Author: Promise

Hall, C. S., & Nordby, V. J. (1973). A primer of Jungian psychology. Penguin.

Chapter 1 – Carl Gustav Jung (1875 – 1961)

• Jung uses his autobiography ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’ (MDR) to analyze and describe his life through the subjective world of dreams, visions and spiritual experiences
• Schopenhauer influenced Jung with his philosophy of suffering, confusion, passion and evil
• Jung developed the word-association tests, where patients were asked to give a verbal response to a word prompt. If they hesitated or expressed an emotion before answer, it indicated the presence of a complex
• Jung went to Tunis, the Sahara Desert, and New Mexico to also study the behaviors of the native people – especially the level of the mind called the ‘collective unconscious’ (reminiscent of Paul’s visit to Arabia after his conversion?)
• Jung spent more time learning new things, rather than systematizing his concepts

Chapter 2 – The Structure of the Personality

• Understanding personality entails 3 levels of enquiry:
  • Structural: What are the components of the personality?
  • Dynamic: How are the components of personality activated?
  • Developmental: How does personality develop and change over time?

The Psyche

• This embodies feelings, thoughts, behavior and adaptation to the physical and social environment
• The psyche of an individual is a whole, not an assemblage of parts built from experience
• Man does not strive for wholeness. He already has it and must develop to his psyche to attain and maintain this wholeness.
• When the psyche lacks wholeness, it leads to a deformed personality. Hence, the goal of psychoanalysis is psychosynthesis
• Three levels of the psyche are
  • Conscious
  • Personal unconscious
  • Collective unconscious

Consciousness

• This is the part of the psyche know directly by the individual
• Conscious awareness has 4 mental functions
  • Thinking
  • Feeling
  • Sensing
  • Intuiting
• The most dominant mental function determines how character vary from person to person
• Two attitudes determine the orientation of the conscious mind
  • Extraversion which orients towards the objective world
  • Introversion which orients towards the subjective world
• A person’s consciousness becomes separated from other people through individuation. This is vital for psychological development
• The goal of individuation is complete self-consciousness
• Ego
• Ego refers to the organization of the conscious mind. It is comprised of conscious perceptions, memories, thoughts and feelings (collectively called psychic material)
• Unless the ego acknowledges a psychic material, the individual is not aware of it
• By selecting and eliminating psychic materials, ego provides a sense of identity and continuity that can be called the individual personality
• Selection or elimination of psychic material depends on:
  • The dominant mental function (thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting)
  • Degree of anxiety that the psychic material elicits. If high, it is eliminated
  • The level of individuation (separation from the other; self-consciousness) that the individual has already attained
  • Intensity of an experience. Strong experiences can force their way into acceptance by the ego

The personal unconscious

• Experiences and psychic material not selected by the ego are stored in the personal unconscious
• The personal unconscious contains psychic materials not selected by the ego, as well as psychic activities that were once conscious but have been either repressed because of the pain they cause, or ignored by the conscious because of their irrelevance
• Material in the personal unconscious can be recalled as the need arises, as well as during dreams
• Complexes
  • Groups of psychic material in the personal unconscious may clump together to form a complex
  • Jung elicited complexes through the word-association tests
  • He found that psychic material in the personal unconscious act like separate autonomous personalities within an individual’s personality. They can also control an individual by driving behavior towards another direction that might be separate from the ego
  • An aim of psychoanalysis is to dissolve complexes so that the person may be individuated fully
  • Complexes are not always bad. They can be drawn upon for drive and motivation as the need arises
  • Strong complexes can motivate an individual towards high quality behaviors, while a weak complex has the opposite effect

