The Power of Words
Starting Each Day With A Little Thinking...Balance
The flattening of our world facilitated by the rise of nearly instantaneous information flow has brought balance to the forefront of all of our lives. Unfortunately, many individuals have yet to realize the importance of dealing with this topic. While life both in and out of the workplace has always involved trade offs, the hyper-connectivity of today’s environment has massively increased the number and frequency of these trade offs. We have an expanded number of choices we must make each and every day. People are struggling with this increase in choice freedom.
In my opinion, due to this expansion of choices, balance will become the most important topic over the twenty years. Historically, the recipe for success is well defined: work hard in school, get in to a good college, take a good job, get married, work until you’re 65, retire someplace warm, and enjoy life. That recipe is not working for many. The increased number of choices and trade offs are not factored in to the traditional model. Individuals are trying to “do it all” when faced with an unmanageable number of “requirements”. They are struggling as it is simply not possible to avoid the choice issue by working harder and doing everything.
Conscious focus on balance is the key to dealing with the expansion of choices. Only when one steps back, evaluates what is important to them, and accepts that you must make trade offs, are they able to realize a sense of personal satisfaction. Only when they define success and identify how to balance conflicting priorities are they able to find peace of mind.
With that in mind:
Have you taken the time to define what your balanced life looks like?
As always, thanks for the time.
Aspirations
Closely related to affirmations are aspirations. In fact, I probably got the cart in front of the horse by addressing affirmations first and aspirations second. But that’s no big surprise as I tend to follow “fire, ready, aim” more than “ready, aim, fire”!
Aspirations are those lofty goals and ideal visions that dance around your head during those “what if”, “if only”, or “I’d love to be able to say that” moments. Those things like “I’d love to be able to retire at 40”. “I’d love to be able to play the piano”. “I’d love to be a great speaker”.
You can actually look at them as the “fuel” for your “affirmations”. An example. Suppose you’re thinking “I’d love to be able to run a marathon”. You dream about it, talk about it, and generally really want to do it. That’s your mind telling you that you need to take action. And the mind is very persistent — even down right annoying on occasion. If your mind is speaking to you with the “I’d really love to” message, that’s an aspiration that you need to start pursuing. That’s when you turn to our friend the affirmation. Back to our marathon idea, you convert from the aspiration of “I’d love to be able to run a marathon” to the affirmation of “I have a training plan to run a marathon that I follow each day”. Step 1. Step 2. In the future, I’ll go through the rest of the steps.
However, first we have to address today’s question:
Have you taken the time to write down your biggest aspiration(s)?
As always, thanks for the time.
Affirmations – Round 2!
I’m going to start with a strong statement: affirmations are probably the most powerful things available to change our reality.
Let’s back up one step and define affirmations: An affirmation is a personal, positive statement about who we are or what we do. Two keys here. The first is “personal” and the second is “positive statement”. A couple of examples:
I spend time each and every day to exercise to better my physical well being.
I watch what I say at all times and avoid passing judgment on others.
They are very brief, very easy to understand, and can be very powerful.
A personal testimonial. Several years back (more than five!) I wrote down my personal affirmations. I try to review them on a daily basis the first thing in the AM. The reality is that for a few months I’ll do a great job and then I’ll slip to only one or two times a week. However, each time I read them I find that I either (i) made progress and am becoming more like the statement or (ii) can identify where I had an opportunity to have done better over the past day or week. Amazingly — or maybe not so amazingly! — over time I have found more of the former than the latter. That’s because affirmations have the power to change the way you think; and, in turn, the way you behave.
If you have any doubt about this, think about what you see with children. Think about the kids that receive positive statements about who they are. Think about the kids that are subject to the verbal abuse of the adults in their life. If you have any doubts about the power of the brain to morph based on what it is told, looking at kids and how they develop should put that to rest.
With that in mind:
Why not tell your mind who you want to be by writing down your affirmations and review them daily for the next month?
As always, thanks for the time.
Confidence
If there’s one trait that — in my mind — separates folks that achieve versus those that struggle it’s confidence. Regardless of ability, intelligence, size, background, race, gender, or age an individual with confidence just flat out gets it done!
What is confidence? My definition is “believing in yourself”. And that definition highlights EXACTLY why confidence is the key to achievement. There is not a chance in heXX that you are going to get others to buy in to your ideas, goals, or causes unless you believe in them first.
One of my favorite quotes is from Steven Covey and speaks directly to this: “All things are created twice. First mentally and then physically”.
So today’s question:
Do you believe in yourself?
As always, thanks for the time.
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