Thoughts don’t have to become things……

Ok, that heading maybe misleading but it leads me into a pet hate of mine. This surfaced today but I have seen it many times before. It is a variation of the sinister chain letters that used to circulate in hard copy and have now transferred to the internet.

Essentially the email runs something like – do not delete this email/poem/story. Unless you forward it to at least 20 of your closest friends your husband/wife/kids/family/all that you love will meet a grisly death in the next 7 days just see what happened to people who deleted it. However if you do forward it, you will get an amazing piece of good luck etc. etc. You know the form.

Now, I hate these because they play on people’s fears and it’s completely bogus. However that isn’t the point of this post. It set me thinking that these things work for a couple of reasons. Firstly people think they may as well forward it “just in case”.

Secondly though, there is the recognition factor. “You will have amazing luck” – if you go looking for examples of that in your daily life I bet you will find it. You don’t need to be threatened by such a malevolent email to do that. Try it – if you believe it you will attract it to you and it is amazing what you will see.

The problem with this is the flip side. If you go looking for doom and disaster then guess what? You will find that too. However, this is a choice. You can chose what to look for and your life can be affected either way. Note that this is absolutely NOT a result of a sinister email but if we allow that to be the start it can have that effect. It reminds me of an example I heard many years ago in a comedy show. Apologies if I misquote:

“Walking under ladders is definitely unlucky”

“why do you say that?”

“My Dad walked under a ladder once, 50 years later, all his teeth had fallen out”

Depends how you chose to view things!

Mind your language

Well, as one of the facets of life I particularly value is personal growth, it is always a positive thing when it happens – especially unexpectedly.

Today I was running an Inflection Point Workshop and I mentioned that the phrase: “It is what it is” is one I hear often and dislike. Why? Well because in my mind it has always been synonymous with a surrender of accountability. In other words, “it is this way and there really isn’t anything to be done about it, so why try?”

To me that has always meant an abdication of responsibility to challenge and seek alternative, perhaps better ways. Sometimes it is a phrase used to justify inappropriate behavior. “Oh, he’s just like that – it is what it is”.

So where’s the learning? One of my fellow work shop members called me on it and described a different interpretation, one that I hadn’t previously thought about. For her, that phrase means: “This is the situation, no point in over-analysing it, what do we do to move forward?”

So, whenever we hear the exact same phrase we will have a different interpretation. The learning for me was this: Think about possible interpretations of a phrase before jumping to a conclusion about intent. Especially if your thoughts lead to action or words that might be inappropriate.

Are there any phrases/language that triggers a similar reaction for you? Is it possible there is another way to look at it? If so, perhaps that was the intended message.

I know that

It is always a surprise to me how life presents us with so many learning opportunities. Often I find they are buried in familiar situations. I was working with my business partner in one of our seminars when he came up with the quote about the most dangerous three words in the English language: “I know that”.

Thanks for that Kevin! I have been thinking about that for a few days now. Whenever we think that we know something, it really gives us an excuse not to pay too much attention and means we don’t have to try to learn. It can also be dismissive of someone else’s efforts to help us – “Oh, I know all that”.

Herein lies the problem. Even if we think we know something really well, there is always and I mean always, something new to learn. Some new angle, someone else’s perspective that we hadn’t thought of etc.

Worse, saying we know something implies that we don’t even need to get better and/or there is no growth to be had in this area. Now, all things change. Even if we do know something today, who is to say it won’t change in some way tomorrow? If we assume that we already know we are actually wrong.

I guess the point of this post is that is about raising awareness. Every time you hear yourself saying that you already know something, how about re-framing that thought in terms like: “Knowing a lot abotu this already, I wonder what new perspective this information brings and what will I do with that?”

 

Family time

Well, it has been a hectic couple of weeks. I just returned from a week in Florida with my immediate family that included my parents, over from the UK. It was a really nice week and we were discussing it afterwards – what was the best part?

