My personal theory for success is vision, focus, and effort. The order is important because vision leads, focus follows, and effort secures the bag. Of course life is much more complex than that, but this framework identifies some personal mental techniques for achieving more.
Vision
First and foremost comes vision. Vision is challenging to cultivate and is inherently unique to our personal experience and desires. It is what we are inspired by and feel passionate about. It is the things we want to achieve. But it is important to realize that these things are not everything and they may change as we gain experience. One particular aspect that is important with vision is that we may have a vision that is completely and totally out of line with reality. Such a vision will never come true even if we are truly inspired by it and passionate about it. This may lead to unhappiness. But grounding in reality and experimenting and doing things to try and achieve dreams is what gives the perspective to judge the reality or possibility of visions. The good news is that our visions adapt and grow with our experiences. So being inspired by reality gives us a way of dreaming about things that are possible for us and be guided to those happy realities. A good way of thinking about vision and how likely it is to come to fruition is swimming in a strong river. Reality is the current and our goals are our strokes in the water. Things that are impossible lie upstream. But anything adjacent to us or with the current is achievable. However, things go much smoother when going with the current. The current can be things that are occuring in nature or society. It is much easier to achieve something when everything aligns to give us what we want. Sometimes are goals are merely based on achieved some magnitude of success, then finding out the direction of the current and moving with it is the best way of achieving magnitude of success. However, our personality may dictate that we want to achieve something else (maybe farming in the age of automated food production) and while it may not be measured as success by anyone else, it is achievable and leads to personal satisfaction. Ikigai is a Japanese concept that is another way of viewing the river and stream effect. It says that to find purpose, happiness, and success all at once is ikigai. Otherwise, we are torn between doing what we want to achieve and what we do to make money (survive in a society).
Visualization
Additionally, I have much more nuanced views on purpose and our role in society.
Focus
The second is focus or the picking of goals that align with our vision. It is important that we check from time to time that our thoughts and actions are aligned with our current goals. Primarily we do this by periodic self-evaluation like in meditation. Part of this self-evaluation is noticing whether our thoughts are positive, like the theory of attraction or manifestion which try to avoid statements like “I can’t” (although these theories are otherwise quite bullshit, partly because they ignore effort and doing anything you even slightly dislike and partly because they fail to account for the principle of failing 1000 times until you succeed). Negative thoughts also naturally arise when you are not doing something that is aligned with your vision. For example, Jeff Bezos outlines his theory for starting Amazon was one of regret minimization - something he would have regretted had he not done it. Therefore, focus is almost intrinsically linked to vision in that positive thoughts that help us focus are more likely to occur when we are following a vision. However, with so many thousands of different directions to follow in our lives, there are bound to be some regrets. The best we can do is continuously make the best effort to align with our vision. The primary reason that focus can be achieved by eliminating negative thoughts is that negative thoughts are simply not that powerful. If you were designing a car, a list of all the things that a car cannot do will not be nearly as useful as a specification for a car. For example the goal of “a device that cannot fly” will hardly help you build a car, while “a device that rolls on wheels” might get you a lot closer. Therefore, positive thoughts tend to be much more productive.
Even more powerful are productive thoughts. These are thoughts that are positive and aligned with our vision. They may be about how and what to do like “I will do x,y,z” . However, productive thoughts still need to be examined through self-evaluation. For example, Elon Musk said that the worst mistake great engineers make is optimizing something that shouldn’t exist - something that can be addressed with self-evaluation and a broad world vision (current of the stream). Productive thoughts are also about believing in ourselves. They are about being confident or assessing whether something needs to be done. For example, in my own life, there are many awkward or somewhat confusing things that I can do. But if they align with my goals, then I decide it is best to embrace that awkwardness and just do them. Especially if they are not causing anyone harm like just reaching out to someone, then these decisions are just something that needs to be done. Or if you have the opportunity to say something nice, then it’s best not to dwell on whether or not you should say it, maybe just go ahead and say it.