The collective unconscious

• The content of the individual’s mind is linked not only to his personal history, but to also his evolutionary history
• The collective unconscious possesses psychic material not acquired through personal history
• The psychic material of the collective unconscious is comprised of primordial images inherited from man’s ancestral history
• These psychic materials predispose the individual to act and respond to the world in a manner similar to how his ancestors might have done
• The more experiences a person has, the more chances he has to dislodge contents in the collective unconscious which can play a role in facilitating individuation. One way to get these experiences is through an environment with opportunities for learning.
• Archetypes
  • These are the contents of the collective unconscious
  • The contents of an archetype are only known when they are brought to the conscious
  • Although separate in the collective unconscious, the archetypes can form combinations
  • Archetypes are universal. Everyone inherits the same types of archetypes
  • Archetypes can only be brought into conscious behavior only after combining with complexes containing the relevant psychic materials and experiences
  • 4 Archetypes relevant to everyone’s personality include:
    • The persona
      • This helps the individual portray a character that is not necessarily his own
      • This is a person’s public appearance that enables social acceptance
      • It is also called the conformity archetype
      • People often lead dual lives – one dominated by the persona, and the other dominated by activities that satisfy the psychic needs
      • When a person becomes too involved with the persona, the ego begins to identify solely with it at the expense of other aspects of the personality. This results in inflation, whereby the persona is overdeveloped and other aspects of the personality is underdeveloped
      • Parents often try to project their personas onto their children. Society and groups do the same through customs and laws
      • A person with inflation might also feel inferiority when he’s unable to meet up with the standards of the persona
    • The Anima & the Animus
      • This is the feminine side of the masculine, and the masculine side of the feminine
      • A man who only exhibits masculine traits will have feminine traits that remain underdeveloped. Consequently, the unconscious become weakened.
      • This is typified in the externally macho man who is weak and submissive on the inside
      • A man’s first projection of the anima is his mother; a woman’s first projection of the animus is her father
      • In Western culture, the anima and animus are often deflated because society frowns upon expressions of femininity in men and masculinity in women. A consequence of this is overcompensation whereby the man becomes more feminine than masculine – even to the extent of gender reassignment surgery
    • The shadow
      • This deals with man’s most basic animal instincts
      • To be a part of a community, it is necessary for a man to tame his shadow by suppressing its contents. The effect of this is a civilized man with no Nietzschean ‘Will to Power’
      • Even when tamed, the shadow may express itself in the consciousness when a person is faced with the appropriate environmental situation, such as a crisis or difficult life event. When the ego is stunned into inaction, the shadow can step into the situation and deal with it adequately if it has been allowed to be individuated. If not, the shadow has no response and the individual is overwhelmed and helpless in the situation
    • The self
      • The self is the organizing principle of the personality
      • It harmonizes the archetypes, their manifestations in the complexes and the consciousness
      • When the self archetype is developed, the person feels in harmony. If not, the person feels out-of-sorts
      • The self archetype is not evident until self-consciousness and full individuation has occurred
      • Knowledge of the self archetype is possible through dream analyses, as well as ritualistic practices of certain religions
      • By making contents of his unconscious conscious, man is able to live in harmony with his nature
      • A person unaware of his unconscious self projects the repressed elements of his unconscious unto others
      • The self archetype is inward facing in contrast to the ego which is outward facing

Interactions among the structures of the personality

• If extraversion is the dominant attitude of the conscious mind, the unconscious mind compensates by developing the repressed introversion. The unconscious always compensates for weaknesses in the personality
• There is always conflict between the parts of the personality. When conflict leads to shattering of the personality, neuroses develop. If the conflicts are tolerated, they provide the energy, drive and motivation for achievement

Chapter 3 – Dynamics of Personality

The Psyche: A relatively closed system

• What happens with the energy added to the psyche from external sources is determined by the kind of energy already within the psyche
• Energy from external sources is derived from the senses
• The slightest addition of energy to an unstable psyche can lead to large effects on behavior, e.g., an innocent comment leading to a transfer of aggression
• At certain points in time, new experiences may overcrowd the psyche leading to a disruption in balance. At points like this, meditation and withdrawal might be needed to help the individual rebalance. Conversely, a person’s life might be too boring such that novelty and new experiences will reactive the psyche into a state of vigor
• A completely open psyche is chaotic; a completely closed psyche is stagnant; a healthy psyche is somewhere in the middle

Psychic energy

• Psychic energy (also called libido) is the energy by which the work of the personality is done. It is manifested through appetite, striving, desiring and willing.
• Psychic energy expresses itself as either actual or potential drive to perform psychological work
• Experiences are consumed by the psyche and converted into psychic energy
• The psyche is always active – even in sleep
• Psychic energy can be converted to physical energy and vice versa, but they are not the same.

