Focus on What YOU Can Control: Why You are NOT Getting Results

by | Jul 28, 2017 | Action, Activity, Mindset

Focus on what you can control

This May Be Why You are NOT Getting Results

I suspect it happens to just about everybody.  Certainly it has to me…many times: I’ve failed to generate the results that I desired.

In this post, I share with you a possible reason why you’ve never had the results you desire.  Or maybe you’re no longer getting the results you did in the past. I also share with you the solution.  Here’s a hint: Focus on what YOU can control.

Results-Oriented Discouragement

You hear every day that we are in a “results-oriented” society.  You talk about being results-oriented at your workplace or your business. You’re told you have to be results-oriented in your life. You’re constantly being told that only your results matter.  You are inundated with result, results, results.

Guess what? This is essentially true.

Your results are what tell you if you’re going in the right direction or not. Results are what tell you the size of the impact you are making.

Think about goal setting, whether personal or professional.  Almost by definition goal setting is results-oriented.  When you go through an exercise of goal setting, most times you are thinking about the results you desire.

But many times, if we are NOT getting the results we desire, we can get severely discouraged. When we get discouraged, it exacerbates the problem because our mindset starts to falter.  I know, because I’ve been there. Whether it was a sales goal, a life goal, a content creation goal, or a fitness or health goal, I’ve NOT achieved many of the things I’ve set out to do.

So I’ve studied why that might be, and here’s what I’ve learned…

Focus on What YOU Can Control

The answer is to focus on what you can control in any situation. The results follow when you focus on and commit to performing the right amount of the right activities.

Results Dependent Upon Others

Results are an elusive target because a result can be dependent upon others or a situation. By definition, these types of results fall outside of your sphere of influence.
For example, take a sales goal. To close a sale, you are dependent upon another person making a decision.  By definition, this puts the actual results with a particular prospect outside of your sphere of control. You can certainly increase your conversion rate by developing your sales skills. Getting better at closing and persuasion and other skills will help your conversion. But ultimately, a singular result is dependent upon someone other than yourself. You CANNOT control that particular outcome because the other person MUST make the decision.
 
But what CAN YOU control in this situation if you focus properly?  You can control your level of activity!  You CAN CONTROL the number of people with whom you are speaking! Even though you can’t control the outcome with any particular prospect, you can control your overall results. You control these results by speaking with the proper number of people on a consistent basis.
 

Results Dependent Upon Personal Accountability

Other times you’re not getting results because you are simply not holding yourself accountable. You must be personally accountable to the required level of activity to obtain the results you desire.
For example, take a goal of weight loss. To achieve weight loss you know you must (generally, this is not a detailed medical analysis) exceed the number of calories taken in with the number of calories burned throughout your day/week.  
Guess what?  That is entirely under your control!  You can commit to and then perform the level of activity required to meet the needs of that formula.  If you are not meeting your results, it’s not your spouse’s fault, or the fact that you travel, or that you have some nagging injury, or even your genetics. Its simply that you are not performing the right level of activity to meet your results.

Income Producing Activities

The other component to achieving results is that you must be performing the right activities.  If you ramp up your level of the wrong activity, you still won’t make any progress.  If you are not getting results, but you you have a high level of activity, its most likely because you are NOT engaging in the right activities.  When you set your goals, you must break the goals down into the proper activities that will lead you there.  Then focus on performing those activities every day.
 
What are the right activities that you should be performing? The right activities are what I like to call “income producing activities”, or IPA’s.  I call all the right activities IPA’s, even if the result or activity has nothing to do with business.  For example, I would refer to your daily workout as an IPA. If you are in sales, the most important IPA is prospecting.  If you are writer, the most important IPA is writing.  Don’t fool yourself, or let yourself be distracted by shiny objects, its the IPA’s that matter.

Conclusion

If you find yourself discouraged because of a lack of hitting your goals, shift your focus to what YOU can control. Focus on what YOU can control, and YOU can control your daily level of activity, and that you are engaged in the right activities, i.e., the IPA’s. Here’s the magic…The Slight Edge and The Compound Effect teach us that when we focus on performing the correct daily activities over time, we ultimately achieve our goals.  We get the results for which we are looking.

For the goals you have set, figure out what are the right activities and the level of activity that is required daily to meet those goals, and then start doing them!

Are you looking for more depth on this and other mindset topics?  If so, you might want to check out the course I’ve developed on exactly this topic Focus on What YOU Can Control: Stop Worrying, Take Control, and Start Having Success in Your Business and Your Life!  This may be just the thing you need to help you break through!

4 Comments

  1. Frank Englund
    Frank Englund on April 19, 2017 at 9:14 am

    Great read John! Imagine if we took all of our wasted energy on things we can’t control and redirected that same energy on things we can control. The impact would be huge.

    • John Macdonald
      John Macdonald on April 19, 2017 at 9:33 am

      So True! Its certainly something that I have not gotten right in the past, but am now. When we focus on what we can control, its amazing how progress starts to happen.

      • Scientificfisherman41
        Scientificfisherman41 on July 30, 2017 at 5:42 am

        Hey John, the mind is a wonderful thing. It is how you control you. Glad you recognize the power of the mind and body connection. We “can” relate. My mind and body are enjoying life. I’m fishing again. Life is GREAT!

        • John Macdonald
          John Macdonald on July 30, 2017 at 12:31 pm

          Awesome 😀. It all starts with the mind…that has been the biggest thing I’ve learned, for sure

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