Working with Patience

Have you ever thought about going back in time by 100 or 500 years just to see what it was like? Do you think it would be more or less stressful, or just as stressful but the stressors would be different than they are today? On one hand I feel like the lack of knowledge would make things less stressful, but on the other hand it would be very stressful not having any ability to get real answers like we can get today for so many things thanks to technology and our connected world. There are so many lessons we could learn from people back then, one of the biggest ones they could teach us would be on the topic of patience. I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic of patience recently, and not just in one area of my life or the world, but in many.

Sometimes success takes patience. Sometimes no matter how “right” you do things, how well you plan, how many resources you have at your disposal, there’s just no way of moving things along faster or making someone move faster or working through the questions, challenges and checklist items faster. Sometimes you just have to remember to take deep breaths and take one step at a time at the pace you can move and anyone else you’re working with can move. These moments are good reminders that not every part of life needs to speed along all the time, sometimes things meander more than race.

But patience doesn’t mean not taking action. Just because you’re waiting or moving very slowly doesn’t mean you can’t be moving forward. When I get stuck in traffic if I don’t have someone to talk with I start thinking about my grocery list or blog posts to write or newsletters to write or I start planning out the rest of my day in my head. I may not be going anywhere fast physically, but thinking about these things or talking with someone means I’m still making progress.

And patience doesn’t mean that you can’t be polite. It may seem strange that I mention this, but I know many people who can recognize when a moment needs some patience yet get so focused on being patient (and getting done with being patient) that they ultimately take away from the potential that came with their initial efforts to be patient, and they start getting pushy or agitated. It’s especially hard to be patient when you’ve been moving really fast and really getting stuff done and now you’re slowing down and being patient. Just like cars and planes don’t turn on a dime, neither do our brains or bodies (which means we need to be patient with ourselves too in these situations).

In all of this though, the first or second biggest hurdle to cross is accepting that patience can be good. It’s really hard for some people to not be doing something every second of the day or not have answers in the next 10 seconds to their question or to stop and listen to their significant other when all they want to do is accomplish the huge list of things they’re stressed over or hear someone out even if you know you’re right. But it’s healthy to be patient throughout the day as well as to do “crazy” things like incorporating quiet time or nap time or learning time into your day. So the next time the topic or opportunity of patience comes up in your life, relationship, career, or day, consider embracing it just as thankfully as you do that first cup of coffee each day and see how your life, relationship, career, success (and stress levels) can benefit from being patient.

Do It Yourself

I think the most recent generations are missing out on something those of us over 30 grew up with and that’s great sayings. Sure some are corny and some don’t have the most political correctness for today’s world, but it was a way that we all could connect and would instantly know what someone meant when they used one of those sayings. One of the reasons sayings have “gone the way of the Dodo” (yes, that’s one of them) is because of how fast things change. We don’t spend as much time on a topic as we used to, probably in part because of how many topics we have access to thanks to the internet. We can truly be people of diverse interests and that means that we’re not “staying in our lane” and living with a narrow focus in life. Of course some people are thankful and say “good riddance” to these classic sayings, but I think there’s value in them.

This thread of thought of course began because I was watching a home renovation show and the lead actor if you will tried to delegate the project but ended up having to regain leadership and fired a whole bunch of people to get the project done the way they wanted it done and with more sensitivity to time and budget than the fired leadership team was showing. The saying that goes along with this story is “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

When it comes to success this is certainly something that applies because as crucial as delegation and teamwork are, sometimes not only is it better if you do it yourself, there may not really be a reason to delegate it. When you choose to delegate something you have to weigh the risks and the time that you’ll have to invest in explaining exactly what you want done (and if applicable how you want it done), and how much you’ll need to check in to make sure things are on track. If it’s simple or straightforward when it comes to the explanation (“buy and install x window in y room” or “do research and write up a comparison of 5 or so options for savings accounts for kids”) and you don’t have to check in on the progress a ton, it’s clearly a good option for delegation. But if you’re having a communication issue or there are specific details that make it just as easy or easier for you to do it, and it’s something that matters (it’s more than information you might use or something you might like to see done), then it’s important to strongly consider just doing it yourself.

It’s not about needing or requiring perfection every time, or not letting others make mistakes, or about being a control freak, it’s about knowing when you taking a hands on approach and doing it yourself is the best thing to do in the situation. And ultimately it comes down to your success is your responsibility, so sometimes the best thing to do is to take control of the situation and do what you need to do to make progress or get things back on track. What are you doing in your success journey this week?

Intentional Success

I believe in luck. The way things happen sometimes has absolutely convinced me that sometimes we just get really fortunate with how serendipitously things happen. That it’s that perfect alignment of people and places and resources and time and things just work out even better than we could have dreamed about. Of course, some of us call it by other names like blessings or gifts from God, but regardless of the name you give it, it’s hard to explain how some things work out as perfectly as they do, especially if things work out in ways that you weren’t planning for or didn’t think of.

