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Getting focused isn’t difficult, staying focused is. You can do anything you put your mind to for an hour, a day, maybe even a week or an entire quarter of the year. But are you able to maintain that focus for the long haul?

Don’t rely on motivation to get you to your goals. Motivation comes and goes. Instead, develop good habits. Become someone who is capable of doing what they don’t want to do for a short period of time in order to get what they want in the future. Be ok with delayed gratification. Stay focused and you will eventually get what you want.

Find a way to outsource (automate, eliminate , or delegate) tasks you hate as quickly as possible. If you don’t like doing something, it will drain you. If you’re repeatedly doing something you hate, it can affect your relationships, your mental health, and your physical health.

When you feel like you’re low on energy, sometimes changing whatever you’re doing will re-energize you more than resting will.

Try to use a different part of your body to re-energize. If you were stuck in a deep thinking activity, go do something physical (even if it’s just going for a walk). If you’ve been laboring all day, sit down and read something that is thought-provoking.

If I do this, oftentimes I feel better than if I took a nap or watched t.v. After switching activities, I feel like I can tackle whatever problem I initially needed a break from. On the contrary, when I sit down or go on social media to procrastinate from doing something, I find myself even more drained when I go back to the task at hand. Instead of re-energizing me like I thought it would, it demotivates me.

If everything is a priority, then nothing is. What is the MOST important task for you to complete today that will bring you closer to your one year, three year, and ten year goals?

When of the greatest separators of being human versus being any other animal on planet earth is our ability to plan for the long term future and prioritize our to tasks to help us achieve those plans. Do you think a lion is thinking about when he wants to retire or even what he’s going to do next Thursday? But the sad reality is that many of us do not take advantage of our ability to plan. We live day-to-day, doing just enough to survive, but not enough to thrive or make real progress towards a better future.

How can we start to live with a purpose or plan in mind? At the start of every week, look at the week ahead and rank what your priorities are from most important/most urgent to least important/least urgent. Think about your future goals and look to see if your planned actions for the week will help get you there. What action steps absolutely need to be taken to keep you on track to achieving your goals and what tasks/steps do not need to be taken this week (or ever)? Are there redundant tasks that you find you’re constantly performing and can you find a way to automate those to free up your time? Are there frequently asked questions (FAQs) that you find yourself responding to regularly? If so, do you have a website or an email template that can answer those questions before people get the chance to ask them? The key is to minimize tasks that don’t move the needle in making progress towards your future goals and instead focusing only on the most important and highest priority actions. Once you are able to do that, you will be able to make significant progress towards your goals and finally be able to thrive.

Learn how to say, “I don’t know” and you will grow much more quickly as a person.

First of all, if you can say you don’t know something, you’re being honest with yourself. You won’t spend hours (or longer) toiling, trying to figure something out when you could have asked somebody and gotten an answer immediately. There’s an idea amongst many great entrepreneurs that “failing faster” will lead to quicker success. That is because you are gaining more experience and learning what not to do by attempting (and sometimes failing) more frequently. For example, if it really did take Thomas Edison 1,000 tries to invent a successful lightbulb, would he have been better off attempting those 1,000 tries over one year or ten years? Speed up your learning curve by failing quickly and being able to say to others “I don’t know.”

Secondly, when you say “I don’t know,” you’re showing a vulnerability that makes you more approachable and likable to others. Most people like helping others because it allows them to show their value. It makes them feel good about themselves by providing their expertise on something.

Third, by saying “I don’t know,” it will increase your credibility. If you act like a know-it-all and give a response without actually knowing the answer, everything you say will be more likely to be questioned. Whereas if you say “I don’t know” frequently, when you do give a response, others can feel confident that you didn’t make up an answer due to being fearful of looking dumb. Your ego is the enemy. Don’t let it stand in your way.