Adam J. Davis’ Blog

There never seems to be a shortage of people who are willing to tell you what to do. No matter what aspect of life it is: career, entrepreneurship, parenting, marriage, spirituality, fitness - there are innumerable experts and pundits that are happy to tell you what you should do and how you should do it.

I’ve read dozens of success and self-help books. Some of them good, some of them bad. One of the recurring themes throughout these books is an emphasis on getting clear about what you want. What are your goals? What are your dreams? Where do you want to be in 5 years? etc.

While I’m not going to attempt to usurp authors like Zig Ziglar and Anthony Robbins, I want to make a point of how reverse psychology can help you get closer to where you want to be.

Focusing on what you want in life in terms of lifestyle, money, health, family and other areas is good. But, what I have had even more success with is defining what I DON’T want.

“How is this different?” you might be asking. Well, to me it is profoundly different for several reasons.

Let me lead with one of Thomas Edison’s most famous quotes: “Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.”

Perhaps I should just end with that quote, I can’t really claim to out-wit one of the greatest inventors in American history. But, here goes.

First of all, I think finding out what you don’t want puts something finite and concrete in your brain and your brain likes it. We are conditioned this way from when we are young. For example: cross the street, but only cross within in the white lines of the cross walk. I think we force ourselves to focus more when we know there are certain rules. Developing a list of things you DON’T want is kind of like having a set of rules that govern your life.

Setting goals about what you DO want is great, but what knowing what you DON’T want is often derived from experience, which makes it set more permanently into your psyche.

Secondly, defining what you DON’T want helps you realize in more profound terms what it is you DO want. For me, this epiphany came when I quit a fairly well paying corporate job to strike out on my own. One day I just realized that working in a cubicle farm under florescent lights and having 8 different bosses drone on about mission statements was not for me (ok, I borrowed that last part from Office Space).

Lastly, defining what you DON’T want, under any circumstances, helps instill a stronger sense of discipline into your daily life. A lot of people think discipline has to do with punishment, but it really means adhering to rules and principles and making no excuses or exceptions. I have been more successful in my endeavors when I have kept to a disciplined focus. The discipline is strongly derived from keeping away from what you DON’T want.

Here’s another example: I want to build my business bigger and better each day. Each day brings forth opportunities. Some opportunities are potentially lucrative, and I am inclined to pursue them, but pursuing them would violate one of the things I absolutely do not want in my business life: complexity (too many moving parts). I prefer to stay with a strict and simple value proposition. To me, life is complicated enough and just about every human being on earth is involved in a mad conspiracy to complicate things further and muddy up their lives. Therefore, knowing what I DON’T want helps me stay disciplined in pursuing my end business goals.

Now, what to do?

I think it’s going to be pretty easy for you to get clear about what you don’t want to do. It might even be fun. We’ll revisit this topic in a future post and I’ll share some of my absolute DON’T list (it’s getting larger by the day - does that mean I’ll be trapped in my own cocoon pretty soon?).

Social Bookmark This Entry:

Hide Sites