Psychic values

• A value is the psychic energy committed to a psychic element. When high, the psychic element exerts a high force on one’s behavior
• Although the absolute value of an element cannot be determined, its value relative others can be determined by simply observe how much time, energy and choice is devoted to various activities
• A conscious value that disappears without expression in overt behavior is kept in the unconscious
• Power of complexes to attract values discarded from the conscious can be accessed indirectly through the following methods:
  • Direct observation and deduction from circumstantial evidence and dreams
  • Complex indicators such as exaggerated emotional reactions
  • Emotional reactions
  • Intuition whereby people perceive the slightest emotional disturbance in others

The Principle of Equivalence

• Psychodynamics deals with the transfer and distribution of psychic energy throughout the psychic structures
• The principle of equivalence states that energy is never lost in the psyche, but transferred from one position to the other
• When sums of psychic energy seem to have disappeared, it implies that they have been transferred from the conscious to the unconscious
• When a personality system has finite amount of energy at one point in time, there is competition between the psychic structures for this energy
• During the transfer of energy from one structure to the other, some of characteristics of the previous structure are also transferred to the next. For instance, psychic energy drawn from the ego to the persona leaves the individual striving less to be himself and more to meet expectations of others

The Principle of Entropy

• This states that if two values are of unequal strength, psychic energy will pass from the stronger value to the weaker one until balance is reached. This balance, though, is never reached in practice, otherwise, energy flow will stop indefinitely
• Intrapsychic conflict shares a lot in common with interpersonal conflict because, most times, the latter is a projection of the conflicts going on within our personality
• When people close their minds to new experiences, they are able to approach a state of balance
• New experiences are often not as upsetting for older people as they are for younger people. This is because new experiences hold less psychic energy for older people in comparison to younger people
• When  a psychic structure becomes highly developed within the personality, it outcompetes other structures in getting access to psychic energy within and entering the psyche. A strong complex will attract more experiences to it

Progression and regression

• Progression refers to the daily experiences of the individual that advances his psychological adaptation
• For proper psychological development, progression must not be one-sided, but must flow towards a psychic function and its opposite
• Regression refers to the loss of psychic energy on account of collision and interactions between the psychic structures
• Progression adds energy, while regression subtracts energy
• Man can adapt to the world only when he’s in harmony with himself; man can only be in harmony with himself when he’s adapted to the world. In Western civilization, emphasis is placed on adaptation to the world at the expense of inner harmony
• Periods of withdrawal from the world during retreats and sleep are essential for renewing one’s energies from the reservoirs of the unconscious. Modern man does not do enough of this
• Progression shouldn’t be confused with development. The former deals with energy flow into the psyche, while the latter deals with individuation/ self-consciousness

Canalization of Energy

• Psychical energy can be channeled, converted and transformed
• The instincts (shadow? id? reptilian brain? motivating operations? appetites?) is the source of natural energy. It needs to be diverted to other channels for work to be done
• Natural man, unlike civilized man, is guided solely by his instincts. Hence, he has no culture, symbolic forms, social organizations and so on.
• Work, according to Jung, is the conversion of instinctual energy to cultural and symbolic channels. Imitation and analogy-making is the process by which instinctual energy is diverted to cultural and symbolic channels
• Rituals and ceremonies are a means through which a person can be psychologically prepared for a task at hand
• Civilized/Modern man depends more on his will than on ceremonies and rituals. However, these “acts of will” form analogies/conversions of the original instincts
• Libido (instinctual energy) can be converted via an ‘act of will’ only when there is a strong symbol to divert the energy to it
• Excess libidinal energy helped man transform from being solely instinctual to subduing nature through science, technology and art

Chapter 4 – The development of personality

Problems of the first half of life are those of instinctual adaptations (channeling of libido); problems of second half of life are those of adaptation to being

Individuation

• The individual begins life in a state of undifferentiated wholeness. Development goes in the direction of self-consciousness
• Development occurs not only when the person is differentiated from the other, but also when the intrapsychic systems are differentiated from each other. For instance, the underdeveloped ego can only express itself in a limited amount of overt behaviors. The developed ego has more responses in its repertoire
• The better the symbols a man seeks, the closer he is towards attaining individuation
• Although individuation is an autonomous process, the personality needs proper experiences and education for healthy individuation to occur. All aspects of the personality must be given the appropriate experience for a well-rounded development
• Individuation can only occur when the person is conscious. The goal of education is to make the unconscious conscious

