Get Results – The White Piece of Paper Technique

By Paul Piotrowski on Apr 10, 2006 in Productivity

About six month ago I discovered a nice little technique which might help you build wealth in any are of life you decide to apply it to, from building financial wealth to living healthy, having wealthy relationships or whatever else you choose.

For several years I have been studying the subject of health and more specifically eating healthy. I have looked into all kinds of diets, weight loss programs, exercise programs and read many books on the subjects of nourishment and feeding my body in a healthy way. Although I have made very good progress on improving my understanding of what truly is healthy for my body and what isn’t, I was feeling somewhat frustrated by the fact that although I was learning about being healthy I wasn’t getting any healthier.

The subject of health is riddled with different opinions and most of them conflict with one another. Normally when I set out to improve an area of my life I’ll spend the time to research and under a stand that area as much as possible before making any drastic changes in my life. I am not the type of person that would go to a so-called “expert” on a subject, ask for advice and then take that advice blindly for the rest of my life. I like to get at least a basic understanding of everything that affects my life and health is a big and important area of my life.�

One day I realized that I’ve been researching what’s healthy for over 3 years but really haven’t taken any consistent action towards becoming healthy myself. I grabbed my journal and started to ask myself why. I thought about it for a bit and then I realized that during the 3 year period of time I’ve read countless books and looked at countless diets and systems and they all had many moving parts to them that completely interfered and contradicted with each other.

One doctor would say that in order to be healthy, you need to cut out all carbohydrates from your diet and eat protein in the form of animal meat. Other doctors would say the exact opposite, saying that animal meat is bad for our bodies. Some would say you need to count calories and weigh yourself regularly, others would say counting calories is exactly what you shouldn’t be doing. There are almost as many opinions out there as there are people on earth, and it’s difficult to find what truly is the “truth” out there, especially when it comes to this topic.

So, I thought about this dilemma for a while and I realized that even though I’ve already researched this topic for over 3 years, it might take me another 10 or 20 years to truly discover what’s true for me, and I realized that a big part of that realization would have to come from taking personal action and trying things out for myself and listening to what my body tells me.

This is where I invented the White Piece of Paper Technique. Whenever you feel somewhat confused or overwhelmed about an area of your life you can use it to gain clarity. I know this is going to seem very simple, but it really worked wonders for me. Follow these steps exactly as written and something wonderful might happen for you.

Simply follow these steps:

1) Firstly, go grab a blank piece of paper and a pen. Use a white piece of paper with no other writing on it at all, front or back. Stop reading for a second and go grab that piece of paper. Stop. Go grab that paper and a pen.

2) At the top of that paper, write out the area of concern in a short simple question form. For example I was feeling frustrated with not being healthy and feeling overwhelmed with all the information I was gathering and not being sure who to listen to and what to do. So for me the question was “What do I need to do to become healthier?”. Write your question on top of that piece of paper.

3) Next, below the question, write down the number 1 and put a dot or bracket or circle around it. Now, ask yourself the question you wrote out and let your brain give you any answer that pops into your head. Don’t worry if it’s the right answer or if it’s true or if it’s something you heard or read from somewhere. In my example when I asked myself “What do I need to do to become healthier?” some of these thoughts popped into my head:

- “I need to exercise more. But what kind of exercise? Cardio I think, hmmm…I don’t know…”

- “I need to eat more veggies. What kind of veggies though? Are potatoes veggies? Or are they starchy and bad for you? Maybe some potatoes are good, but not too much. I don’t know…Broccoli is good, and what else? Hmm….”

- “I need to cut out a lot of red meat I’m eating. Is chicken good though? I need protein right? Well not really, broccoli has protein in it, and what about all these bird flu’s going around, I don’t know… it’s probably not good for me, but is it really that bad? I don’t know.”- Etc.These types of thoughts might come to you as you ask yourself your question. What you want to do is to allow yourself to have these answers come to you and if an answer you think of is not something you’re 100% completely sure about yet, keep moving onto something else until you find the one thing , the one action step that you know for sure, 100% to be true that needs to be done. I wasn’t yet sure about whether or not I needed to count calories, stop eating meat, eat more broccoli or cut out carbs. But one thing that all of the books I’ve read and all the people seem to agree on is that we should drink more water. Not only that, but intuitively it made sense to me that I should be drinking approx. 6-8 glasses of water or so for my body size. Yes, this was ONE thing I knew I needed to improve on as I have not been drinking enough water. I drank pop and other beverages but not water. At least not enough.

