Growing to meet your dream

Dreams….goals….wanting something that hasn’t happened yet.

In my life, it hadn’t happened yet because I was not ready yet.  I had not prepared myself yet.

Dreams and goals make you grow into them – if you want them bad enough to do the work.

When you are ready; when you are good enough, take enough courageous action, and when you do the work necessary for that goal to come true – then you can manifest what you want.

Be clear on what you want.  Learn.  Make a plan.  Take action.  Learn more.  Notice and adjust.  Keep going.

The gift of your attention

Your attention is all you’ve got.  

You might say that attention is life.

To whom or what do you give this gift?

Control your attention, control your life.

Don't wait for motivation to strike

Motivation is great.  But most of the time, it may not be there.

You have to clearly determine what you want and use self-discipline to keep you moving towards it. 

Motivation will come and go along the way, but don’t let it start you and stop you.  

You’re the one to start, and the one to keep going no matter how you feel.

Creating your life with actions and reactions

Actions are your responsibility.  What you do determines how your life comes out.

Reactions are your responsibility.  How you respond/react to what others do and what happens around you shapes your life.

How have your actions and reactions got you to where you are? 

I packed in my suitcase…

I am packing for the future.

I gathered up the past and sorted it.

I took with me my family, my friends, my love.  I packed my ambition, my dignity, my knowledge and my honor.

I left behind envy, hate, jealousy, darkness, and resentment.  I left behind the people who don’t wish me well and those who would love to see me fail.  I left behind those who are not good for me.  I did not think of them again.

I threw in my goals and discipline and my faith and positive beliefs.

The suitcase was almost full.  There was a pile of things left OUT.

I put caring and kindness in for the journey.

I went to zip it closed, but there was one more thing I had to fit in – courage.  I stuffed it in all the empty spaces.

I drew a line….and picked up my suitcase with all I needed.

Here I go; confidently and enthusiastically…

Rate yourself – 5 Essentials Elements of Wellbeing

On a scale of 1-5, how would you rate yourself on these five essential elements of well-being?  

1) Professional – liking what you do every day.

2) Social – Having positive relationships and love.

3) Finances – comfort, safety, and security.

4) Physical – Fitness, health, energy, and vitality.

5) Community – Being valuable to others.

Top score is 25.  How did you do?

What can you do to be better?

How do YOU size people up?

Yesterday we talked about how we determine if we like someone quickly.  How do we do that?

#1 – We look at them.  Everything about them sends a message.  We can tell a lot about someone by how they dress and groom.  We can tell what kind of background they have, what they value, how much they care about themselves, and much more.  Will we be wrong sometimes?  Yes, but we are right most times.

People have a choice as to how they present themselves to the world.  They choose, and who are we to argue?

#2 – We listen to them.  When people open their mouth and talk we can tell a lot about where they are from, how much respect they have, what their intentions are, how educated they are, and how friendly they are.  The voice tells us a lot.

Am I right?

So this is what you can do to improve what others think of YOU.  Know that everything about how you look sends a signal to others about who you are.  If you want them to think differently about you, you can change how you are presenting yourself to them.  

You can also change your voice.  This is more difficult because it’s hard to pretend.  Your voice is the window to your soul.  But by taking care of yourself and getting your life together, being proud of yourself, having integrity, and getting clear on your intention to do good by yourself and others, your voice will change – and people will perceive it. 

In the meantime, fake it if you have to.  Be kind, positive, and helpful.

If people get positive first impressions about you, they treat you differently – in a way you will like; and it’s often a spiral up from there.

When people size you up quickly, what do they think about you?

How long does it take for you to determine if you like someone?

When you neet someone how long does it take for you to size them up?

Studies show it takes about 7 seconds for you to determine –

1) Education level

2) Economic Level

3) Perceived credibility, believability, competence and honesty.

4) Level of sophistication.

5) Trustworthiness

6) Level of Success

7) Social and professional desirability

8) and much more such as political and religious background.

Wow!  That’s a lot in 7 seconds!  Sure you could be wrong about some things.  And sure, we’ve all heard the saying “Never judge a book by its cover”.  But the cover is right more often than not so we keep doing it.  We have to make quick decisions about people – for time, for the safety of ourselves and our family, and to get what we want.

Don’t you size people up pretty quickly?

The Paradox of Choice

When we have no choices we feel we have no control, no autonomy, we may feel the one giving us the sole choice is a tyrant, and we are demotivated.

