Advice on How to Effectively Succeed in Life: Subtract First, Then Add

“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

Subtracting is just as effective in business as adding is. The trouble is we don’t think of that mathematical equation first. As an entrepreneur, I am always wanting to add things or processes without taking time to see how or even if this “new” thing should or can be added. It may be a great thing to add but we don’t take the time to see if the time is now to add it and if we add it, what will be affected.

Today, on a business call with a colleague, we discussed the process of elimination. My colleague shared how she looks at the process of elimination as troubleshooting. She has an IT background and shares that by troubleshooting the challenge, we slowly close off different process to see where the proverbial leak is. For example, if you shut off the water line to the kitchen sink to fix a leak but you still have a leak, you know the leak, or the problem isn’t coming from the kitchen sink. You continue to shut off other valves until you isolate the problem source.

We can use this same thinking to find out what is working and not working in our business as well in our personal lives.

I used to do a lot of adding without taking the time to see what was truly working before adding something new to my business. By the time I realized it wasn’t working, I invested either too much time or too much money and found myself too overwhelmed and simply quit. I would simply shut down and then think I failed. Now moving forward, I am working on being more strategic, more intentional about what I want to do and create. I want my “why” to be in alignment with my “what’, which means if I add anything I have to consider subtracting something else.

Subtracting also can mean delegating that task to someone else or finding another way to automate the process. I have found that I would feel like I had to do everything by myself which is another topic to discuss. But what I want to leave you with today is this:

1. Get clear on your purpose or intention
2. Figure out what’s working and what’s not
3. Before adding, consider what do you have to subtract.

As I mentioned in the beginning, this practice is just as effective in our personal lives as it is in business. In our personal life it may be eliminating or cutting back on social media or television time to spend more time with family or adding more time for personal development and reading.

What I believe is this: we are creatures of habit and how we do anything is how we do everything.

Quote Source: https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/subtraction.html

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