High standards can paralyze you. Intel boosted sales by lowering quotas, Tim Ferriss writes two crappy pages a day instead of aiming for perfection, and Neil Strauss says writer's block comes from expecting too much. Break yearly goals into 30-day chunks to build momentum.
Chapters
Today we're going to be talking about lowering your standards. Now, this might seem counterproductive. It might seem like something that I would never talk about, but the problem with having extremely high standards or setting your sights way too high is that you become too intimidated and you don't even take any action at all. And so think about it. Would you rather have really high standards and do nothing, or would you rather have lower standards that don't intimidate you, but you can actually get going because you don't become demotivated from looking at those standards? Intel, when it was one of the biggest companies in the world and it was really cranking as a company, and their salespeople were some of the best salespeople in the world, they did a study to find out why their salespeople were so good. They actually had the lowest quotas in the entire industry. The reason why was because they felt that if they gave them lower quotas, they wouldn't be as intimidated and they wouldn't be as scared. And so therefore it'd be easier for them to create action. And so you have to think about this. Another example of this is Tim Ferriss, who's a writer. He talks about his goal every single day is just to write two crappy pages. Not great, amazing pages. Two crappy pages. He gives himself a very low standard, and what he finds is if he just writes two crappy pages and that's his standard, it doesn't have to be something amazing, then some really amazing writing comes from that. It's not something that holds him back. He doesn't get into his own head and try to be a perfectionist and then not start his writing each day because of the fact that he's too intimidated. Another example of this is Neil Strauss, who is another famous writer that says writer's block does actually not exist. What it is is it's performance standards that are blocking you from being creative. And so what I want you to think about, if you think about your goals for the year, you think about your goals for the year might be huge, but that might actually intimidate you to think that far ahead and to think that big. So instead, can you take your goal for the year and mark it into smaller little chunks? What about the next 30 days? That's not as intimidating when you think 30 days ahead. So take your goals, take whatever it is that you're working towards, and take it into smaller, less intimidating chunks so that therefore you don't become demotivated from doing it, and it actually allows you to create action versus holding yourself back by looking at these massive goals.
