The answers to all three questions are very closely related.

Let's start with #2. Most people who are very active have great difficulty slowing down and planning the steps ahead. This is just as true for very successful people as it is for very unsuccessful people.

Our society associates vim, vigor, and action with success. So, ironically, very active people are encouraged to MOVE at any cost. They run around doing things and making stuff happen. This is true even if they don't have a plan. Even if their actions are counter-productive.

They believe that any action is better than no action.

"The solution" is to simply get these people to believe that running really, really fast in the wrong direction is not the best thing to do.

You can't make people sit down. You can't make them stop. You can't make them think about what you want them to think about.

The toughest challenge for active people is to stop and believe that just sitting is a useful activity.

The irony is that these people, with all their energy, could be infinitely more productive if they focused their energy. They're like little stars whose light is diffused throughout the universe. If they just focused that light, the power to achieve things would be phenomenal.

As for question #3: Once we sit down and give ourselves a spot of quiet time, we often find that it's a lot harder than we thought it would be.

This is natural. We've fooled ourselves into believing we can multi-task. We've over-stuffed our lives with tasks and chores and commitments. We have an ON switch that makes us go 100 miles an hour.

But we don't have an OFF switch.

We don't have any practice sitting and thinking.

There's an old truism: Everything's difficult before it's easy. If you've never just sat quietly in a chair with your eyes closed, you won't be good at it. It will be difficult. It may actually be impossible at first.

How could you be good at something you've never done before?

The key to success in this area is to commit yourself to sitting quietly for 10-15 minutes every day for 30 days. The first day will be a lost cause. On the second day you'll know how to get started. On the third day you might actually do some thinking. On the fourth day you'll stop fidgeting.

It takes time. It takes commitment.

But I promise you that 30 days with quiet time will change your life. If you do it. You gotta do it.

And that brings us to question #1. How can this make any difference? Without overstating the case: Quiet Time is the single most important element of your future success.

The first benefit is that you'll learn how to have quiet time. That's a skill -- a muscle of success -- that can be used almost anywhere, almost anytime. When you're in a situation that's tense or stressful, the power to stop and think is invaluable.

And when there's no stress, the power to stop and quietly consider a situation is even greater.

Daily quiet time is the basis for exploring the values and principles in your life. It's also the basis for determining your long, medium, and short-term goals. It's where you can formulate your plan for who you want to be and how you'll become that.

Daily quiet time is all the power of all your potential boiled down into one simple fifteen minute block of time with no agenda. All you have to do is do it.

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On that fourth question: Yes, this can be related to your daily (excellent) habit of writing down your to-do lists for the day. I wouldn't replace quiet time with a daily list-making activity, but doing the two back-to-back  will help you focus very clearly on what needs to be done each day.

If you're having a bit of trouble getting started with quiet time, please check out the Relax Focus Succeed^® web site and click on Audio Products. You'll find a few tips on setting up a place for your daily quiet time. You'll also find a FREE download of a six minute relaxation exercise.

Try it. What have you got to gain?