Ever since I have been on this journey to understand what made me not so successful (despite having all the right ingredients that this world tells you that a person should have to become what is meant by the definition of success), I realized that I have to go on a journey to find out: what went wrong?
Finally, I have some clues to what was wrong with me, and one of those things was not understanding the concept of the one. The concept of one has always been the prime factor in the history of human civilization. There has always been one god, there has always been one king, and there has always been one occupation that people would do.
Recently, what has happened is that, because of the money and the resources, you start to feel that you can do multiple things. You can easily do all those things. If you want to learn a coding language, you can watch it on YouTube. Earlier, there was no way to learn coding except by going to school, so you had to be choosy about learning something because you had to pay the money and spend time. Right now, there is no spending of money, and there is no time involved, so people think that they can become a master of many things.
It is not true, and it is not right. No matter what greed you will have about what you want to become, you have to realize that you cannot learn and do everything in one life. People are always rewarded for specialization, not for doing 10 things and getting impressed by it. They might get impressed by you doing 10 things at the moment, but they won’t pay you for anything because they would believe that, since you are doing 10 things, you won’t be a master of anything and wouldn’t be able to do any one thing efficiently. That is also true: if you focus on 10 things, you will never be able to reach the final goal.
Now, for one thing, you don’t have to think in terms of 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, or 5 years. You have to think in terms of 10 years. If you can find one thing that you can do for the next 10 years and spend all your life energy and focus on doing one thing, you have to figure out what it is.
Now, that was one of my biggest mistakes because I never decided on doing that one thing. I was always interested in doing multiple things, and my goals kept on changing on a daily basis based on the new information that I was getting. One question that will always come into the minds of people would be: how to decide on that one thing?
I know, of all the tasks in the world, this is the most difficult task: to decide what that one thing is that you want to focus on, but you will eventually find it. The nearest hint I can provide you is that if you find something you enjoy doing and you feel that you can do it for the rest of your life, that thing is your one thing.
I would highly suggest to you that, before it becomes too late, start finding your one thing. It won’t be a one-day affair or a two-day affair, but it will be a worthy affair if you finish finding it.
Today I was listening to a clip of Robert Greene, who talks about how people are distracted into doing multiple things. Even out of all those multiple things, they are unable to find that one particular thing that might be the crux of it. Maybe you are making a YouTube channel, reading books, listening to a lot of podcasts, and trying to become a better speaker by reciting passages from literature every day. Then maybe your one thing is that you want to become a public speaker.
With that one thing, your focus will be immensely great. I feel myself extremely disadvantaged and unlucky that there was no one to tell me that I have to find that one thing. Of course, my ego also came in the way. If someone came to tell me something, I would not believe him. I would either insult him or, through my body language, show him my disapproval, which would further demotivate him to tell me anything further. A lot of people are not very honest with me because my body language says that I will not tolerate any opposition to my thoughts and beliefs.
If there’s anything you want to learn today, then it is this: you have to find your one thing and start focusing on that, and do it till the end of the time. That is the only advice I want to give you today.