Today is January 10 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is "How often do you focus on your process?'
Too often people tend to think that focusing on a specific goal is the only thing that matters to achieving success.
While that is certainly important, it is just one of the many strategies involved with navigating the chaos.
An entirely different approach is to focus on the process.
Two process driven people that navigated the chaos are Ursula M. Burns and Scott Adams.
Burns knows a thing or two about focusing on the process of self-improvement.
In July 2009 Ursula M. Burns became the CEO of Xerox and in so doing became the first black-American woman CEO to head a Fortune 500 company.
Her success required a high level of energy as she was raised by a single mother who was a Panamanian immigrant in the Baruch Houses, a New York City housing project.
“Her mom scraped together enough funds from doing domestic work to send her daughter to Catholic high school.”
Burns obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering in 1980 and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University. She committed herself to continous self-improvement.
In a June 7, 2015 Commencement speech at Williams College, Burns discussed how being poor, black, and a woman did not deter her.
With her mother’s guidance, a fierce determination to succeed, and a high level of energy, Burns achieved tremendous success and in 2014 Forbes rated her the 22nd most powerful woman in the world.
Like Burns, Scott Adams also focused on the process.
In his 2013 book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life, Scott Adams highlights two important aspects of his success: “Good ideas have no value because the world already has too many of them. The market rewards execution, not ideas;” and “Goals are for losers. Focus on the process.”
Adams is the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, and business.
As Thomas Edison observed "The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do."
Burns and Adams both focused on the process of continually improving and challenging themselves.
As you go about your day consider asking yourself "How often do you focus on your process of improving yourself?"