by Gary Keller
The Small-Focus Question: “What’s my ONE Thing right now?” Use this when you first wake up and throughout the day. It keeps you focused on your most important work and, whenever you need it, helps you find the “levered action” or first domino in any activity. The small-focus question prepares you for the most productive workweek possible. It’s effective in your personal life too, keeping you attentive to your most important immediate needs, as well as those of the most important people in your life.
Extraordinary results come from asking the Focusing Question. It’s how you’ll plot your course through life and business, and how you’ll make the best progress on your most important work.
Whether you seek answers big or small, asking the Focusing Question is the ultimate success habit for your life.
11 THE SUCCESS HABIT
“Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.”
—Arnold H. Glasow
You know about habits. They can be hard to break—and hard to create. But we are unknowingly acquiring new ones all the time. When we start and continue a way of thinking or a way of acting over a long enough period, we’ve created a new habit. The choice we face is whether or not we want to form habits that get us what we want from life. If we do, then the Focusing Question is the most powerful success habit we can have.
For me, the Focusing Question is a way of life. I use it to find my most leveraged priority, make the most out of my time, and get the biggest bang for my buck. Whenever the outcome absolutely matters, I ask it. I ask it when I wake up and start my day. I ask it when I get to work, and again when I get home. What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary? And when I know the answer, I continue to ask it until I can see the connections and all my dominoes are lined up.
Obviously, you can drive yourself nuts analyzing every little aspect of everything you might do. I don’t do that, and you shouldn’t either. Start with the big stuff and see where it takes you. Over time, you’ll develop your own sense of when to use the big-picture question and when to use the small-focus question.
The Focusing Question is the foundational habit I use to achieve extraordinary results and lead a big life. I use it for some things and not at all for others. I apply it to the important areas of my life: my spiritual life, physical health, personal life, key relationships, job, business, and financial life. And I address them in that order—each one is a foundation for the next.
Because I want my life to matter, I approach each area by doing what matters most in it. I view these as the cornerstones of my life and have found that when I’m doing what’s most important in each area, my life feels like it’s running on all cylinders.
The Focusing Question can direct you to your ONE Thing in the different areas of your life. Simply reframe the Focusing Question by inserting your area of focus. You can also include a time frame—such as “right now” or “this year”—to give your answer the appropriate level of immediacy, or “in five years” or “someday” to find a big-picture answer that points you at outcomes to aim for.
FIG. 16 My life and the areas that matter most in it.
Here are some Focusing Questions to ask yourself. Say the category first, then state the question, add a time frame, and end by adding “such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” For example: “For my job, what’s the ONE Thing I can do to ensure I hit my goals this week such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
FOR MY SPIRITUAL LIFE...
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to help others... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my relationship with God... ?
FOR MY PHYSICAL HEALTH...
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to achieve my diet goals... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to ensure that I exercise... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to relieve my stress... ?
FOR MY PERSONAL LIFE...
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my skill at ________... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to find time for myself... ?
FOR MY KEY RELATIONSHIPS...
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my relationship with my spouse/partner... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my children’s school performance... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to show my appreciation to my parents... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make my family stronger... ?
FOR MY JOB...
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to ensure that I hit my goals... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my skills... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to help my team succeed... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to further my career... ?
FOR MY BUSINESS...
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make us more competitive... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make our product the best... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to make us more profitable... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve our customer experience... ?
FOR MY FINANCES...
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to increase my net worth... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to improve my investment cash flow... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to eliminate my credit card debt... ?
BIG IDEAS
So how do you make The ONE Thing part of your daily routine? How do you make it strong enough to get extraordinary results at work and in the other areas of your life? Here’s a starter list drawn from our experience and our work with others.
Understand and believe it. The first step is to understand the concept of the ONE Thing, then to believe that it can make a difference in your life. If you don’t understand and believe, you won’t take action.
Use it. Ask yourself the Focusing Question. Start each day by asking, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do today for [whatever you want] such that by doing it everything else will be easier or even unnecessary?” When you do this, your direction will become clear. Your work will be more productive and your personal life more rewarding.
Make it a habit. When you make asking the Focusing Question a habit, you fully engage its power to get the extraordinary results you want. It’s a difference maker. Research says this will take about 66 days. Whether it takes you a few weeks or a few months, stick with it until it becomes your routine. If you’re not serious about learning the Success Habit, you’re not serious about getting extraordinary results.