Transcendence and Integration

• The transcendence function unites all opposing ends in the personality towards attaining the goal of wholeness. The unity of self occurs during transcendence
• Transcendence is a synthesis of opposing ends in the personality such the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
• Factors responsible for hindering personality development include:
  • The role of the parents
    • In the first years of life, the child’s psyche is a reflection of that of the parents. Psychic disturbances in the parents are likely to be reflected in the child
    • At school, the child’s identification with the parents weaken. Some parents respond by being overprotective and preventing the child from experiencing a wide range of experiences. Others also try to overcompensate their weaknesses by encouraging the child to overdevelop areas in his personality that are really the parents’ weakness
    • A boy child’s relationship with the mother determines how the anima is developed; relationship with the father determines how the shadow is developed. The reverse holds true for girls
  • Education
    • Skilled teachers make the unconscious conscious and also provides a wealth of experiences that attracts energy away from the instincts
  • Other influences from the larger society such as culture and religion

Regression

• Progression implies that the conscious ego is harmonizing the environment with the needs of the psyche
• Regression refers to the flow of psychic energy from the environment to the unconscious
• Regression into the unconscious, during retreats, meditations and sleep, can provide information on impediments to development, as well as how to overcome them. People in modern times do not pay attention to these – particularly dreams. Instead, they resort to drinking, sensuality, etc., which is not as informative

Stages of Life

• Childhood
  • Birth to sexual maturity
  • No problems because of the absence of a conscious ego
  • Psychic life is governed by the instincts until the ego starts to form
• Youth and young adulthood
  • Puberty
  • Psyche is burdened by problems and adaptations to social life
  • Problems of youth arise from clinging to a childhood level of consciousness
  • Goal of this stage is external values to make one’s place in the world
• Middle age
  • 35 – 40
  • Person is adapted to external values
  • Goal of this stage is to form a new set of values. These values are spiritual
• Old age
  • Similar to childhood; absence of a conscious ego to an extent. Sinking into the unconscious

Chapter 5 – Psychological Types

The Attitudes

• In extraversion, libido is channeled towards the objective, external world; in introversion, libido flows towards the intrapsychic structures
• The presence of an attitude in the conscious means that the mutually exclusive opposite attitude manifests itself in the unconscious. Although in the unconscious, the opposite attitude can influence behavior indirectly when the individual behaves in an unusual manner

The Functions

• Thinking involves connecting ideas to arrive at a concept or solution; Feeling involves rejecting or accepting an idea based on the pleasant or unpleasant emotions they arouse; Sensation refers to the perception of experiences through the senses; Intuition refers to the perception of experiences through sources exclusive of the senses (extrasensory perception)
• Thinking and Feeling are rational functions; sensation and intuition are irrational functions

Combination of attitudes and functions  + Types of individuals

• Extraverted thinking: Events in the external world activate thinking (inductive thinking)
  • Learns as much as possible about the external world
  • More pragmatic
  • Perceived as impersonal or cold
  • Represses feelings which may leave thoughts sterile
• Introverted thinking: Events in the inner mental world activate thinking (deductive thinking)
  • Loves ideas, especially the ideas of being
  • Ideas might bear little relevance to reality
  • Doesn’t value people
  • May be stubborn and inconsiderate
• Extraverted feeling: Feeling is governed by external/traditional criteria
  • Conservative and conventional
  • Feelings change as situations change
  • Emotional, gushy moody
  • Form attachments with people, but can lose them easily
• Introverted feeling: Feeling is governed by subjective criteria
  • original, creative, unusual, bizarre
  • Keep their feelings to themselves
  • Silent, inaccessible, indifferent
  • Melancholic, depressed
  • Appearance of inner harmony
• Extraverted sensation: Sensation determined by objective reality
  • Sensation governed by facts
  • Realistic, practical, hard-headed
  • Not concerned with the meaning of things
  • Sensual, pleasure-loving
• Introverted sensation: Sensation determined by subjective reality at a particular time
  • Sensation governed by psychic state
  • Considers the world banal and uninteresting compared to the inner world of the mind
  • Expresses self with difficulty – except by the arts
  • May appear calm but in reality is uninteresting because of a lack of thought and feeling
• Extraverted intuition: Intuition governed by possibilities of objective situations
  • Intuition moves from object to object
  • Restless, always looking for new worlds to conquer
  • Deficient in thought and they cannot pursue intuitions for long
  • They can promote new enterprises but cannot sustain interest for long
  • Routine bore them
• Introverted sensation: Intuition governed by possibilities of mental phenomena
  • Intuition moves from image to image
  • Enigma to friends, misunderstood genius by self
  • Cannot communicate effectively with others
  • Isolated from others
  • May have brilliant intuitions which others may help develop

