It’s taking me a while to figure out what I want to do with my newsletters and for now I’ve decided to focus on the things I’m learning right now. One of them is figuring out what I want to achieve this year and how to do it.

What put me on this topic was Alex Banayan and his book “The Third Door” about what the most successful people in the world have in common. When he was at a crossroads with a big life decision, some advice given to him was the ‘20/5’ rule. The last two steps I have written in white text so I don’t spoil it for you. Once you have done the first four steps, highlight it to see what to do next:

1. Write down 20 goals you want to achieve in the next 12 months.
2. Circle the 5 most important. 
3. Re-write these 5 onto a new page under the title ‘The Priority List’.

[4. On top of the original list, write ‘The Avoidance List’. 

5. Avoid doing everything on The Avoidance List until the goals on The Priority List have been accomplished. ]

The theory of the rule is you can either be really good at many things, or amazing at one. If you are trying to achieve several things at once you will be too distracted to achieve any to a high standard. 

The list made me get really clear about what was important. It made me see how my mind is always focused on multiple projects at once. While I always considered this a positive side effect of my ADD, I saw how this can be detrimental.

Some of the 20 things on my list were: 

- Organise runway events in Geelong 

- Move out 

- Start a new collection 

- Save enough money to go to America 

But I narrowed it down to five:

1. Be mentally and physically healthy. 
2. Be spiritually healthy - prioritise meditation, etc. 
3. Focus on my writing.  
4. Find more community/friends
5. Grow MEW Clothing. 

Now some of these have sub goals, like grow MEW Clothing is pretty vague, but I am learning to feel when I’m taking too much on and understanding how that’s detrimental. It also showed me it’s okay to put projects on the shelf. 

There is a saying, “Energy flows where attention goes” and I see how me narrowing my full attention will improve the outcome of these projects. I also believe setting the intention of achieving these goals will help bring the energy to them and bring them into fruition. 

I’m also finding that by forcing myself to avoid certain goals I am more motivated to achieve the ones on my priority list so I can knock them off and replace them. Not going to lie, it is hard saying goodbye to some goals or at least putting them on a shelf. I would love to stomp a runway again because god knows it makes me feel alive.