The Quality Of Your Inputs (That Determines Your Success) Depends On These 2 Factors

certain mental physical blocks, I get some interesting reflections that I want to share here with you that I think would be useful as it is The ethos of do good work. And I want to dive into the quality of your inputs and these inputs determine your success. And they actually hinge on two factors. If you have a focus and a goal, you can control the strategies. That you either buy from someone else, have someone else build for you, or that you build yourself to reach those goals.

all you have to focus on, if you have the right frame of mind, the right focus, you have the right framework and the right execution. All you have to focus day in and day out is the quality of your inputs,

what you're implanting into the day. When you're implanting on the strategy, anything that you're doing to execute that single day, you have to focus on the quality. And I used to think, and I was wrong by the way, I used to think that the quality of your inputs was dependent on trying harder. If you push yourself a little bit more, you'll see that you'll automatically

get better results. Now, this is true physically, and I think this is still true you have to push, you have to try harder. You definitely have to do as much as you physically can. But then, how does this show up at work? How does this show up when we're staring into a screen? When we're staring into words? When we're looking at this remote world and we're just working in bits and not working in atoms?

When you think about that, it had me contemplating that as I was running, I think it was probably early on, it was probably mile five and I was just like, why is sometimes this exercise easy? Why is it hard? Why some work feel easy? Like sometimes when I'm working, I might feel like I'm not even trying So when you're in flow, it's almost like you're in play. how does that paradigm work? If these two principles may seem like they're opposed to each other.

Now with mental work, you're exercising your mind at your job, pushing harder, isn't always going to be the best option. that actually can lead to breakdown. to burnout and working more hours doesn't actually mean more. output. And that's something to keep in mind.

the cool thing now with AI, when you see reasoning bots or you see these agents start using their own reason, they instantaneously output something significantly faster, maybe weeks faster than some humans would, especially with deep research. So that's something to contemplate and look at. But going back to the point of focusing around how come some work feels like

it's easy, even though it's not easy, but how can some things feel like it's almost like a joy or it's easy to flow through when you're in that state? So I think there's two paradigms that we have to focus on. I think we have to focus on whatever you're doing. There has to be something that you actually love about that thing. And the second is you have to have a healthy obsession. Those are two of the factors that I wanted to share here with you.

So when you are doing something that's difficult, maybe you don't actually enjoy doing that initial thing, but you might enjoy the outcome of it. Or there's something about it that you actually love, which is intrinsically motivating you to take action down that line. For instance, when I work out and sometimes I swim at 5 30 AM, I do not look forward to swimming at 5 30 AM, especially when it's winter. I do not look forward to that.

But after when I get back into the car and I finished the swim workout and I swam, whatever I swam, I feel a sense of quiet accomplishment. I feel something very positive and I love that feeling. So I think that's part of what I'm trying to get at here is when you have the work, try to find something that you love about it, but this does not mean that everything is going to be easy or enjoyable. I think that's something that we try to find everything that's easy and enjoyable. That's not true.

We have to go through difficulty, but there's something

about the process, something about the journey that we have to love in order for us to actually do this at an exceptional performance, not just mediocre or okay. The second thing is the healthy obsession. So why obsession? Obsession has such a connotation. Let's face it, you are obsessed with something right now, if it's that notification bar, if it's that sugar, if it's cheap dopamine, you're obsessed with something.

So I think the key thing is to deliberately focus your obsessions to something healthy in alignment with the frameworks of the inputs of your goals, what you're trying to achieve at work, life, health, relationships, everything. So with healthy obsession, it becomes better. Part of who you are, you don't just think about, let's say you're solving a really difficult problem. You're passionate about this problem at work.

Maybe the actual problem is difficult, but you find joy in some sort of the process, but then having a healthy obsession. When five o'clock shows up or six o'clock shows, you're not just going to clock out and not think about it. You might be thinking about it on your walk, maybe when you're watching the dishes, not because like you have to, because there's something about it that becomes part of who you are in a healthy format. Every time that I hear like a, you're there.

We use our podcast talk about goals. They talk about if you really care about something, let me see where you invest your time and where you invest your money. Same thing here, your mental energy. If you actually care about something, it's part of who you are in a healthy, obsessive way. You're thinking about it most of the time, and you're going to do it in a way where someone who isn't like actually healthily obsessed with it, you're going to outperform them.

And I think that's the name of the game. You have to find. something that you truly love about the process, even if it's a small thing, or you don't have to manipulate yourself to pretend if you're in the wrong spot or in the wrong situation,

then maybe get out and try to contemplate where can I find something that I enjoy based on the things that I'm healthily obsessed with? And again, you already have obsessions. With stimuli in the environment that may not be serving you. So being able to deliberately choose what are the things that I'm going to let into my ecosystem? What are the things that I can actually focus on? And what are the things that I enjoy and part of the process? Maybe I don't enjoy all of it.

Maybe I don't enjoy that strenuous piece that's going to be hard. Because, there's nothing easy in life, in my opinion. And when you do this, you're not going to do this because, oh, you want to reach the goal. You're doing this for yourself because this becomes part of who you are.

And with the right goals, the right focus, the right framework, the right strategy, and if you focus on the right inputs, it will become almost inevitable to reach the goal or make forward progress because it's all part of the formula. Those are the two factors that in my opinion do influence the quality of your inputs that determine the quality or the outcomes of your success.