If you’re like most goal-oriented people , you probably organize your life with endless to-do lists that you make every night before you sleep and pursue every morning when you wake up.
You probably prioritize your to-do items, organize them in different categories, and take pleasure in checking them off once they’re done. But what is most probably true is that you continuously feel frustrated from all those items that remain undone, and from all those to-do things that keep on adding up on your lists as you go!
It seems that life is a race between you and your to-do list, a race that you can never really win! No doubt you feel stressed, overwhelmed and frustrated.
But that’s not your fault! It’s the fault of the primitive to-do system that we use to organize our lives!
So here we go.. let’s break free from it all!
Tony Robbins in his program Time of Your Life explains very powerfully why to-do lists are not efficient and why they cannot yield to a high quality of life.
It all comes back to this: what’s the question that you ask yourself in order to develop your to-do list? Obviously the guiding question is: What do I have to do? Or what do I need to do? Or what should I do?
According to Tony Robbins, this is a very disempowering question to guide our life with, because when we ask this question, our brain will certainly come up with all the shoulds and the musts and the tasks that need to be done! Our focus becomes centered on the tasks ahead, and we loose touch with our purpose and with the outcome that we desire, and worse of all, we rarely feel good about it especially when we need to do tasks that are not exciting nor pleasant.
The law of attraction teaches us that we should focus on the OUTCOME. We should see and feel the outcome in order to manifest it. That’s why focusing on the simple to-do items make us miss the whole point!
The law of attraction also teaches us that we should feel good about what we do! But how can we seriously feel good about en endless list of items that seem to be burdens and obligations on us? How can we not feel frustrated if our to-do list never seems to finish, and we feel that we’re not progressing at all?
In his Time of Your Life program, Anthony Robbins proposes a whole new alternative for managing our time, that he calls OPA = Outcome Purpose Action. In this system, we replace the question: “what do I need to do?” with 3 new empowering ones:
1- What is the most important outcome that I desire now?
When we answer this question and list the outcomes that we want, we get in touch with our desires, we see the end result of what we want to achieve, and we shift our focus to the result we need to manifest.
2- Why is this outcome so important to me now?
Here we list all the reasons we have to achieve the outcome, all the benefits we would get by achieving it, all the pains we would go through if we don’t. This question is designed to get us in touch with our purpose, and to quote Tony, to give us the fuel, the motivation, and the juice to pursue our outcome.
3- What actions can I take now to achieve my outcome?
Now we list all the actions we might take that would make us achieve what we want. Note that several different actions might lead to the same outcome we desire. So here we’ll be able to choose the action we’re most comfortable with, and without loosing sight of the outcome we desire.
So from now on, every morning or every night before you sleep, ask yourself the 3 questions above and write down your answers on a piece of paper. Not only you’ll keep your attention on the outcome that is most important for you, but you’ll also feel more motivated to take action, more free to choose your way, and more aligned with your purpose.
So drop that to-do list and forget about it, and clear your mind from all the stress feelings and overwhelms. Life is much more exciting and joyful than to manage it by a linear to do-list. So just undo it!
Jihad Saad - Expand Your Awareness, Transform Your Life 