Own Your ONE Thing

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
- Steve Jobs

A core pillar of the ROCKET Goals framework, “Own Your ONE Thing” is a clarion call for staying focused and setting clear priorities - but another way to read this phrase is “Own YOUR One Thing”. In other words - work diligently to discover your own unique voice and contribution to the world. Not only will this effort pay off in terms of inner satisfaction, but it will also help you to stand out in whatever field you pursue.

As Steve Jobs alluded to, it’s critical to dial into your own heart and frequency in order to discover how to think for yourself. Independent thinking is always challenging, and especially so in today’s media saturated world where we are surrounded by a flood of ideas and opinions 24/7/365.

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Here are five essential steps you can take to Own YOUR One Thing:

1). Be Honest With Yourself
All true change begins with honesty. You need to be able to accurately assess who you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and understand what you truly want to accomplish. This step can be difficult and take time, but it is the foundation for discovering YOUR One Thing.

2). Keep Trusting Your Intuition, Even If It’s Wrong
Sometimes we get “trapped by dogma” because we lose confidence in our own thoughts and ideas. We try something, it doesn’t work, and then stop trusting our own thinking. The path out of this dilemma is to remind yourself that even the best thinkers and most successful people in the world are not infallible. Everyone makes mistakes. If you make a mistake, take comfort in knowing that it was YOUR mistake.

3). Get Quiet
It is a noisy world. We are bombarded - not just by literal noise, but the noise of media, friends, family, etc. Build a habit where you spend time with your own thoughts and ideas, blocking out all outside influence. A trip to your local library has a clue in this regard: many of the world’s top thinkers, artists, statesmen, and inventors all kept journals and diaries. Did they do this for the sake of future biographers because they knew they would be famous someday? I think the opposite is true. It was the act of journaling and spending time with their own thoughts that propelled them to fame and greatness!

4). Learn to Enjoy Your Own Company
The life of Steve Jobs has been well documented, and even made into a movie, so even at a distance we can get some sense of who he was as a person. To an incredible degree, he always seemed “comfortable in his own skin”. Steve Jobs truly seemed to enjoy being Steve Jobs. As you think about building YOUR One Thing, make sure to focus on becoming a person that you actually enjoy spending time with.

5). Set a No-Compromise Zone
Steve Jobs had very demanding product standards that he would not deviate from, regardless of whether he offended people, made work difficult, or whether people liked him or not. But he also held himself to these standards, constantly making sure that he was helping to build “insanely great” devices for people. Have the courage to define and set YOUR standards and hold to them, especially when things feel a bit uncomfortable. 

Own YOUR One Thing
Developing inner conviction and holding true to your own ideals takes time and effort. Honesty, intuition and a habit of quiet reflection are all important elements in building YOUR One Thing. Finally, it takes patience and resolution to carve out your own path. These steps do not always have an immediate impact. In the case of Steve Jobs, we can see the legacy of his thinking and innovation long after his untimely death, as Apple continues to develop and deliver products that are unique and uncompromising. While not many people will leave behind a global company, each of us can learn to live with conviction, clarity and a unique sense of calling.