Most people believe that the success strategy for goal achievement comes from doing more, but really this couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite slow progress, overwhelm and sometimes not even achieving the goal, people need to learn the strategies of how doing less can actually produce better results.

Why do we insist on doing it all? We are consistently presented with burnt out founders, leaders managing unhealthy levels of stress with a constant need to be everywhere, doing it all and citing being ‘too busy’ as the root cause.

We see it across industries, my experience in tech is that the pace of change means you constantly feel as if you are falling behind. But most of us mistakenly use the pressure to add more strategies to our plan.

Ultimately we have been conditioned to believe that busyness means progress. It is one of the biggest myths and reasons for low quality work, slow progress, lack of innovation not to mention considerable stress.

I worked in a large corporate that would spend an entire quaryter adding new KPIs and objectives to every functions plan, only to reach the end of the year with barely any progress.

In fact 61% of business leaders complained that work life balance continues to be a struggle. But also that stress management was difficult because there were too many things to do.

Introducing the Success Strategy to Achieving more by Doing Less

There is one clear thinking that prevails among some of arguably the most successful people in the world. In this example I’m going to share Steve Jobs’ strategy at Apple, but we can site Tim Ferris, and others as following the same approach.

This revolves around focus, not just how to focus but what strategy to focus on.

In psychology we have pathways thinking, which is defining a goal and then working out the path to get there.

The Problem with Implementing Multiple Strategies at once

Often you have many paths you are trying to maintain and this leads to diluting your focus and attention. Like the circus clown spinning plates, diverting attention each time one appears to fall. Context switching aside this is not how good leaders innovate.

Using Steve Jobs as an example. When he returned to apple he cut their product line to just 4 core products. This enabled the company to focus on a few things well. This took them firm near bankruptcy to millions of profit in the first year (learn more at Inc.com).

In fact he said that the main thing in innovation is finding all of the things to say no to.

Stress Test Your Strategies

In the diagram we take all of the strategies that you are currently working to achieve your goal and we stress test how far they will take you.

Some of these will be a distraction, taking you in other undesirable directions. For example Some might be a feature you are developing for one client that you can’t replicate or resell. Taking you away from scaling.

Some of these strategies might not have the power to elevate you towards your goal. The rockets may not have enough fuel and so may not be worth the ROI.

Stress testing your strategies is a great way to start eliminating some of the busy distracting work.

The key with a success strategy, is not only to enhance focus but to focus on the right things.

When you as a leader define the right strategy to focus your time, energy and resources, you will be able to innovate more. Allowing you to scale and take your growth to the next level.

You can’t innovate on a thousand things.

Steps to Defining Your One Path to Success

Reflecting on this lesson, assess each of your current work streams.

• Take a critical view of their potential in reaching your goal.

• Eliminate distracting work.

• Decide & commit to where to focus

• Review frequently against your goal.

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