Leverage reminders. Set up ways to remind yourself to use the Focusing Question. One of the best ways to do this is to put up a sign at work that says, “Until my ONE Thing is done—everything else is a distraction.” We designed the back cover of this book to be a trigger —set it on the corner of your desk so that it’s the first thing you see when you get to work. Use notes, screen savers, and calendar cues to keep making the connection between the Success Habit and the results you seek. Put up reminders like, “The ONE Thing = Extraordinary Results” or “The Success Habit Will Get Me to My Goal.”
Recruit support. Research shows that those around you can influence you tremendously. Starting a success support group with some of your work colleagues can help inspire all of you to practice the Success Habit every day. Get your family involved. Share your ONE Thing. Get them on board. Use the Focusing Question around them to show them how the Success Habit can make a difference in their school work, their personal achievements, or any other part of their lives.
This one habit can become the foundation for many more, so keep your Success Habit working as powerfully as possible. Use the strategies outlined in Part 3: Extraordinary Results, for goal setting and time blocking to experience extraordinary results every day of your life.
12 THE PATH TO GREAT ANSWERS
—F. M. Alexander
The Focusing Question helps you identify your ONE Thing in any situation. It will clarify what you want in the big areas of your life and then drill down to what you must do to get them. It’s really a simple process: You ask a great question, then you seek out a great answer. As simple as two steps, it’s the ultimate Success Habit.
FIG. 17 Your one-two punch for extraordinary results.
1. ASK A GREAT QUESTION
The Focusing Question helps you ask a great question. Great questions, like great goals, are big and specific. They push you, stretch you, and aim you at big, specific answers. And because they’re framed to be measurable, there’s no wiggle room about what the results will look like.
FIG. 18 Four options for framing a Great Question.
Look at the “Great Question” matrix (figure 18) to see the power of the Focusing Question.
Let’s take increasing sales as a way to break down each of the quadrants, using “What can I do to double sales in six months?” as a placeholder for Big & Specific (figure 19).
Now, let’s examine the pros and cons of each question quadrant, ending with where you want to be—Big & Specific.
FIG. 19 Four options for framing a Great Question illustrated.
Quadrant 4. Small & Specific: “What can I do to increase sales by 5 percent this year?” This aims you in a specific direction, but there’s nothing truly challenging about this question. For most salespeople, a 5 percent bump in sales could just as easily happen because the market shifted in your favor rather than anything you might have done. At best it’s an incremental gain, not a life-changing leap forward. Low goals don’t require extraordinary actions so they rarely lead to extraordinary results.
Quadrant 3. Small & Broad: “What can I do to increase sales?” This is not really an achievement question at all. It’s more of a brainstorming question. It’s great for listing your options but requires more to narrow your options and go small. How much will sales increase? By what date? Unfortunately, this is the kind of average question most people ask and then wonder why their answers don’t deliver extraordinary results.
Quadrant 2. Big & Broad: “What can I do to double sales?” Here you have a big question, but nothing specific. It’s a good start, but the lack of specifics leaves more questions than answers. Doubling sales in the next 20 years is very different from attempting the same goal in a year or less. There are still too many options and without specifics you won’t know where to start.
Quadrant 1. Big & Specific: “What can I do to double sales in six months?” Now you have all the elements of a Great Question. It’s a big goal and it’s specific. You’re doubling sales, and that’s not easy. You also have a time frame of six months, which will be a challenge. You’ll need a big answer. You’ll have to stretch what you believe is possible and look outside the standard toolbox of solutions.
See the difference? When you ask a Great Question, you’re in essence pursuing a great goal. And whenever you do this, you’ll see the same pattern—Big & Specific. A big, specific question leads to a big, specific answer, which is absolutely necessary for achieving a big goal.
So if “What can I do to double sales in six months?” is a Great Question, how do you make it more powerful? Convert it to the Focusing Question: “What’s the ONE Thing I can do to double sales in six months such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” Turning it into the Focusing Question goes to the heart of success by forcing you to identify what absolutely matters most and start there. Why?
Because that’s where big success starts too.
2. FIND A GREAT ANSWER
The challenge of asking a Great Question is that, once you’ve asked it, you’re now faced with finding a Great Answer.