Practical Considerations

• Role of parents is to respect the child’s rights to develop his inner nature and offer the child every opportunity to do so
• Best friendships and marriages are achieved between fully individuated persons

Chapter 6 – Symbols and Dreams

• Symbols are outward manifestations of the archetype
• Archetypes are only expressed via symbols, since they are buried in the collective unconscious. Only by interpreting symbols, dreams, visions, myths and art can one access the contents of the collective unconscious

Amplification

• The goal of amplification is to understand the symbolic significance of a dream, fantasy, painting or any human product

Symbols

• Purposes of a symbol
  • Attempt to satisfy an instinctual impulse that has been frustrated
  • Transformations of libidinal energy into cultural or spiritual values, e.g., sex is transformed to dance; aggression is transformed to competitive games
• Man’s history is a record of his search for better symbols that individuate the archetypes
• Modern symbols (machines, tech, corporations, political systems) are expressions of the shadow and the persona at the expense of other aspects of the psyche
• Knowledge in the symbols must be amplificated before the message is known
• Two aspects of a symbol
  • Retrospective which exposes the instinctual basis of a symbol
    • Causal
  • Prospective which reveals man’s yearnings for harmony
    • Teleological, finalistic
    • This has been neglected

Dreams

• Dreams are the clearest expression of the unconscious mind
• Big dreams, which are remote from the day’s preoccupations, are disturbances in the unconscious due to ego’s failure to deal with the external world. They are messages to be read, and guides to be followed
• Dreams try to compensate for the neglected, undifferentiated parts of the psyche
• Dream series
  • Look within the psyche for answers to your relationships with other people, since we project our psychic states on them
  • Conflicts are also caused by disharmony within the personality

Chapter 7 – Jung’s Place in Psychology

• Jung’s scientific orientation also included teleology/finalism, whereby man’s present behavior is determined by his future goals
• Synchronicity – When events occur together in time but are not the cause of one another

“Essentialism isn’t about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It’s about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what it essential”

The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately separates the ‘important’ few from the ‘less important’ many. The Essentialist is an expert who has learned how to eliminate the non-essential weights in his/her life and ruthlessly focuses only on the things that count.

Many of the things you spend your energy doing in a day are not important or beneficial to any person. And then we wonder why we aren’t leading a life of impact. Impact is impossible without focused effort and focused effort is impossible when you give everything in your life equal importance.

Keep the main thing, the main thing and let every other thing take the backseat.

Assumptions Every Essentialist Must Overcome

“There are three deeply entrenched assumptions that we must conquer to live the way of the Essentialist: “I have to”, “It’s all important”, and “I can do both”

To become an Essentialist that lives a life of impact, you need to mentally take note of areas of your life where you’re allowing these assumptions to rob your life of impact.

Remember, everything is not important. 

You don’t have to do everything. You still have the power to choose. 

You don’t need to buy the lie that everything is important, because everything is not! When all is said and done, only a few things matter. Your job is to find what those things are and then ruthlessly devote your attention to them.

You might pride yourself as being a jack of all trades, or a polymath (I have an interdisciplinary bent too), but there’s joy and freedom in realizing that you can do anything, but not everything.

The moment you’re able to take note of the three faulty assumptions milking your energy from you, you’d be among an elite group of people who are headed closer to a life of impact.

