The most effective way to make progress towards a goal is often not to do more, but to do less of the things that are holding you back from the goal.
In the words of the Sufi mystic poet Rumi, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
Put another way, if your want your boat to stay afloat - forget getting you where you want to go - you must stop pouring bucket after bucket of water in it!
Many people buy into the myth of doing - that is, they believe that the busier they are, the more satisfied and successful they will be. Yet, these people often find themselves running in place without getting where they want to go.
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen Covey describes some things in life as being important while others are just urgent. The majority of us spend most of our time addressing the urgent things, "putting out fires," and being dragged by a sense of frenzy. As a result, we neglect to spend out time on things that may not seem urgent, but that are truly important to us.
So how do we prioritize those meaningful objectives in favor over the other things that just pop up and drag our attentions with them?
Put simply: simplify.
Less is more. Do less and make the less that you do count for more.
Practically speaking, here are two examples of this practice in action:
1. If you want to get healthier, the only way to make lasting changes is to first decrease your unhealthy behaviors before you attempt to integrate lots of new healthy ones. So before you attempt to wake up 2 hours earlier and attend daily bootcamp classes, first get rid of the junk food and excess sugar in your diet. Trying to undo an unhealthy diet with exercise is akin to building a house on a foundation of quicksand! Every step forward will be counteracted by a backwards step, leading you to remain stuck - and likely very frustrated!
2. If you want to improve your finances or get out of debt, it is futile to spend your efforts trying to earn more money before you've taken a look at your spending habits and taken steps to reduce excess spending. If you don't manage your money, your money will manage you and no amount of income will change that dynamic. As Ghandi famously observed, "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not even one man's greed."
How can you apply this principle to your life?
It ultimately comes down to getting clear about what matters and (getting rid of) what is getting in the way.