Strategic Discipline Blog

"The more control you have over your attention, the more control you have over your future. And it starts with having enough courage to protect your time.

It's so easy to say yes. We want to be agreeable, helpful, liked. That's how time disappears, and attention becomes fragmented: not in big chunks, but in a thousand small concessions.

What you trade your attention for is what your life becomes."

~ James Clear

What You Trade Your Attention For Is What Your Life Becomes

It’s easy to say yes. We want to be helpful, agreeable, and liked. But that desire can cost us dearly. Time doesn’t disappear in large blocks — it’s whittled away by a thousand small concessions. Your attention, scattered and fragmented, becomes the silent thief of your potential.

James Clear’s quote is a powerful reminder — but it's only the beginning. Attention is critical, but without self-awareness, true and lasting change remains out of reach.

The Loop That Shapes Your Life

In Change Your Mind. Create New Results, we learned that each of us has 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day — and that 90% of those thoughts are the same ones we had yesterday. Most of them are subconscious. They run on autopilot, quietly looping in the background. And so, most days unfold almost identically.

No wonder we grow frustrated with our lives.
We crave transformation, but we live by repetition.

To break the cycle, we must begin with awareness:

• Awareness of our thoughts.
• Awareness of how those thoughts lead to the same choices.
• Awareness of how those choices lead to the same actions and behaviors.
• Awareness of how those actions create the same experiences — and ultimately, the same emotions.

Because the result of an experience is how we feel.
And when we keep thinking the same thoughts, we keep feeling the same emotions. The loop tightens.

Change Begins With a Thought

To create lasting change, you must interrupt that loop.
You need to:

• Think new thoughts
• Make new choices
• Take new actions
• Live new experiences
• Feel new emotions

And suddenly, your thoughts begin to shift — and with them, your future.

But first, you must think about your thoughts.

Ask yourself:

• What thoughts do I have every day?
  Write them down.
• How do those thoughts shape my choices?
• What actions and behaviors flow from those choices?
  Write those down too.

Patterns emerge. And once you see them, you can begin to reshape them.

My Awakening: Small Changes, Big Awareness

My first session with my NeuroChangeSolutions coach sparked subtle but immediate changes.

Every morning, I drank a cup of coffee. Without fail. But I asked myself — why?

I don’t even particularly like coffee. I drink it because I found a sugar-free hazelnut creamer that makes it tolerable. But deep down, I realized it wasn’t about taste. Coffee had become an excuse — a delay tactic to avoid starting my day. It wasn’t good or bad. It just wasn’t necessary.

That insight changed everything. From that day forward, I stopped delaying and started moving.

Another shift: I noticed I had no set wake-up time. My mornings were reactive — dictated by my schedule instead of designed by intention. That changed too.

Then came the most surprising awareness.

I’m diabetic. Every evening, I would calculate my insulin — but I’d quietly give myself a little extra. Why? So that around 8:30 pm, when my blood sugar dropped, I had an “excuse” to eat dessert.

It was unconscious. But it was sabotage disguised as indulgence. Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. And I changed.

The Power of Becoming Conscious

These weren’t earth-shattering revelations. But they were life-shifting.
They only emerged when I slowed down, observed my habits, and became aware of what I was unconsciously doing.

Most of us are conditioned. We develop habits to satisfy desires we don’t fully acknowledge. We repeat them until our bodies become our minds — acting out the same routines without intention or awareness.

To create a new life — one that aligns with what you truly want — you must first become conscious of the unconscious. Your thoughts. Your actions. Your emotional states.

Where Is Your Attention Going?

Ask yourself:

• What am I trading my attention for?
• Is it my phone? Endless scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Reddit, Facebook?
• Am I choosing short-term distraction over long-term direction?

What would happen if you took back your attention — even a portion of it?

What if you invested it in your dreams?
Your goals?
Your purpose?

Because in the end, what you trade your attention for is what your life becomes.

Challenge your team, your business, yourself. Contact Positioning Systems to schedule a free exploratory meeting to challenge, inspire, and ignite purpose and passion in your business!  

Create an environment where everyone is inspired to give their best.

Call to Action

Challenge your team, your business, yourself. Contact Positioning Systems to schedule a free exploratory meeting to challenge, inspire, and ignite purpose and passion in your business!  

Create an environment where everyone is inspired to give their best.

Growth demands Strategic Discipline.

In Change Your Mind. Create New Results Training, we share how your Personality is made up of how You Think, Act, and Feel. Next blog, we explore why to change, you must think, act, and feel differently. Does your personality determine your personal reality? Or is your personal reality determining your personality?

Building an enduring great organization requires disciplined people, disciplined thought, disciplined action, superior results, producing a distinctive impact on the world.

Discipline sustains momentum over a long period of time, laying the foundations for lasting endurance.

A winning habit starts with 3 Strategic Disciplines: Priority, Metrics, and Meeting Rhythms.   Forecasting, accountability, individual, and team performance improve dramatically.

Meeting Rhythms achieve a disciplined focus on performance metrics to drive growth.

Let Positioning Systems help your business achieve these outcomes on the four most Important Decisions your business faces:

Positioning Systems helps mid-sized ($5M - $500M+) businesses Scale-UP. We align your business to focus on Your One Thing! Contact dwick@positioningsystems.com to Scale Up your business! Take our Four Decisions Needs Assessment to discover how your business measures against other Scaled Up companies. We’ll contact you.

NEXT BLOG –Your Personality Determines Your Personal Reality