Take a look at your book shelf, hard drive or DVD collection.
Now be honest, how many of your Qigong books have creased spines? Have written notes in the margins are underlined or have highlighted text?
How many of the Pdf’s, Podcasts, videos on your computer have you opened and read, listened to or watched and made notes on?
If you signed up for my 21 day free online qigong course, how far did you get? Be honest.
How many of the DVD instructional videos did you practice for more than 3 months?
Now, as I’m fond of saying, the content of this Qigong blog post can apply to more than just your Qigong training. So take a look at all the information you have.
And then for all of these media types, how much of that information have you applied?
Because if you’ve got a lot of information, not all of it can be bad, some of it must be very good.
So if your finances, your health, your weight, your relationships, or anything you are interested in, is not at the level you want it to be – some of the responsibility for that has to come back on you.
Don’t worry I’ve done this myself. Let me rephrase that, I still do this myself.
I don’t mean to make you feel bad. But I’ve noticed that until I take responsibility for a situation, I’m powerless to change it. So please stick with me.
You see, there is a popular saying that I grew up, maybe you did too. It’s this:
Knowledge is power.
Looking up the word ‘Knowledge’ in my 1298 page Chambers English dictionary, I find this definition:
“that which is known; information, instruction…”
I guess that in the past information was difficult to obtain, but with the rise of the Internet information is so easy to get hold of. To prove this look at these two statistics:
“..more content is created now in 48 hours than was from the beginning of time until 2003.” – Eric Shmidt from Google.
And:
Youtube: 48 hours of video uploaded every minute – source youtube blogspot blog.
And it’s only speeding up.
Clearly ‘Knowledge is power‘ is no longer true. I believe that Information/Knowledge that is applied is power.
The solution to this information overload that we face is to:
- Get clear on your aims and objectives.
- Research the best source available for helping you fulfill your aims and objectives.
- Acquire the information from that source.
- Apply that information until you reach your aims and objectives.
- Rinse and repeat.
Couple of caveats:
Keep measuring – regularly check your results to be certain that you are making progress.
Remove all distraction sources – remove yourself from all email lists, twitter feeds, Facebook pages etc – that are not directly linked to the source you are using to reach your aims and objectives.
You may think that by receiving newsletters via email from several other Qigong information providers that you are keeping up with what’s happening in the ‘Qigong Universe’. But from my experience, what usually happens is that your head gets turned by the new ‘Shiny’ thing they are selling.
Listen, it might start with a free report, video, webinar but it will lead to a sale. In the business these are referred to as ‘ethical bribes.’ It usually works like this:
- Present a problem.
- Show that your product is the solution.
- Provide unquestionable proof of this.
- Present a highly desirable proposition.
- Create urgency.
The end result?
You never reach your aims and objectives, because you are being distracted from your path and having to start again.
Your focused mind can be as powerful as a laser beam. But if this focus is diluted by too much information, from different sources then your results will be poor.
Every month I go through my email, twitter feeds and all media that comes into my ‘sphere of awareness‘ and filter out all distractions.
If you’re having difficulty staying focused, on task and achieving your aims and objectives I’d suggest that you do too.
Always remember that the acquisition of information is pointless, unless you apply it.
Bye for now,
Marcus James Santer
