80-20 Rule
80-20 RuleThe 80-20 Rule, is a long-standing mathematical formula demonstrating that a small amount of effort or energy output (20%) is responsible for a large percentage (80%) of the results. It can be both challenging and exciting to fathom this ratio in the context of your day to day activities. Is it truly possible to maximize your efforts this dramatically such that you can be 80% more productive?
Working Smart vs. Working Hard
Successful people understand this principle. They call this working smart vs. working hard. When you acquire the skills of working smart vs. working hard you shift from doing to being. You recognize the necessity of energy and vitality to performing at your best. Consequently you prioritize time to recharge your batteries. When you work hard you prioritize work over everything else from social support to health to relaxation. This leads to feeling stressed out and overwhelmed vs. effective and efficient. On a biological level, you are living in survival mode where you are literally stuck in a small portion of your brain that focuses on protection. This part of your brain limits your capacity to think creatively thereby causing you to become inflexible, cluttered and rigid in your emotional breadth and cutoff from your intuition and receptivity. This is fertile ground for an undisciplined mind.
Quiet Your Mind to Access Deliberate Intent
When you quiet your mind you engage multiple benefits of working smart vs. working hard. A cluttered, undisciplined mind is not very effective at using the creative power of focus and deliberate intent. Bringing new goals into an undisciplined mind is like throwing pebbles into a stormy sea. The ripples will still occur, but they’ll just be absorbed. As you quiet your mind you calm the sea of background thoughts. This creates an ideal environment to attract your goals with deliberate intent tapping effortlessly into the leveraged power of the 80/20 Rule.
Coaching and Counseling
Hilary Stokes Ph.D. and Kim Ward Ph.D. have been a team for 20 years, specializing in mind, body, spirit psychology. They are the authors of the bestselling books The Happy Map: Your roadmap to the habit of happiness and Manifesting Mindset: The 6-step formula for attracting your goals and dreams and founders of Authenticity Associates Coaching and Counseling. They are passionate about combining the best of holistic and traditional approaches to health and happiness. If you are interested in learning the answers to the most frequently asked questions on how to decrease stress and increase happiness sign up for their free video series.
