Have you heard about the ‘area of brilliance’? Well, this stood out to me as I advanced through the pages of ThePower of Focus. Simply put, this is that area where you excel with minimal effort, study or preparation. It’s an area of ease for you notwithstanding the difficulty others experience. Now here’s the mind blower – These activities actually give you energy! Yes. Energy.
Can you imagine that? An activity that energizes you instead of draining you? A task that you would do and go home happy even if you weren’t paid for your service? An endeavour you would gladly give up your favourite TV program or some hours of sleep for? If you can identify one or two of such, those are your areas of brilliance.
One of my areas of brilliance is singing. I remember back in school, choir rehearsals were therapeutic sessions for me. No matter how stressful the semester was, as long as I could make it to the next rehearsal, I knew I would get charged up to face the next few days. That activity truly gave me energy.
Well, we’re advised by Jack Canfieldet al to focus on our areas of brilliance because all our biggest rewards in life will come from spending the vast majority of our time in these areas. Even on the job, you’ll find yourself more productive and valuable if you focus on the things you do best and let others do what they do best… assuming you have that much luxury of choice.
My take on this whole issue is, if you’re fortunate enough to be doing what you love to do as your career, be grateful. If your career however is outside your area of brilliance, you have two choices. Firstly, you could strategically work your way towards a total career change. Secondly, you could find a way to incorporate your energy giving activities into your life off the job while developing your capacity and skill in the areas you have to operate in at work. The success you realize with your enhanced capacity could become your motivation – your energy – and usher you into a whole new realm of fulfilment.
Bottom line, it’s never too late to begin your pursuit of happiness and fulfilment. Give your life some thought today and often, and with the help of the Architect of our Destinies, make a decision on how to proceed and then GO!
My kids love to go swimming. It took a while but we eventually worked this activity into our weekly family routine and now the process is seamless. It’s been said that the average time required to change a habit is about twenty one days.
It’s interesting to see how easy it is to determine the positive habits you need to develop. The hard part usually is finding out what your negative habits are and this is because we are often in denial or we just don’t realize that something we do so easily and frequently is breaking us instead of making us. So it’s necessary to ask your friends, colleagues, bosses, mentors, and other role models who know you well enough for feedback on the habits you need to change.
To complete your list, look out for the trending habits in the feedback you receive. Once your list is ready, all you have to do to determine the successful habits you need to develop is flip it. So if the negative habit is lack of exercise with the consequence of associated health challenges now or in the future, the positive habit would be regular exercise with the benefits and reward of preventing those health challenges, looking better and feeling better.
But the most important thing here is ACTION! No action, no change… No change, no gain. Decide on three actions that will support each positive habit and get to work right away. Strike the days off on your calendar as you progress or find some other positive way to keep yourself motivated. It’s also important to pace yourself. Develop a new successful habit a month or a quarter… settle into it, appreciate the benefits and then take on the next one.
And if you decide to work on reading more, as a new positive habit, consider making The Power of Focus by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt the first book you read.
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