You Always Have Choice

“The ability to choose can’t be taken away, or given away – can be forgotten“

If you want to be an Essentialist, you need to have a heightened consciousness of your ability to choose in any situation you find yourself.

This is what Viktor Frankl was one of the survivors of the cruelties of the Nazi concentration camps during World War 2. The Nazi Germans tortured and subjected him and other prisoners to innumerable indignities. Many people perished in the concentration camps and many of those that didn’t were scarred for life.

Frankl was one of the few that ended up thriving after being liberated from the camps at the end of the war. He was able to do this because of good understanding of one thing his tormentors couldn’t take away. Frankl later called this “The last of the human freedoms”. He realized that regardless of what he was going through at any given moment, he could choose how he was going to be affected by the situation. He realized that at any given time, the power to choose was always there. Frankl didn’t forget this and it affected the quality of his life, during and after the war.

If you forget your ability to choose, you’re going to end up relinquishing your power to your circumstances and environment. You’d eventually come to the point where you feel totally helpless to your situation and you’re merely going through life passively.

If you want to be an Essentialist, don’t you ever forget your power to choose in any given situation. The pressure of the moment might seem like you’re going to be choked if you don’t react immediately. But if you remind yourself again and again that you always have the power to choose, you’re going to improve your life exponentially.

“The ability to choose can’t be taken away, or given away – it can only be forgotten”

There’s Power in Discernment

Greg McKeown shared this quote by Ronald Koch:

“Most of what exists in the universe – our actions, and all other forces, resources and ideas- has little value and yields little results; on the other hand, a few things work fantastically well and have tremendous impact”

The Essentialist is one who has the spirit of discernment at work in his life.

The man who operates on partnership with the Spirit of discernment quickly realizes that everything is not equally important.

There are some opportunities God has not vetted with His presence.

There are some relationships that God hasn’t vetted with His Presence.

There are some places and gatherings that haven’t been vetted with His Presence.

Without the ability to discern, you’d jump headlong into anything and everything that gives the smallest indication of importance.

This is why it’s important to run every opportunity through the sieve of discernment within you.

When you invest time developing this ability, you’d find yourself freed from unnecessary commitments while spending that extra time on activities that matter.

“Less is better” is one of the biggest secrets that the gurus are keeping from you.

They bombard you with course after course after course. And while they spread you so thin with their often contradictory advice, you find them setting up systems that frees up more time for them to focus on what really matters to them.

You need to learn how to separate the “trivial many” from the “vital few”. Do this and your future ‘you’ will thank you for this

It’s All a Game of Trade-offs

“We can try to avoid the reality of trade-offs, but we cannot escape them”

One of the first things I learned in my Economics class at high school was the concept of Opportunity Costs.

Because your desires and wants will always exceed your available resources, you need to rank your desires in order of preference. And you do this because ultimately, you only expend your limited resources on wants and desires that you deem important, while forgoing the rest (i.e., the opportunity cost).

Therefore, your choice to buy the latest designer clothes and shoes may also be a choice not invest in books and renew your mind.

Your choice to mindlessly scroll through social media for hours on end may also be a choice not to spend bonding time with your significant other or children.

Your choice to snooze your alarm at 5:30 am, is also a choice not to get up earlier to complete your project (Yes, I’m talking about you!)

And sometimes too, the choice is not necessarily between an inherently good and bad option.

For instance, as an entrepreneur, do you sell plenty items for cheap, or do you sell few items for plenty? As a family man, do you spend more time with your spouse and kids, or do you bring work home and totally crush it at the office the next day?

When all is said and done, life is full of trade-offs. As Thomas Sowell said, “There are no solutions… Only trade-offs”

But the good news is that you will always get to choose what you’re going to go big on, and what you’ve got to give up. Choose wisely.

The Power of Focus

Greg McKeown also shared a quote from famous artist Pablo Picasso:

“Without great solitude, no serious work is possible”

In order to be an outstanding Essentialist, you need to learn how to discern the essential few from the trivial many.

Unfortunately, we live in a day and age where countless competing forces are vying for our attention.

As a result, unless we take deliberate effort to create the time and space to focus on what matters, it becomes impossible to become an Essentialist.