Often times the answer to this question involves a particular activity that we dis – a day out, a visit to a theme park, day at the beach and so on. This time however it was something quite different for me. Probably the best thing was simply hanging out with my parents and family generally. It is so rare that we simply do that without having the day planned. Specifically one of the most memorable times was the simplest thing – playing golf on the Nintendo Wii with my Dad – I think that was the first time we have played golf of any kind together for 15 years. How cool is that?

So, the point of this story is: What are the little things for you that are actually the most important? I realized again that simply sepnding time with my parents in pricelessly important to me – it doesn’t need to be some vague notion of “quality time” nor does it have to be doing something specific. What is it for you? These times don’t come back and we don’t get enough of them.

Again, what are the little things that are truly important to you and how are you going to get some time to do that? Making it a priority can really help your balance, even if the time you spend is short.

Balance is small stuff

I was asked a great question last week – “so what do you do for your personal balance?”

it is tempting to look for magic bullets isn’t it? You know the sort of thing. The pill to make you slim overnight, the exercise to give you rock hard abs in a week, the secret to achieving balance. Unfortunately I have yet to come across anything that really works that way, including achieving balance.

So, there really isn’t a work-life balance template I can give you that will work for everyone. What I can advise is look for the simple things that you can do that are really important. Huh? What does that mean? Perhaps an example will help.

I am married to a morning person – that is a challenge for a night owl like me. Some of her best times (and today is her birthday) of her day are in the mornings when nobody (especially the kids) is up and she can relax with a coffee and the paper. It doesn’t need to be a long time, getting up 15 minutes earlier is all it takes.

If I were able to gift you 15 minutes entirely to your self, what would you do with it? That is often the first step to figuring out what is truly important to you and going about intentionally reaching for it.

Time to travel

Travel broadens the mind – that is the saying but I haven’t been able to find the original author of the quote. Actually, I didn’t try very hard but the point of this post is: How does travel help us find balance?

I was reading a friends blog recently (thanks Jay) and you can find it here and one of his posts struck me as very interesting and relevant to the topics I muse about here. The post itself is “Your prescription for a Road Trip” and provides an excellent insight into the benefits of getting out on the road to shake you out of your habits and perspectives born of doing the same thing, going to the same places, getting into the same routine. Apologies to Jay if I paraphrase incorrectly.

Anyway, the point is well made and goes wider. In the seminars that I run I partnership with Dan Gabbert, we discuss the concept of the comfort zone and how operating solely within such a zone limits our growth. Many of us stay in routine and habits because they are safe. Even if we are miserable there at least it is misery in comfort and anyway, we know it, it might be worse if we tried to change.

Travel, even if just outside of the city really helps change that perspective and introduce us to new things, new ideas, new people, sights, experiences. What better way to experience life and get out of a rut in thinking?

We can all start in a small way – thought about going home a different way next time?

Too busy?

Is it just me or are people getting busier? It seems to me that “really busy” has replaced “Fine (or good) thanks” as the default reply when asked “How are you?”

In all seriousness I don’t actually think that these are busier times, but it certainly appears that way to look and listen to people (including me!). So what is going on?

There is a certain badge of honor associated with the concept of being busy. Indeed, if we are busy then the implication is that we are working hard, perhaps meeting lots of people, driving toward career or life goals and so on.

However there are implications for talking this way. Now I have some beliefs of my own and one of them is that we start to behave in accordance with the things we say. This is a variation of the thoughts become things theory. So when we say we are busy, what is the implication? Perhaps it indicates that we are too busy for some things? Maybe a business prospect might think us too busy to need new customers. Maybe that’s true, but maybe not – are we just saying we’re busy because it has become a stock response?

So when that stock response comes to mind, maybe it is worth thinking about the message we are sending others, and also how are we conditioning ourselves? What are the implications of telling everyone how busy we are?

What are the alternatives? When asked how we are doing, perhaps we could say something like: “Well, business is good and I am enjoying it. Of course I am always on the lookout for more opportunities”. That may not work well in your world but there are things that you can say that don’t fall into the “busy” stock response.

Work out for balance

Think about what happens at the end of a busy work day. Usually that is a time when we are most tired from the stresses of the day, regardless of whether the day has been rewarding or not.