So, once you have this ONE thing that you KNOW for sure you need to do, no matter how trivial it is, write it down beside the #1. So for me, I had a blank piece of white paper with the question “What do I need to do to become healthier?” and then a #1 with a “Drink 6-8 glasses of water per day.” written beside it.

4) Now, here’s what you need to do. You need to forget about anything else to do with this subject for now and get yourself to do that ONE thing that’s written on that piece of paper, and do it consistently. Until that thing is done, don’t worry about any more steps. Do that one thing first and then come back and do the rest. If it’s an action item that needs to be repeated regularly (ie. doing something per day, per week etc.) then do it consistently for 30 - 60 days before moving onto #2.

While you continue to research and find out more truths about the subject (the #2, #3, #4 truths etc.) continue to work on #1.

So for me, I needed to stop worrying about what’s good and what isn’t, whether turkey meat is good or is chicken better, or whether spinach was better than broccoli or whether white rice was better than brown rice. Those were important, but they were not as important as the very first thing I needed to do, which was “Drink 6-8 glasses of water per day.”

So, what you do is you forget about all the other opinions you might have on that one topic and just focus on DOING the one thing that you know for sure 100% you need to do.

I realized that until I start drinking 6-8 glasses of water per day, I don’t have a “I don’t know what to do.” problem, I have a “How do I get myself to do this one simple thing.” problem.

So, I stopped worrying about anything else and just focusing on getting step 1 done. I researched and found the best water filtration system I could purchase for my house and purchased it. I realized that I wasn’t going to drink water unless it was conveniently in front of me in a bottle so I went out and bought a couple of water bottles (I’ll be getting more this week, 4-6 re-usable bottles might be ideal.)

Even though I’m not at 6-8 glasses of water per day yet, I have significantly increased my intake of good healthy water and have reduced my intake of pop. I have recently started looking at improving other areas of my health now that I’ve got #1 on my list under control, but I didn’t even bother with them until #1 was well under way.

This way, even if it takes me another 6 months to discover the next “truth” that makes sense to me 100% without any doubt, I will be at least getting somewhat healthier due to the 6-8 glasses of water I’m drinking. This works better than trying to figure out everything on a subject before starting on the first step.

Try this out for yourself. If you’re having relationship problems ask yourself what you will need to do in order to improve your relationship. Write down one thing that you know 100% for sure you need to be doing and then forget everything else and just focus on doing that one thing to start.

Need to increase your savings? How about skipping a donut and putting $1 per day (every day) in a glass jar? Don’t worry about how you’ll invest it, how it will grow, how the taxes will be handled, whether or not you should buy stocks or mutual funds or real estate. STOP. Just focus on doing #1, putting $1 per day into a glass jar. Do it for 30 days and the allow yourself to figure out what #2 on the list should be. (Pick your own #1 action step, this is just my example)

Need to exercise regularly? Can you do one sit-up or one push-up? Forget about buying or joining a gym, or what kind of exercise you need to be doing, or whether you need a new jogging outfit or what time you’ll need to wake up in the morning to do a 45minute work out. Do one sit-up or one push-up per day for 30 days. If you can’t do it, you don’t have a knowledge problem, you have a self-discipline problem. Solve that first. (Steve Pavlina wrote an excellent article on Self Discipline you might want to check out).

That’s it, that’s all there is to it. It’s about clearing away clutter and simplifying your action steps into one simple to follow action step that you can focus on. Once you try to follow that ONE simple step for 30 or 60 days you will start to encounter some of the real reasons why you haven’t been able to get results in an area of your life.

I know it sounds simplistic, but try it out. It might help you like it helped me.

-Paul

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