How to find your Purpose (Your ONE THING)

Long story short, “The ONE Thing” is about organizing your life by determining where your priorities lie. Those priorities are formed by developing and finding a sense of purpose, and as a result it can bring energy, success and happiness in your life. 

Ideally, we would all have the brains of Nikola Tesla, the muscles of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the voice of Beyonce, and the steadfast mind of the Dalai Lama. When it comes to developing a skill or moving towards a goal, as much as we would love to focus on EVERYTHING, it all comes down to focusing on ONE THING at a time. 

What do we mean when we refer to ONE THING?

This can relate to any aspect, goal or characteristic in your life that you would like to achieve. They can vary from:

As we try to find what our ONE THING may be, the road map would be divided into 2 parts:

For those who don’t know

Part 1: The One Thing starts at the FOUNDATION

When starting off on the path to development, whether it is wanting to be a CEO of a company or learning how to play the piano it all starts with a foundation of purpose, priority and productivity.

Purpose:

This is the single most important aspect in terms of connecting what you are doing with why do you doing it. If you would like to focus on being a CEO of a large company, you must understand why being a CEO is important to you. Is it because you love the business you’re apart of? Achieving status? Financial goals? Wanting to lead the charge towards a certain direction for the business?

While working on a task, Keller would typical ask himself 

Priority:

By connecting what you are doing at the moment to your big picture goals, it makes the process easier in terms of understanding how to prioritize what you want to do. 

In order to channel that purpose forward, prioritizing gives clarity and guidance when it comes to understanding which tasks to do and when to do them. For example, if you have aspirations of being a masterful piano player, and you have a  free schedule for the day, what would you do? Would you spend your day watching Netflix? Would you go out and enjoy most of your time with your friends? OR would you just play the piano and practice your craft??

Productivity:

Your productivity determines how you make use of the time that you have. While everyone comes from a different upbringing and a unique set of values, the only equal aspect we all share is that we have 24 hours each day, and it is up to us to utilize that time. Keller shares three times in terms of maximizing your productivity:

Now with a strong foundation in place, the next step would be to embark on the path towards your ONE THING.

Part 2: Making sure you remain on the PATH to your One Thing

Establishing that foundation is important for taking that first step, however, there are many misconceptions, myths  and time vampires to derail you off that path towards your One Thing. 

Keller goes into depth with five misconceptions that lie (no pun intended) between yourself and your own definition of success:

Everything is IMPORTANT:

In this day and age we have millions of commitments that try to grab and divide our attention. Some scenarios deal with us handling dozens of notifications from social media, having a 9-5 job, a spouse, friends to hang out with, and even kids to take care of (for the parents out there). With that said while we certainly have our obligations, Keller mentions that “the things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest”. 

Building off the foundation for priority, we shouldn’t run through life like a series of to-do lists but instead by grasping what is truly important to us do what matters most (a.k.a. your One Thing).

Multitasking is a great thing:

Don’t even get me started with people that think multi-tasking is effective. The way multitasking really is, is by doing many things ineffectively and inefficiently at the same time. 

You should just respect your primary work by giving it your undivided attention when you are scheduled to do it. It’s similar to raising a puppy, they require to be raised with undivided nurturing and care or else they will keep acting out.

Having a Disciplined Life:

This one may sound a bit confusing if taken out of context. Discipline is bad for success? Really?? 

When talking about discipline, Keller refers to the fact that it has been overstated that we need a perfect routine by eliminating all distractions, keeping our bodies healthy, our finances in check and crushing our One Thing. While this sounds like the perfect scenario, developing this routine is more effective when these tasks are turned into habits over time.

If you are looking to replicate the “perfect routine”, it all starts by developing those habits one at a time. Let’s say you would like to go to the gym early in the morning, meditate 10 minutes a day or write 500 words on a new blog post each day, focus on one task at a time for a prolonged period of time before moving on to develop that next habit.

Everyone needs a Balanced Life:

As much as I would love a fully balanced life, maintaining that balance 24 hours a day, 365 days a week becomes a challenge we all can relate to. When striving to achieve extraordinary results, one must prioritize and sacrifice certain aspects of their life to accomplish that. The idea of finding balance in your career, personal life, fitness, friendships & family is similar to juggling and keeping up five balls in the air at the same time.

Keller refers to the analogy of having balancing buckets that teeter back and forth. It’s like when you have a budget and you only have a certain amount of credits to spread across each priority. Each day you wake up, it is up to you to fill up each individual bucket (career, family, friends, hobbies, fitness) with the finite amount of credits you have. 

For example, when you want to prioritize a career or business, go all out in terms of getting a promotion & delivering value. It may require some sacrifice of longer hours and less time with friends and family, however, when you want to prioritize spending with your family, be mindful and stay present with them by spending less time on your phone & checking work emails.

Thinking BIG is not realistic:

Out of a page from David Schwartz’s book “The Magic of Thinking Big”, Keller mentions that in order to reach your ultimate ceiling, you have to act and think big to achieve it. Not only would you have to “Think Big”, but you must also execute and apply big actions in order to take those dreams and actualize them. If you look at any individual that ever did something worth doing whether its Elon Musk, Oprah, or Winston Churchill, striving towards big ideas like building an electric car company, a media empire or saving a country, enduring sacrifice was an inevitable part of the process. 

Part 3: If all else is lost, ask yourself this QUESTION

When times get tough or when you are trying to find your purpose, Keller would always revisit the question:

“What’s the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it, everything else would be easier or unnecessary?”

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