As I have mentioned here before, there really isn’t a formula for balance that works for everyone. After all, we all have differing priorities in our lives and figuring those out is one of the cornerstones to getting to balance. However one of the common ways to a balanced life is to up your exercise quota – not to mention the health benefits. I was reading a blog post to this effect, in connection with marketing on the Duct tape marketing blog.

The point of this post is it’s relationship to productivity. This is a key point in the whole balance equation. Very often a lack of time is cited as a reason for not getting things done and it’s valid. However achieving balance isn’t necessarily about working less. The point of John’s post above (as I read it) is that spending a little time in exercise (30 minutes) results in his getting more things done. If you get more done in the same time there is more time to do what you want isn’t there?

If it isn’t exercise that increases your productivity, what is it? Reading? Taking the kids to school? Playing video games? Figuring it out can really help reduce stress and make the limited hours in the day more productive

Work harder?

OK – are we going into a recession? What does everyone think? I have posted here before on thoughts becoming things so I guess we shouldn’t dwell on it too much. However, it is worth thinking about in the context of how hard are we working.

There is a cliche here about working “smarter not harder”. I once knew a recruitment consultant who entered that business with a specialist consultancy that had a well established track record with defined and proven procedures. Finding people for jobs can be rewarding and in the early days the system worked well and he made placements fairly frequently.

However, like baseball hitters, recruitment consultants can go through slumps. The preferred candidate signs elsewhere, the client decides not to proceed, HR freezes recruitment and so on. About a year into his time at the consultancy this happened to our friend.

This is where you make a success of yourself in recruitment and where the skill comes in. It is seen in the personal side of the job, the talking with candidates, spending more time with clients, looking for innovative sales solutions. The trouble with our friend was he continued with the “process” that had previously served him well and simply cranked the handle a bit harder and got more frustrated when the results didn’t come.

The result? Well, again like a hitter the slump eventually ended but a valuable lesson was learned. You can work harder at doing what you have always done an this might eventually come good (if the processes are sound it probably will). However there are alternative strategies – take a look at the processes and see where the real value is (in this case the personal interactions). Once identified, how can you maximise the value of that piece?

In the case of our friend that was actually a far more rewarding proposition than simply working the system harder, and actually didn’t feel so much like work at all. What can you find in your work that talks to your passions, and also adds value to what you do? If we do get into an economic slow down, finding those things could be very useful…..

Working passionately!

It has been a while since I posted here – been working on my balance, visiting friends and family in the UK and setting up seminars.

All of this reminded me of the cliche: work smarter not harder. I wondered to myself, what does that mean? It seems to be at the heart of achieving work-life balance but how do we go about that? Often times I find that there is an assumption that achieving balance is all about working less hours, spending more time on yourself and family and so on.

However I have posted about our belief systems here before and it is relevant in this context. As soon as we think about reducing our working time we immediately tell ourselves how impossible that is to achieve. You know the sort of thing: “That sounds great in theory but there is no way I could do that” or ” there is no way my company will tolerate that” and so on.

So how do you work smarter? There are lots of technological solutions and time management seminars you could attend but how about actually taking a look at how work fits into your life priorities? What does that mean?

Well I don’t want to minimize how important work is and the necessity for it. However are you truly following your life’s calling when you go to work? What is you passion in life and how is work contributing to that? If work is something you actively dis-like there is a good chance you are not passionate about it and therefore it will always be more of a struggle than doing something you love.

I think this is the root of working smarter – make it something you passionately love to do. Then it will integrate into your life much better and you will probably find yourself working harder too.

How to find such work? Keep in mind the beliefs you hold and the voice telling you you can’t do it and then ask yourself these questions:

1. What is my passion?
2. What would I do if money were no object and I knew I couldn’t fail?
3. What is my ideal working day/ideal working week?
4. What is the first thing I must do to make that a reality?

Write those things down. Then you are on the road to realizing your dream of loving your work. It isn’t an easy road but the rewards are huge!