When we have too many choices we get decision fatigue, overload, and find it hard to make a choice.

Do you feel you have too few or no choices in some areas of your life?

(If so, remember, there is always a choice – you just have to be courageous enough to take it)

Do you feel there are too many choices in some areas?

(If so, narrow down the field, make faster decisions, and move on!)

A brave question to ask

Go to someone who has had lots of life experience, has their stuff together, is successful and knows you well.

Ask “I want you to tell me honestly what I can do better with my thoughts, actions, and character so I can be a better more able and productive person and show up better for other people.”

Most people shun genuine feedback.  Most people don’t want to hear it.

Ask and listen and don’t defend yourself.  We are programmed for pain avoidance.  When it hurts your ego, you may be making some real progress and change the direction of a few things because you want to avoid that pain again.

Are you brave enough to ask a few people this question?

Learning from the past

Making mistakes is ok – good even.  That’s how you learn.

But making the same mistakes over and over is not ok.

Look back at your past mistakes – not to beat yourself up over them, but to learn from them and get better.

Use your mistakes to get better.

Learning is uncomfortable

We are comfortable with things we already (think we) know.  

When we learn something new, we don’t know it yet.  We aren’t good at it yet.  It’s foreign.  We struggle and it’s uncomfortable.

Many adults give up.  Kids would too if we didn’t make them go to school.

But growth lies outside our comfort zone.  If we don’t spend time doing things that don’t feel natural to us, we don’t learn and don’t grow.

The best learners are okay with being uncomfortable.

Learn hard

Working hard is great, but hard work alone will not move you ahead much.

Working hard doing something in a sub-optimal way, doing low-value work, or doing something that should not be done at all, is not very productive or valuable.

Growth is about how hard you work – at learning.

The more you know, the more value you can bring when you are working hard.

How well do you learn?

Don't confuse politeness with kindness.

Being polite is withholding criticism today. 

Being kind is being candid about how people can get better.

Being polite is not telling me I have spinach in my teeth.  Being kind is telling me.

Being polite is saying my talk was great.  Being kind is telling me where I can get better.

If you think that being honest is disloyal, you don’t understand that being honest is the highest form of loyalty.

If you are worried about hurting the relationship, just be kind and thoughtful while you are being direct and honest.

Ask for honest feedback so you can get better yourself – and listen.

We know how this is going to end.

You are going to die.

We don’t know how and we don’t know when.  But that is what is going to happen.

But take a deep breath – it hasn’t happened yet.

This is not a dress rehearsal.

This is your chance.

Nobody rises to low expectations

Nobody rises to low expectations.

Not your employees, not your friends, not your teammates, not your kids – 

and not you.

Who expects more from you?

Should you expect more and better from the people around you and from yourself?

The Wealth Gap

They talk about the wealth (or income) gap widening.  When you compare the top to the bottom, it should be widening!

That’s because the bottom is zero wealth or close to it.  The people at the bottom are doing things that are bad for their wealth, or not doing anything that is good for it – and they keep doing those things.

The top people keep doing the things that are good for their income/wealth and since the world economy is expanding, they are the ones to make it happen.

The good news is there is nothing stopping the people from the bottom from moving up.

The question is will you, or won’t you?

That of course is entirely up to you.

Listen

Imagine if you went to school and they put you in front of the class and said “Ok, go ahead and talk – that’s how you learn”.  

When you talk you can only say what you (think you) know.

When you listen you have the opportunity to learn more than you know now.

Tune into voices of value that can teach you what you need to know to accomplish your main goals.

Then listen.

A lot.

Performance starts with WANTING to perform

If you say “I don’t want to (do that)”, then there is no chance for you to ever do it well.

You can’t fix a broken “want to”.

With most things, if you don’t do it, or don’t do it well, it’s your own fault – you didn’t want to.

Want to. 

Try it. 

Be willing to be bad at it and keep going. 

That’s how you get to be good  – or even great.

Who will you be in 10 years?

In ten years, most people will be the same person, just ten years older.  And that may be fine with them.

But some people will learn to be better. 

They won’t have the same patterns of thinking, the same habits, they won’t struggle with the same things, and their skills will get a major upgrade from all the learning and practice they do.  They will be able to get results that their former selves could not get, and in far less time.

Because of their advancing approach to living full out and doing what is best for themselves and others, they will live a life like their former selves could not.

Who will you be in 10 years?