Your effectiveness today is the direct result of your past choices. In other words, your self-leadership.

It is the direct consequence of the decisions you made yesterday, last week, last month, last year, even decades ago.

In a sense, any measure of success—health, wealth, happiness, well-being, relationships—is a direct consequence of how effective you have been up until this moment in time.

Effectiveness is the degree to which you are able to produce a desired effect.

When you can cause an intended effect, you are effective.

The Effectiveness Equation

You have most probably heard of Einstein’s famous equation, E = MC², where E is energy, M is mass, and C is the speed of light (which is the fastest thing in the universe at nearly 300,000,000 metres per second).

Likewise, your professional and personal effectiveness can also be expressed as a formula, whereby your effectiveness is the product of your mental, emotional, and physical ability to cause an intended outcome or result.

In my book, The Flea Circus, I’ve adapted Einstein’s equation to take into account these factors and produced an equation that you can follow to supercharge your effectiveness:

E = MC² (or E = M x C₁ x C₂ )

In this new equation, E is effectiveness, M is mindset, C₁ is capability, and C₂ is capacity.

Your mindset, capability, and capacity are the three essential or dependent variables that determine your overall level of effectiveness.

Mindset, Capability & Capacity

Your mindset (M) is your attitude, especially in respect to your attitude to yourself, your physical, mental, and emotional energy levels, and your time.

Your capability (C₁) is your power or ability to do something. It is the extent of your ability to fulfill a need or requirement.

When you are capable, the chance of successfully completing an intended task is high. When you have low capability, or you are somewhat incapable, the chance of failure is high.

Where capability has a qualitative aspect to it, your capacity (C₂) has a quantitative aspect to it.

Capacity is measured in volume, and like a cup or a bucket it refers to how much you can ‘hold’.

If your physical, mental, and emotional capacity is high, you are able to handle a lot. If your physical, mental, and emotional capacity is low, you cannot handle as much.

Effectiveness is About Choice

According to The Effectiveness Equation, along with the right mindset, the higher your capability and the higher your capacity, the higher your personal and professional effectiveness will be.

Anything that boosts your capability and capacity will boost your effectiveness. Anything that limits or diminishes your capability and capacity will limit or diminish your effectiveness.

These three variables—mindset, capability, capacity—are therefore what you need to focus on to supercharge your effectiveness.

But if you want to pare effectiveness down to one word, that word would be choice.

The choices you make are powerful because they either boost your mindset, capability, and capacity, or they put limits on them.

Your choices either confine you like a flea in a flea circus, or they release you. You choose your limits.

Your present level of effectiveness is thus a reflection of the choices you have made till now, and:

Your future level of effectiveness will be a reflection of the choices you make from this moment forward.

Effectiveness really is about choice.

Effective Mindshift

When you consider the current issues you face, and trace them back to the choices you have made, you will uncover the vital link between your thoughts and the experiences that followed.

You will also see the importance of shifting the focus of your attention if you want to manifest a different experience.

For example, seeing the glass half-full results in a different life experience—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual— than seeing the glass half-empty.

But it’s just a choice. A choice of where to shift the focus of your attention.

This shift in focus is a mindshift challenge I call ‘The Life Leadership Imperative’.

It has the power to not only change your life for the better, but also that of your family, your friends, your community, the entire planet.

The contemporary definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.

The path to your prosperous future, therefore, is created by thinking differently—by thinking like a Life Leader.

As a Life Leader, you must be true to yourself and be brave to express the real you.

You must focus on who you really are and live it.

In doing so, you will discover your inner power.

And those with inner power are effective in everything they do and in everything they are.

They are effective Life Leaders.