Category: Personal Develoment

Avoiding Potholes

Starting my sophomore year of college, I became an avid fan of cycling. I got a road bike and all the gear to go with it and began riding every day. One of the things that made me feel ridiculous, though, was my initial inability to avoid running over individual rocks or small potholes in the road.

It seemed crazy — I always saw them coming and mentally processed their being in my path, but I would still run straight over them.

Soon enough, I realized I was making a fatal error: I was staring straight at the thing that I wanted to avoid.

If I instead looked two inches to the left or right, I would steer clear and keep sailing smoothly.

It didn’t take a dramatic shift in my path, but rather, a small change of where I was focusing my attention.

What’s funny is that the same principle can be applied to my everyday life…

I’m going along in my regular routine and up ahead I see a small pothole coming — i.e. something that worries, scares or frustrates me. Before long, it becomes the only thing I focus on and I keep heading straight toward it, doomed to get sidetracked from my goals and lose focus of the bigger picture.

Instead, if I can have the discipline to shift my attention from that worry/fear/frustration and focus elsewhere (on things I can more easily affect) it does wonders on my ability to get through a tough time or challenge.

Avoiding potholes is all about where our eyes are focused. We can either steer straight at the obstacle that we want to avoid and get sucked in or make slight deviations and keep our “eyes on the prize”.

Number One is Done

It’s a little number, but for me it feels like a big deal.

This is a picture of my first journal completely full from a year-plus worth of writing. It’s been a part of my morning routine for some time now (but it took longer than I thought to fill the pages!)

Already, reading back through it creates important reminders…
Notes from meetings with mentors that have re-ignited personal initiatives.
Anniversary dates of births and deaths.
Verses or prayers that struck a chord.
Personal takeaways from life’s situations.

Admittedly, the first couple months are a little thin on content as I wavered in my certainty of documenting things. But I can now see why so many people recommend keeping a journal.

It’s a reminder of my hopes, inspirations, dreams, fears and frustrations.

Having each one collected in a single place is now a resource for me to draw on. Thoughts can develop over time and ideas can hatch at their own pace.

And you experience all of these highs and lows just as much as I do. But without a place to keep them all, it’s sometimes easy for them to slip into the background and be forgotten.

If you’ve never tried keeping a journal, you should give it a shot. Mix it into your morning before breakfast, before the day gets crazy and you end up exhausted and too tired to write at the end of the night. You may be surprised at how beneficial it is in the long run. Or you could write yourself regular emails to be delivered in the future. Either way, you’ll be taking greater advantage of life’s lessons for you.

Shipping Costs

It’s a daunting prospect to have people look at a personal project and (wait for it…) give us feedback!

O, the horror!

Fear of shipping said project (a.k.a. releasing it for people to view) sets in and we think “Well…I could make this a little better if I…”

Then we make that change and say “What if I tweaked a, b and c, too?”

Then we pick it back up and adjust x, y and z.

Before long, an attempt to make a project perfect in our own eyes has paralyzed any possibility of ever launching. All the while, we forgot that the goal of making something was to ship it! To provide content. To fill a need in the market. To follow a dream or passion.

But shipping a project can incur costs.

We have personal doubt that our stuff doesn’t stack up to someone else’s work. Our friends or family might thinking we’re crazy for trying. We could get negative feedback from consumers. We have to make time and sacrifice other things to get it off the ground.

Yes, Taylor said it best in that haters gonna hate, but what if you took those comments with a grain of salt and also paid attention to the positive reviews and constructive criticism from satisfied consumers with ideas on how to make it better and even more satisfying for them?

That’s the point — to create something that people want. Progress only comes from iteration. So ship. Make adjustments. Ship again. Make more adjustments. Then ship again. That creates a cycle. If we’re only ever making adjustments, we’re not creating anything cyclical. It’s just us, alone in a room that starts to smell musty and a little bit like those nachos we habitually get for take out every Tuesday night for dinner.

It’s stagnant.

So share your music. Showcase your photography. Publish your writing. Perform your comedy. Dance your dance. Post your vlog. Launch your fundraiser.

The biggest barrier to entry in most endeavors is our own fear. Yes – shipping has it’s costs. But we have to remember that those costs (like any other cost) create return on our investment.

Hard Decisions and Good Medicine

Peter Drucker wrote that hard decisions are like good medicine: they taste terrible and are difficult to swallow, but they tend to work the best.