There are many things without a clear answer either but they pop into our heads. There is no concept of whether or not these are part of our vision, but maybe they help just a little bit. Then, if they are not too distracting and do not take too much effort, it is best just to do them because they help us build our world view, they help us experiment in a way or open opportunities.
Focus and Vision
Additionally, there is an important downside to focus. Focus, while important to accomplishing a particular vision, is counterproductive to updating our view of the currents of the stream that help us determine how great our vision can be. In fact, focus can make us blind to the rest of the world even if it can help us hone in on a particular goal. In the Bezos example, focus wouldn’t lead to many persepectives that are needed to evaluate the benefits of a particular action. Also, a vision can have many different ways in which it can be executed. Not only do we have to focus on productive thoughts, we also have to choose the optimal path to achieve a vision. This may not be possible within a narrow view of the world. Often times, optimization requires a broader view. In terms of optimization, machine learning techniques such as bayesian approximation of a function, we know that we have to try and explore unknowns to be able to determine a better estimator of the function. In such cases, focus is actually counterproductive and we should try to broaden our vision. It is therefore beneficial to broaden our view focus on the big picture, or even just try to break out of our comfort zone. All of these are valid ways to obtaining a better world vision. So while focus can help us achieve a vision, the vision itself depends on much more than focusing on it. We need to broad experiences to be able to truly understand ourselves and the world so that we can choose optimal visions.
Effort
Effort is what secures the bag in that this is what ultimately creates success and also makes us feel good because we are taking steps towards our goal. It also has the benefit of testing and validating our vision and focused goals, grounding us in reality and bringing us full circle. However, it ties in intrinsically with focus because effort is a limited resource. Oftentimes even work makes more work. Like in the case of Bezos where making a decision that is difficult to undo can often times lead to more effort needing to be spent to undo the original decision. Effort also goes into doing the things that need to be done. It isn’t just a rosy time of pursuing things that we love doing. No, there are many times we have to do the grunt work. Such as when trying to live a healthy lifestyle, cooking at home and doing exercise can at times be burdensome. But they are part of the work that is needed to be done. This is where discipline comes in. Not everything can be done at times of inspiration or when we feel particularly motivated. Effort is the conscious decision to be focused and do the things that need to be done. If you are working out, put in effort. One of the things that I notice when I work out is that I can just stand around and not be putting in much effort, but that doesn’t get me as far. It is necessary to constantly put in effort be focused on the next workout and then not get distracted by the desire to not feel the pain. Instead focus on the vision, the need to improve to feel the hamstrings lengthening during a pike stretch or to forcefully push the glutes on each stride during a run. These things are challenging and tiresome and they require conscious work to put in the effort. Another example is in writing. I can sit at a computer all day and not make any progress on writing. It is absolutely draining when that happens. But it is important to just start and then refine. Sometimes it helps to break things down into smaller tasks, but that is usually just a coping method that is only really helpful once. The real challenge is picking where to start. Identify one thing to start and then consciously decide what is next and no matter how much effort it takes, force yourself to do it. It is exhausting and appropriate amounts of rest are needed, but overall this leads to the benefits of effort: satisfaction that you are making progress towards your goals and a better idea of what you are doing and how the world works. Effort is best viewed through the lens of experimentation, you are trying things and seeing how they work (important for vision). It is a fun twist to just doing things because you have to and instead doing them because they reveal something about yourself and the way the world works.
Effort can lead to exhaustion, so be wary of that because exhaustion is very depressing. Exhaustion is best cured with rest and play.
Decisiveness
Effort and Vision
Effort and focus
Sparknotes version:
Vision
- Things that are possible and we are passionate about
- Changes with experience
Focus
- Concentrate on productive thoughts
- Be self positive
- Lose focus for broad vision
Effort
- Pick where to start and force yourself to continuously do the next task
- Leads to satisfaction and grounding in reality
- Rest and play
- Cure exhaustion with rest and play