The Power of Words
Starting Each Day With A Little Thinking...Patience
I hate to admit I’m wrong. Unfortunately, I get the chance to do it VERY often! When something new shows up on my radar, I’m quick to rush in and get started. After all, if I get started NOW it will be done sooner. Right? Maybe not. This characteristic must be hereditary — at least on the Y chromosone — as I watch my son display the exact same characteristics time after time. At first, I stepped in and told him the right way to do it. That didn’t go over so well. Over time, we’ve progressed to a point where he’ll open his ears — partially — to my thoughts; and, on occassion, even step back, consider the task at hand, make a plan, and execute it. It’s been fun to watch him learn and grow; and, through the process I have learned a ton about patience.
After a ton of thought, I’ve come to a conclusion with regards to patience: Patience is a virtue desired by many, possessed by few, appreciated by fewer, and understood by even less. My journey on the path to patience is far from complete. However, it’s at least started and I recognize that this particular road likely will extend out beyond my horizon.
Today I pose two questions rather than the normal one:
Are you in the desire, possess, appreciate or understand phase? Is question one really about patience?
As always, thanks for the time.
Routine
Getting out of bed before 5:00AM WAS not easy. However, after doing it for more years than I can remember it’s gotten to be relatively routine. Now I’m not looking for a “you’re crazy” or an “attaboy”? What I am looking for is for you to question why you do things the way you do; and, more importantly, is what you’re doing getting you closer to where you REALLY want to go.
The irony is that I get up early because I’m lazy! As a morning person, my productivity is probably 400% greater prior to 9:00 AM than it is after 1:00 PM. By getting up early, I can: exercise, review my goals and aspirations, make my to do list, get my critical items done, check in on my e-mails and social media, do some thinking, and work on one of my long term goals ALL in the first few hours of the day. Then I’ve got the rest of the day free to do as I please. For me, getting up early let’s me get the most done AND still have time to relax.
If you want to have a bit of fun, try this. Take a sheet of paper (or spreadsheet if you’re an engineer/geek) and list out the hours of the day. For the next week, write down what you did each hour, how much you enjoyed/didn’t enjoy the hour, and what you accomplished. At the end of the week, take a look at what the list shows, and ask yourself one question:
Is your daily routine structured to let you enjoy today and prepare for tomorrow?
As always, thanks for the time.
Failure
The project was a failure. He’s a failure. The team failed. Biting words that rarely elicit a positive response.
Why are we programmed to respond so negatively to the concept of “failure”? This one’s always puzzled me. While an ideal world would have every action rewarded with a positive outcome, reality is much different. In most cases we try two, three, four, or even more things before we get to the right answer. Sure with experience (i.e. repeated failures) we get much better at avoiding the false starts. However, each time we fail, we learn; and, hopefully, refine our approach. In my opinion, failure IS THE KEY to success. Unfortunately, many folks look at things differently and discourage taking any false steps. The result is hesitation, doubt, and frustration. Ironically, if you’d have just “rolled the dice”, adjusted based on the outcome, and moved forward with a new/better approach, you’d probably get to the desired end state quicker and with much less effort. Thomas Edison said it very well: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.
Have you failed today or should I say have you grown today?
As always, thanks for the time.
Affirmations
In Steven Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” he shares that “All things are created twice. First mentally then physically”. Think about that for a moment. While he doesn’t suggest that thinking WILL make a new reality, he does suggest that WITHOUT a vision the new reality will not emerge.
An affirmation is a positive statement about what you are or will be. For example one of my affirmations is “I have an established fitness schedule that I adhere to regularly”. Does that mean that I accomplish this every day? No. However, I do my very best to review my affirmations daily; AND, as a result (i.e. since I started using the concept of affirmations), I do a much better job than I had previously. Simply taking the time to right down the vision and review it daily provides the trigger to make the change. I’ll spare you the detail on why it works — lots of science behind this. For now just accept that Mr. Covey is a very wise man who provided some great guidance with his “All things twice” approach.
What’s stopping you from taking the taking the time to write down what you will be when you grow up and reviewing this on a daily basis?
As always, thanks for the time.
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