Success: Knife vs. Spoon

It seems that as humans, we feel it is our responsibility -- our sworn duty -- to complicate things.

No matter how simple, how ordinary or how plain it COULD be, we always find a way to foul it up.

You can see examples of this anywhere in your life.

Check out your workplace for starters. I'm sure you can think of a "Top Ten" list of things the company COULD do in an easier way than they're currently doing. You can probably think of 10 things that the company doens't even need to be doing at all! We love to add extra steps, create job security and form ad hoc committees to show how important we are and how much we can do.

Unfortunately, we don't get as much done.

I'm sure you see it in other parts of your life, too. Maybe the clerk performs extra steps when checking you out with your purchases at the store. Maybe the hotel makes you jump through extra hoops when you check in or check out.

Perhaps you can begin to see where you go out of your way in your own life to complcate things.

But it doesn't have to be that way at all.

I was recently asked to do a little experiment. First, I was told to collect three items--a knife, a spoon and a cardboard box (I used a cereal box). See if you can mentally picture this while I'm explaining it to you. (If it helps, the box was Lucky Charms.)

First I took the spoon and tried to pierce the box. Kinda tough, but I managed to put a dent in the Leprechaun's face after expending a fair amount of energy and focus.

Then I tried again with the spoon. I am sorry to tell you that I stabbed the poor leprechaun in nothing flat.

What's the point?

The lesson was to demonstrate the power of focused energy. While the spoon is blunt, it has diffused energy. This means that when I pushed with it, the energy was going in several different directions. On the other hand, the knife has focused energy. When I attempted to pierce the box with the knife, the design of the knife is such that I was focusing all my energy and force into a small point. Which resulted in better, faster accomplishment of my goal.

Would you like better, faster accomplishment of YOUR goals? Faster success?

Then stop complicating things! Look, if you're running around in a million directions at once, you're working with a spoon. Focus on what you want, and then focus on each task that will take you to what you want. Use the knife.

My question for you today is this:

Where in your life can you benefit from using a knife-approach instead of a spoon-approach? What actions will you take TODAY with the knife-approach to move you closer to your goals?