Ever feel trapped by your “same old” performance, style, or attitude? Ever feel “stuck” by producing the “same old” number of sales? Ever feel that you’ll never improve, never achieve your goals? If you answer yes to any of those questions, how about using the 5 Hour Rule? Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg do. Clearly, it’s working for them so it just may work for you.
The 5 Hour Rule is about focusing your full attention to and on what is called Deliberate Learning. Five hours a week, perhaps one hour per workweek day or five hours all at one time on one work day, without any distractions. Five hours a week during the workweek. Five hours a week when you give your full attention to learning and self-development.
Once you’ve made the commitment to the 5 Hour Rule and to yourself…
- Read. Reading is convenient and easy. You can always have an eBook or old fashioned book with you wherever you are. Reading a chapter a day in that book you’ve always wanted to read is definitely doable. Any book will do.
- Reflect. Take the opportunity you’ve created for yourself to reflect upon/think about lessons you’ve learned and how to apply those lessons. Develop ideas you have that you’d like to explore in the future. Keep a journal on these lessons and ideas so you don’t forget them. Structure/calendar your reflection time so you don’t get distracted or allow anyone/thing else impend upon that time.
- Experiment. Test your new ideas/theories regardless of how crazy or impossible they seem. Innovation never comes from doing the same thing over and over again. Even if your idea or theory fails, you’ll have learned valuable lessons from that failure. And you’ll apply those valuable lessons to another in the future.
- Do not confuse working with Deliberate Learning. This is easy to do and how you get stuck. The same old day-to-day stuff is not giving your self the essential time you need to grow and develop. Set specific learning goals and give yourself specific time to achieve those goals. You’ll be amazed.
- Focus on improvement, not just productivity. Productivity obviously plays a role in success but…look beyond your paycheck. Dedicate specific time, focus and energy to lifelong learning and to becoming the best version of yourself possible.
