solutions to make the ideal real.
Millions of Americans try to get in shape every year and fall short. Many of these people want to lose weight and increase their health, so they turn to the first workout type that comes to mind: cardio.
Although cardio-based activities–running, swimming, cycling, elliptical’ing–are important, they are only a small part of a larger health & fitness plan.
During volleyball season, even though I was working out six out of seven days of the week, I wasn’t healthy. We ran. We lifted weights. I was, basically, in a squat for two hours every day. But I gained weight AND managed to be tired all the time, because my nutrition and diet sucked.
During law school, when my nutrition and fitness were on-point, I had a span of time that I looked & felt great. Then, life kinda crashed down around me and, even though my routine stayed the same, my health took a tumble.
What many people don’t realize is that although the end-goal is overall health and wellness, they must diversify their approach in order to achieve it.
Our world is a complex one, and the path to almost every goal will be equally multifaceted, whether you’re going for improved fitness, personal relationships or business.
Multifaceted solutions create holistic success
One afternoon, in the faculty workroom at the college where I taught government, I overheard a couple of fellow professors talking about their New Year’s Resolutions. Well, they were talking about how poorly they were going, specifically in the weight-loss sector.
All I heard was, “I’ve been going to the gym every day,” then, immediately following, the telltale sound of a bag of chips opening & voracious crunching. I was like, ‘Umm…’
It’s kind of the same as SEO (search engine optimization): you have to have the content to support your goal’s success. It’s all about being:
- engaged,
- effective, and
- efficient.
It’s all about making everything you’re doing work toward your intended results. Companies have UX concerns, that is, they want users to have an easy & enjoyable time with them so that the experience is a successful one.
You can make the “user experience” of being YOU a successful one, too. And–BONUS–you have all the tools, market research, & insights necessary to make it so.
Don’t waste a meal, a word, a thought, a day. Make it all serve a purpose.
It’s similar to First Principle Thinking, in that you start with a basic, essential, foundational truth to which you’ll direct all your efforts. If you do that, you won’t need to depend on anything else for context or direction–you’ll be guided by that one vision. This is also a key element of Concurrent Good–having everything, in its own capacity, serving a central purpose.
The content of your life has to be quality. I’ve seen, personally and observationally, how we fill our lives with crap & confuse that fullness with richness. Useless or low-quality purchases, fast food, going out to get hammered… it’s all stuff we cram into our lives to make them full, but that do us no good in return.
The music we listen to. The food we eat. The thoughts we entertain. The actions we take. They all leave some paint on the canvases, the web pages, the books that are our lives.
We are the only ones who can curate it all.
Fill your life with quality content.