Life Lessons Revealed in Unexpected Places: Economics 101

Every once in a while, a nugget of wisdom hits you like a good punch in the face.

Last term, I took Introduction to Microeconomics at the University of Waterloo. My “punch in the face” was the concept of tradeoffs. It happened during the very first class when, truth be told, far too much of my energy was concentrated on trying not to think about my conspicuousness as the only old guy among 249 first-year students.

It’s quite a simple notion: “A tradeoff is an exchange – giving up one thing to get something else.” *

The emphasis in the class, of course, was on financial tradeoffs. It’s rarely a highly calculated decision – but because you only have a certain amount of money available to spend, every time you choose (for example) to fork out $10.00 to see a movie at the cinema, you forgo the next best alternative. The next best alternative will be different for each person: For you, it might be renting two movies for $5.00 each or buying five coffees at Starbucks for $2.00 each.

What really made an impact on me, however, was the application of this principle to the way I choose to “spend” my time and energy. Lately, in spite of all my reading about time-management and focus, keeping this tradeoff concept in mind is what has enabled me to remain focused on my long-term goals.

You see, in January 2010, I embarked on a long and gruelling journey. While holding down a busy full-time job at the University of Waterloo and spending as much time as possible with my wife and three kids, I began the three-year process of obtaining my CMA accounting designation.

This would be an enormous undertaking at the best of times. But on top of it, we’ve had to deal with no less than seven significant crises since I began my courses – everything from Tracy’s grandmother being diagnosed with cancer in March to the week-long hospitalization of my daughter in April.

Because of all this craziness, I’ve been reminded every day that we only have a limited amount of time and energy available. Life is all about making choices – tough choices – and every decision we make involves a tradeoff of some kind.

When I’m sitting at my desk staring at my statistics textbook, my mind often wanders. I can’t help but think about all the other things I could be doing: spending time with my family; writing a blog; visiting my grandmother who fell and broke her arm last month; sleeping; etc.

I have to make a conscious effort to rein in my thoughts as they meander through everything that’s important to me in that moment – all possible uses of my time, and all good things in their own right. To my surprise, the idea that most often stops me in my tracks and allows me to refocus is this tradeoff concept.

I have already made a big investment of time and money in this new direction for my life. So even though the last thing I may actually feel like doing is wrapping my mind around the mysteries of probability and statistics, I am usually able to put the whole situation into perspective by simply recalling the reasons why I pursued this direction in the first place. By deciding to focus on my studies, I make a tradeoff: I give up spending time on something I would like to do today for the benefits of having my CMA designation in the future.

I know I’m not the only person who is busy. So I’m curious: What types of thought patterns or techniques enable you to stay focused on your goals, even when you’re tempted to do something else?

* Michael Parkin and Robin Bade, Microeconomics: Canada in the Global Environment, 7th ed., Pearson Education Canada, 2010: p. 8

Cross-posted to My Healthy Future.

Success Is All About Focus

It hit me yesterday that, perhaps more than anything else, success is all about focus.

I often find reading Steve Pavlina’s blog motivates me to strive for higher levels of success. To take productivity as an example, check out Steve’s 33 Rules to Boost Your Productivity. They’re quite useful in that format, broken down into 33 bite-sized suggestions. But essentially, I think all of them can be boiled down to the issue of focus.

I find that focus is generally quite easy for most people to achieve for a short period of time (if you’re enthusiastic about something, and if you have any gumption at all). However — and I imagine I’m not alone — I find it rather difficult to maintain a high level of focus on a goal over the long-term.

I tend to set lots of very ambitious goals for myself. Some of them don’t go anywhere right from the start, for various reasons:

• it wasn’t something I was passionate about in the first place, so I had little or no motivation to achieve it; or
• the goal simply wasn’t realistic, given the circumstances of my life.

But I’m not talking about these types of failed attempts. I’m talking about the goals that have become the impetus for significant positive progress.

In the last year, for example, I have made drastic changes to my eating habits, my commitment to exercise, and the time I wake up in the morning. However — even in these areas, in which I have experienced enormous benefits from achieving my goals — as surprising as it may seem, my level of commitment has slowly (and often indiscernibly) dwindled.

I don’t recall ever having taken the time to reflect on this reality, and so I have never identified why this happens. But yesterday, for the first time, I asked myself the question: Why, after reaping great benefits from reaching a goal, would you ever allow your dedication to it to peter out?

As I thought about this question, it occurred to me that there are lots of things conspiring against focus. Some are challenges to my ability to focus:

• As time passes, I let myself become side-tracked by various setbacks (e.g., sickness, stress, commitments), and then fail to “climb back on the horse” as it were.
• Sometimes I get distracted by other interests and new goals.

Some are symptoms of insufficient focus:

• Occasionally I become complacent because of the success I have achieved, assuming I will be able to maintain it with no effort.
• Often I simply forget to keep working at it!

These are the types of things that derail me.

I haven’t abandoned the three goals I mentioned above. In fact, I can honestly say I am still fully committed to them (despite some blips along the way). My frustration lies in my inability to sustain uninterrupted focus on goals that, without a doubt, are helping me become more successful.

With everything I hope to accomplish over the next few years, I need to reach a higher level of focus if I am going to be successful. I expect, therefore, that I’ll be doing a lot of thinking about focus. And I will certainly be working hard to develop strategies that will help me avoid the focus fizzle to which I’ve become accustomed.

As you strive for excellence in your life, how do you avoid the gradual erosion of commitment to your goals?

What strategies help you stay focused on your goals for long periods of time — even in the face of setbacks, distractions, and everything life throws at you?