Answers come in three categories: doable, stretch, and possibility. The easiest answer you can seek is the one that’s already within reach of your knowledge, skills, and experience. With this type of solution you probably already know how to do it and won’t have to change much to get it. Think of this as “doable” and the most likely to be achieved.
The next level up is a “stretch” answer. While this is still within your reach, it can be at the farthest end of your range. You’ll most likely have to do some research and study what others have done to come up with this answer. Doing it can be iffy since you might have to extend yourself to the very limits of your current abilities. Think of this as potentially achievable and probable, depending on your effort.
High achievers understand these first two routes but reject them. Unwilling to settle for ordinary when extraordinary is possible, they’ve asked a Great Question and want the very best answer.
FIG. 20 The Success Habit unlocks possibilities.
Extraordinary results require a Great Answer.
Highly successful people choose to live at the outer limits of achievement. They not only dream of but deeply crave what is beyond their natural grasp. They know this type of answer is the hardest to come by but also know that just by extending themselves to find it, they expand and enrich their life for the better.
If you want the most from your answer, you must realize that it lives outside your comfort zone. This is rare air. A big answer is never in plain view, nor is the path to finding one laid out for you. A possibility answer exists beyond what is already known and being done. As with a stretch goal, you can start out by doing research and studying the lives of other high achievers. But you can’t stop there. In fact, your search has just begun. Whatever you learn, you’ll use it to do what only the greatest achievers do: benchmark and trend.
A Great Answer is essentially a new answer. It is a leap across all current answers in search of the next one and is found in two steps. The first is the same as when you stretch. You uncover the best research and study the highest achievers. Anytime you don’t know the answer, your answer is to go find your answer. In other words, by default, your first ONE Thing is to search for clues and role models to point you in the right direction. The first thing to do is ask, “Has anyone else studied or accomplished this or something like it?” The answer is almost always yes, so your investigation begins by finding out what others have learned.
One of the reasons I’ve amassed a large library of books over the years is because books are a great go-to resource. Short of having a conversation with someone who has accomplished what you hope to achieve, in my experience books and published works offer the most in terms of documented research and role models for success. The Internet has quickly become an invaluable tool as well. Whether offline or online, you’re trying to find people who have already gone down the road you’re traveling, so you can research, model, benchmark, and trend their experience. A college professor once told me, “Gary, you’re smart, but people have lived before you. You’re not the first person to dream big, so you’d be wise to study what others have learned first, and then build your actions on the back of their lessons.” He was so right. And he was talking to you too.
The research and experience of others is the best place to start when looking for your answer. Armed with this knowledge, you can establish a benchmark, the current high-water mark for all that is known and being done. With a stretch approach this was your maximum, but now it is your minimum. It’s not all you’ll do, but it becomes the hilltop where you’ll stand to see if you can spot what might come next. This is called trending, and it’s the second step. You’re looking for the next thing you can do in the same direction that the best performers are heading or, if necessary, in an entirely new direction.
FIG. 21 The benchmark is today’s success—the trend is tomorrow’s.
This is how big problems are solved and big challenges are overcome, for the best answers rarely come from an ordinary process. Whether it’s figuring out how to leapfrog the competition, finding a cure for a disease, or coming up with an
action step for a personal goal, benchmarking and trending is your best option. Because your answer will be original, you’ll probably have to reinvent yourself in some way to implement it. A new answer usually requires new behavior, so don’t be surprised if along the way to sizable success you change in the process. But don’t let that stop you.
This is where the magic happens and possibilities are unlimited. As challenging as it can be, trailblazing up the path of possibilities is always worth it—for when we maximize our reach, we maximize our life.
BIG IDEAS
Think big and specific. Setting a goal you intend to achieve is like asking a question. It’s a simple step from “I’d like to do that” to “How do I achieve that?” The best question—and by default, the best goal—is big and specific: big, because you’re after extraordinary results; specific, to give you something to aim at and to leave no wiggle room about whether you hit the mark. A big and specific question, especially in the form of the Focusing Question, helps you zero in on the best possible answer.
Think possibilities. Setting a doable goal is almost like creating a task to check off your list. A stretch goal is more challenging. It aims you at the edge of your current abilities; you have to stretch to reach it. The best goal explores what’s possible. When you see people and businesses that have undergone transformations, this is where they live.