That’s why Greg McKeown goes on to say,

“In order to have focus we need to escape to focus”

The ability to focus is getting rarer by the day. And as with everything that’s rare, its value has also increased so much that Focus is regarded as the new IQ.

That’s why you need to create space for yourself to engage in high-level thinking.

You need space to deliberately and prayerfully design your life.

You need space to concentrate on actualizing the difficult steps you need to take before getting to your promised Land.

You need space to continually engage in the process of renewing your mind such that limits of what you consider possible are stretched by the day.

Sometime ago, I was listening to David Oyedepo and he said something to this effect:

“I’m not afraid of tomorrow because we’re not where we are today by chance”

And you know why he can make such a seemingly bold claim? 

It’s simple. Among other things, David Oyedepo is an Essentialist!

Ask people who are in his close circle and listen to his anecdotes, you’d find that he doesn’t joke with his time or attention. He keeps the main thing, the main thing.

The same thing is possible for you.

Something More than Deliberate Practice

Greg McKeown also talked about Anders Ericsson’s famous experiment where he tried to find out the most important factor that determined expert-level mastery.

One of the findings from that study is what inspired the 10000-hour rule which Malcolm Gladwell popularized in his bestselling book “Outliers”

However, that was just one side of the story.

It turned out that the findings from Ericsson’s experiment showed another factor that contributed to expert-level mastery.

That factor was sleep!

Not only did the experts practice more than the merely good students, the Masters also slept about 2 hours more than the ordinary students.

While Non-Essentialists see sleep as another burden on their already over-extended to-do list, the Essentialist has a totally different approach.

He sees sleep as an ingredient necessary for functioning optimally during the day. As a result, Essentialists deliberately and systematically incorporates sleep into their schedules. 

Greg McKeown said, “Our highest priority is to protect our ability to prioritize”

It might seem ridiculously simple, but quality sleep protects you in the long run.

From studies, as well as personal experience, I’ve noticed that when you’re sleep deprived, your decision-making capabilities are severely compromised. And when you’re in this state, one of the first things to jump out of the window is your ability to separate the vital few from the trivial many.

Ecclesiastes 10:10 says,

“If the iron be blunt, and he doth not whet the edge, then must he use more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct”

Stop plowing through life without strategy. Sharpen your ax with quality sleep

What’s Your Why?

Greg McKeown shared this quote by Russian ballet dancer, Anna Pavlova,

“To follow, without halt, one aim: There is the secret to success”

In other words, ruthless focus on one goal will lead you to your desired Haven.

This is one thing that Essentialists are good at. 

They learn how to ruthlessly eliminate every activity that is not in alignment with what they intend to achieve.

The truth is that in the absence of such clarity, confusion, stress and frustration is inevitable.

Do you find yourself constantly confused?

Do you see yourself always battling with stress at the end each working day?

Do you find yourself over your head with frustration?

If you find yourself in any of the aforementioned circumstances, there’s a good chance that you lack clarity about what you should really be doing.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s an element of difficulty in every assignment that is worthwhile. However, without clarity on why you are engaged in a task, you will not thrive.

And this why Essentialists continue to thrive in whatever field of endeavor they find themselves in. They don’t jump on the latest fad because that’s what’s trending. Rather, every action they take is powered by a strong why.

The Essentialist Intent

The Essentialist’s clarity is guided by what Greg McKeown calls the Essentialist intent – one inspirational, concrete, meaningful and measurable decision that becomes the yardstick determining other decisions.

In her role as Digital Champion for the UK in 2009, Martha Lane Fox‘s essential intent was to: Get everyone in the UK online by the end of 2012.

Because of this essential intent was simple, concrete, inspiring and measurable, it provided clarity for Martha Lane Fox and her team. With this clarity, they were able to focus on the essential few and eliminate the trivial many. And to a large extent, they attained their goal.

This is the kind of clarity that you see powering the lives of all the people you look up to. If you really want to thrive, you need to learn to focus all your energies on only activities that matter.

Yes, the journey will be hard. You will need to engage in tough conversations with yourself. There will be trade-offs. You will need to be disciplined to cut off competing priorities that try to distract you from your true intentions. But once you’re able to find that clarity, it’s inevitable that your path will lead to excellence