Focus on the big picture (morning routines are but a part of the puzzle)

What gives you a more significant result?

Increasing 100% of something by 1%, or increasing 5% of something by 10%?

Aka, improving the whole by 1%, or improving a small subset by 10%?

(For those a bit slow with their math, 1% of 100% = 1, whereas 10% of 5% = 0.5).

The answer is self-evident when I show it to you in mathematical terms. Unfortunately, too many people focus on optimizing a small subset.

Instead, the goal should be to focus on improving the whole.

What’s your morning routine?

A lot of people in the entrepreneur space are obsessed with morning routines.

And I’m a fan of that. A morning routine is a setup of triggers, and I’m a huge fan of triggers – getting yourself into the right mindset to accomplish your goals ahead is grand.

But – once you have a solid morning routine, what does further optimizing it? The goal of the morning routine (a pattern/habit) is to get you from “I am waking up” to “OK I’m ready to work.”

Further optimizing your routine is the equivalent of focusing on bettering 5% and ignoring the other 95%.

Don’t get obsessive about a subset while ignoring the big picture

How resilient are you?

Here’s the real issue I have…

Some people get so obsessive about their morning routine and its perfect setup that if (I should say, when) something comes up that messes up their routine, it ends up ruining your day.

Whoops. In pursuit of the perfect 5% you just screwed up your 95%.

I’ve been trying to be more acutely aware of my own irritants so that I can exert more control over how I react.

I intentionally break my morning routine not only to see how I react but also if I can get back into it.

I craft habits and patterns and then renege on them to see if I can still adapt.

Most people misquote Darwin – it’s survival of the most adaptable (which it turns out he may not have said).

So consider this a reminder – take a step back, assess what you are doing, and ensure you’re focusing on the big picture.

Because that’s the dirty secret. When you’re good enough at a bunch of things, it adds up to really fucking good overall.