We don’t always want to be the ones to make the tough choice, but if there’s an area of our lives that needs to change and we can clearly see what needs to happen…let’s do it. Time will work its magic and show us that it was the right choice.

The Feeling of Finishing

When was the last time you really finished something? Like…set a deadline, got to that day and were able to step back and say, “Look what I did!”

Back in April, my wife and I decided to sign up for the National Stationery Show to launch her business into the world of wholesale product distribution. We didn’t fully understand what it would take, other than a lot of work in order to get ready in 6 weeks (most of the blogs we read recommend spending at least 6 months to prepare for the show…yikes!)

Seeing as I’m not the creative behind the business, I was fairly limited in what I could contribute to this endeavor. Thankfully, I was given a set of power tools a couple of Christmases ago…which meant I got to build the trade show booth! (cue Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor grunts).

After researching how to build a booth, planning lumber needs, making at least a dozen trips to Lowe’s and having to redo two sizable miscalculations…

it was done.

It surprised me, but on the Saturday my wife and I stepped back from the booth and looked at it totally finished for the first time was a huge moment. We had actually finished the booth…and thanks to my wife’s vision, it looked legit! As we closed the garage door and called it a day, I couldn’t help but notice the overwhelming sense of accomplishment I felt in us having completed the build.

Apparently, it had been a while since I charged myself to do something totally new and challenging — I owned the booth building process from start to finish.

And what’s more, the experience was accompanied by so many other emotions than just the elation of finishing: uncertainty (from having never been to the show before), frustration (from messing up), exhaustion (from lack of sleep), stress (from a short timeline), anger (from messing up again), pride and admiration (for the work ethic and vision my wife had throughout the process). The list goes on and on.

I think that’s the biggest reminder I was able to take away from the experience: accomplishing a goal is never going to be a straight-line path paved with chocolate bars and gum drops. It takes commitment, be it a six week timeline or a six year timeline. And things won’t always go smoothly.

The important thing to remember is that you had a reason for starting in the first place — don’t lose sight of that. The feeling you’ll get when you cross the finish line will be worth it.

Two Ways to Grow

In business and in life, it’s entirely possible that growth can happen organically. Positive opinions of a product or service spread and sales increase without much marketing effort. Or, in our personal lives, we go through a season that teaches us something new (but ultimately unrealized until we look back).

On the other hand, growth at an “exponential” rate is more often attained through forced, concerted effort. You hit the street and convince stores to carry a product, simultaneously increasing revenue and brand awareness because the product is more readily available in the market. Or you sign up for a race with a specific training plan designed to drop 3 minutes from your PR. In both of these instances, you’re both planning and tracking progress on a daily basis as opposed to looking back and trying to figure out how or why the change happened.

To me, the exponential growth is more exciting to reach for because it’s tied to a tangible goal. It’s making a conscious effort to say “I’m not just going to sit here and see what happens; I’m going to go get that thing!”

Vacation Habits

Accomplishing goals and starting new habits is difficult.

We’re busy. We’re tired. We’ve got competing priorities. There are too many fires to put out and the hose isn’t big enough. The most common way for us to receive any reprieve from the everyday cycle of stress is one blissful word: vacation.

On vacation, our obligations to respond to emails, shuttle kids to and from practices and sit in rush hour traffic all disappear.

Poof.

But what do we do with that free time?

While at the lake a couple weeks ago, I decided to wake up at 5:30am (or earlier) every day to be able to ski on water as smooth as glass (literally…check out the picture above). Why is this relevant (or sane), you ask? Fair question.

Over the last few months, my ability/willingness to wake up at 5:30 and write blog posts fell off dramatically (read: entirely). Were there legitimate reason? Sure, but we’ll get to that another time. But while I do genuinely love skiing at sunrise, I realized those early mornings would simultaneously serve as an opportunity to get back into my early-rising, blog-writing routine.

I haven’t been perfect since then, but the motivation to get up and start is so much greater than it was before vacation. That little taste of morning productivity rekindled the fire that was soundly asleep (and all too prone to hit the snooze button). It was just what I needed.

The Alternative Option
For many of us, the downside of this theory is that vacation time is limited. i.e. We don’t have many opportunities to jump start these good habits. Fear not, there’s good news…it’s call “the weekend”.

We may not be quite as free of responsibilities on the weekend, but odds are good there should be at least 16-18 hours of time freed up by not having to be on the clock, right? Why not try and use some of those hours to reach a goal or start a new habit?

