Structure Actions Around Your Core Genius

Written by Jack Canfield | Thursday, 03 March 2011 00:00

When I talk to people who have a hard time achieving goals, one of the most common excuses I hear is “but I don’t have enough time.” If you can’t find extra time to invest in the pursuit of your goals, it’s time to reprioritize your responsibilities.

Successful people know that to achieve their goals and greater levels of accomplishment, they must structure their lives to maximize time spent on their core genius. Your core genius is the one thing that you love to do because it’s effortless and a whole lot of fun. And if you could make money doing it, you’d make it your lifetime’s work.

In most cases, your core genius is directly tied to your passions and life purpose. My core genius lies in the area of teaching, training, coaching and motivating. Another core genius is writing and compiling books. Along with my co-author Mark Victor Hansen, I have written, co-authored, compiled, and edited more than 100 books.

Successful people make their core genius a priority, delegating everything else to the rest of their team. Compare that to other people who go through life doing everything, even the tasks they’re bad at or that could be done more cheaply, better, and faster by someone else. They can’t find the time to focus on their core genius because they fail to delegate even the most menial duties.

When you delegate the grunt work (the things you hate doing or those tasks that are so painful, you end up putting them off), you get to concentrate on what you love to do. You make faster progress on your goals, and you get to enjoy life more.

So why is delegating routine tasks and unwanted projects so difficult for most people?

Surprisingly, most people are afraid of looking wasteful or being judged as being above everyone else. They are afraid to give up control or reluctant to spend the money to pay for help. Deep down, most people simply don't want to let go.

Others simply have fallen into the habit of doing everything themselves. "It's too time consuming to explain it to someone," they say. "I can do it more quickly and better myself anyway."

Delegate Completely

One of the strategies I use and teach is complete delegation. This means that you delegate a task once and completely, rather than delegating it each time it needs to be done.

When my niece came to stay with us one year while she attended the local community college, we completely delegated the responsibility of grocery shopping to her. We told her she could have unlimited use of our van if she would buy the groceries every week. We provided her with a list of staples that we always wanted in the house (eggs, butter, milk, ketchup, and so on), and her job was to check every week and replace anything that was running low.

In addition, my wife planned meals and let her know which items she wanted for the main courses (fish, chicken, broccoli, avocados, etc). The task was delegated once and saved us hundreds of hours that year that were instead devoted to writing, exercise, family time, and recreation.

Where Do You Spend Your Time?

Most entrepreneurs spend less than 30% of their time focusing on their core genius. In fact, by the time they've launched a business, it often seems entrepreneurs are doing everything but the one thing they went into business for in the first place.

Many salespeople, for example, spend more time on account administration than they do on the phone or in the field making sales, when they could hire a part-time administrator to do this time-consuming detail work.

Most female executives spend too much time running their households, when they could easily and inexpensively delegate this task to a cleaning service or part-time mother's helper, freeing them to focus on their career or spend more quality time with their family.

Don't let this be your fate. You can trade, barter, pay for and find volunteers to help with almost everything you don't want to do, leaving you to do what you are best at, and which will ultimately make you the most money and bring you the most happiness.

Become a Con Artist

Strategic Coach Dan Sullivan once stated that all entrepreneurs are really con artists. They get other people to pay them to practice getting better at what they love to do.

Consider speaker Anthony Robbins. People pay him big money to practice his core genius. He’s arranged his life to maximize the amount of time that he is engaged in his core genius. He spends time doing what he loves, and the better he gets, the more money he earns.

Of course, most of us are not quite yet at the level of Tony Robbins. But we can take a cue from his level of focus.

For the next week, take note where you spend your time. What duties do you perform out of habit? Which do you do because you don’t want to take the time to delegate it to someone else? Finally, how much time do you spend on your core genius … and how many more hours could you invest in this area if you delegated some of your responsibilities?

Achieving greater success and joy in life starts by identifying your core genius. Delegate everything else so you can focus on what you love to do.