The Red Zone

"Roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes." - Pareto's Principle

In football, the red zone, is the last 20 yards standing between the offensive team and the end zone. One of the best markers of a great offense is the percentage that they score a touchdown, given that they enter the red zone. Relatively speaking, it is also the most difficult 20 yards to move the offense; the defense has substantially more field to cover during the other 80 yards, leaving much wider windows for the offense to exploit. Ironically, the red zone is the perfect manifestation to the final 20% accounting for 80% of the effort in Pareto's Principle.

The Red Zone also manifests itself in every day life... just think about how many people you see at the gym with pretty decent physiques, yet how few you see that look truly exceptional, or how about how many projects you have laying around that are "done" minus a few of the truly difficult tasks?

Getting stuck in The Red Zone has been a problem of mine in the past, but consistently punching through it is the skill that I am currently most working on, and let's face it, punching through is a bitch.

I believe the way our education is structured is one of the reasons why so many get stuck in The Red Zone. Getting 100% in a class is rewarded equally to getting a 90%, yet getting a 100% requires substantially more work. Combine that with the fact the students are typically taking 5 or 6 classes at a time, and focusing on getting 100% in one class will likely leave only enough time and mental currency for a 70% in the other classes, yet it is perfectly feasible to get 90% in every class(pretty much sums me up as a straight-A student). We become very good at figuring out what 90% looks like and shooting for that.

What is my biggest solution for punching through? Treat it just like the best offense in the NFL would; visualize nothing besides the end zone, drop the trick plays and buckle down and play tough football. That means that I am only focused on one project at a time, I only read one book at a time, and I (am still attempting to) focus on only one fitness related aspect at a time. You wouldn't see the Broncos(this past seasons best offense, minus the Super Bowl) attempting to score on two fields at a time, would you?

So stop settling for field goals, or worse yet, turnovers, and start punching through The Red Zone.