Sit down and dig into that book you’ve been wanting to read. Go meet up with that exercise group at the park. Prep your food for the week so you know you have healthy meals waiting for you in the fridge after work every day. The possibilities are endless!

Vacation is supposed to be a time of rejuvenation, allowing us to come back refreshed and excited. For me, there’s nothing more rejuvenating or exciting than knowing I’ve been able to take a step towards a personal goal.

It’s Okay to Say No

If…

personal priorities take time

and…

time is money

then…

our priorities should be worth something to us.

Shouldn’t they?

But how many times a day do we let other people’s priorities take over our schedule? Any why do we let it happen?

Saying “no” to someone is never easy, but it can oftentimes be a necessary element to making progress.

If we want our business to grow a particular direction, we might have to decline opportunities from certain customers in order to really focus on where it is we want to go.

If we want to run a marathon, we might have to start going to bed earlier so we can wake up earlier and get a run in before work. Or turn down social outings on the weekend to complete a 20 miler.

If we want to stay on a budget and start working our way out of debt, we’ll have to pass on “unbelievable” store sales and reign in our spending on categories that may not really be necessary.

Unfortunately, nothing will ever be obtained for “free”…including our own priorities. But starting to defend them with our actions (i.e. saying “no” to other things) is the first payment we have to make on the journey to accomplishing our goals.

If we don’t truly make something a priority for ourselves, few others will either.

Making A To-Don’t List

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The hardest part of to-do lists is that they never seem to end. Every day brings something new.

Personally, this sometimes creates an overwhelming feeling – like I have an insurmountable list of things standing between myself and personal accomplishments. And it never stops growing.

I’ll agree, to-do lists help declutter the brain and remove a little bit of stress with lots of tasks spinning in my head, but what if I looked at it the opposite way? That there are actually things I could do without that would help me get to what I really want (or need) to do?

This thought came to mind from two examples at work.

Shiny Objects
I make lots of phone calls during the day. After hanging up, I found myself in the habit of scrolling through the screens of my phone to check social media feeds embedded on the screen (i.e. I didn’t even have to open the app…dangerous). A couple of minutes passed, and I would catch myself and regain focus on a task.

The same thing happened with email. While working on my computer, I found myself clicking back to Outlook to see if I had any new messages. Or as soon as a push notification came through my phone, I would check the message. It was a distraction that kept me from working efficiently.

Helping Me To Help Myself
In each instance, I added “checking facebook” and “checking phone email constantly” to a “to-don’t” list — a list of things I don’t need to do during the day.

To help myself even further, I removed the social media feeds from my home screens and turned off email push notifications.

Wouldn’t you know, everyone’s best comments and shares still show up in my feed later in the day, and I have yet to single-handedly cause the collapse of my employer by not immediately responding to an email.

As a result, I’m able to complete the task I started in less time. Consequently, I become a more dependable co-worker by passing on needed reports and information when it’s actually due. And if a last-minute request comes in, I’ll see it as soon as I’m finished with my current responsibility – then it will get placed at the top of my remaining “to-dos”. (More on this another time).

While it’s always important to know what we’re supposed to be doing, I’ve found it also helps to be conscious of what I shouldn’t be doing. And a “to-don’t” list is a great place keep track of those things.

The Best Way To Stop Judging

Rushing to judgement is an easy thing to do. Someone says something negative, does something mean or gives a look that makes us think, “What the heck is their problem?” And then we start to fill in a made-up backstory about why they must be such a hostile individual.

We judge.

judgement

A few weeks ago, though, I had the chance to hear Jon Acuff speak. He made a great point about the aforementioned people that he classifies as a foe (not be confused with Pho, which has yet to let me down in life…)

The thing to remember, Jon said, is that we’re called to love our enemies. So how should we overcome our natural tendency to pass judgement and love someone, regardless of the situation?

Jon said, “Knowing someone’s story makes it impossible to judge them”.

It’s pretty simple, but struck a chord with me. How many times have I jumped to a conclusion only find out that there was a bigger issue at the heart of things?

The hard part in this advice would be getting the “getting to know the story”, because that requires going out on a limb, caring and taking time out of our own days to interact with others – oftentimes when they’ve already ruffled our feathers.

So the best way to stop judging could be could a two-fold challenge…

One, if we have the time, stop and ask someone what’s up. Listen. Learn their story.

Or two, if we’ve got to keep moving on our own path, try to consider all of the possibilities that could be affecting them and do our best not to judge. Let it roll off of our back.