But most of the time when it comes to success luck is only a small portion of the reason why we’re successful. Most of the time we have to take intentional actions to get to success. There are several layers of this. First we have to be intentional about what success we want to achieve. If we don’t know what our end goal is not only is it hard to plan for, but it’s hard to get excited about and be motivated to work on. Second, once we’ve got that end goal clearly established, we have to create a well thought out plan on how we’re going to get there. That plan may change or be adjusted but we need to do the necessary research and create a plan or strategy for what we think based on what we know now that we think will get us to that goal. Third, we have to be intentional about the actions we take on that path to success: actions that line up with the plan we crafted and are likely to be those that will get us one step closer to where we want to go. Finally, we have to be intentional about how consistently we move forward towards our goal. Yes, some days/weeks we’ll be able to make more progress than others, but we should be able to see progress happening towards our goals.

What difference does intentionality make? It means choosing and remembering to make fun shaped pancakes instead of the usual round blobs because your kids like them. It means getting your car tuned up before things fail or fall off. It means you have regular practices in place to keep your relationship with your partner healthy like weekly information meetings, regular date nights, down time spent together etc. It means preparing ahead of time for vacations you take (more than just the day before you leave). It means taking the time to reach out to people when you think of them in little and big ways. It means thinking short and long term about situations. It means choosing your friends carefully and therefore hopefully avoiding difficult situations in the future. It means being smart about what you eat and what you do with your body so that you don’t have big health issues when you get older. It means having supplies on hand for an impromptu hot chocolate or ice cream sundae party because you know the value of having those moments with your family. And so many other things that can make big and little differences in your life and the lives of people you know.

If you’re ready for more success or more predictable success, start getting intentional about success and how you’re going to get there. What will you be intentional about this week?

Ready to Run

One of the questions you hear most frequently from police officers is “why did you run”? Sometimes there’s an understandable reason like they killed someone or stole a ton of money and don’t want to get the really long jail sentence they’re looking at. But more often than not it’s inconsequential, nonexistent, or certainly not worth the extra charges they get for running. When you hear the stories you have to shake your head, especially after you hear again and again that they would have maybe gotten a little ticket had they just pulled over and behaved.

The truth is that running rarely pays. Yet we seem to pick running as a default in many areas of our lives, not just when faced with police. We run from hard situations at work, from relationships that need work, family situations that frustrate us, and homes that need some TLC just to name a few. Yes, sometimes running is the right answer and we should run as fast as we can, for example in abusive relationships, but often we choose to run rather than put in the time and effort to fix things. And there’s nothing wrong with needing a fresh start, but it’s not a good reason for running.

Of course the best advice is to not do anything that will get you into a situation that would inspire you to run like committing a crime or letting any situation in your life get so bad you just want to throw in the towel. Sometimes we just get overwhelmed, and that’s OK. But when we’re starting to feel overwhelmed it’s time to ask for help, to stand up and accept the situation we’ve gotten ourselves into, to stop putting off dealing with the situation, to start taking actions however small to conquer the situation rather than running from it. I encourage you to choose courage today and face your life and the people in it and choose to build a better future.

Living Today

The new year has arrived and we’re almost a week in! I love that we have life divided into days, months, years and lifetimes. It helps us to process better and plan both short-term and long-term goals which give us small and large victories throughout our lives.  Each one is filled with a different set of opportunities for us to live and love and build relationships and be successful.

I don’t always go with a year theme, but lots of people do. I’ve seen lots of different words this year including spaciousness, time, intention, substance, experience, purpose, promise, change and clarity. This year I’ll be doing something different and not doing monthly themes for every month as I’ve done in the past, but instead going with a yearly theme. This year’s theme is going to be ‘today.’

Why ‘today’? Not because of how fast-paced our world is, but rather because I want us to take a step back and live in today, accomplish things today, appreciate today, learn from today and enjoy today. Yes, we’ll still talk about goals, planning, the future, and the bigger picture, but I want to focus on appreciating, enjoying and acting on each day.

As we’re constantly reminded of in the news each day is a gift. What you do in that day may make or break your future. It can overcome what you’ve done in the past. You can end the day satisfied with what you got done that day or feeling like it was all a waste. It may be one of your last days, will you look back and know you lived it well?

What will you do with today?

The Choice of Your Steps

Each week, each day, we make thousands of choices in our lives. Our life is like one of those “choose your own adventure” books in which the choice you make determines what happens next. One thing may not ruin the ending, or bring us closer to success, but each choice we make does have an impact on our lives. If you make a really wrong choice you’ll end up on countless evening news stations as the talk of the day (or those crazy afternoon shows if you really mess up). But if you make a really good choice you’ll find doors opening for you and relationship possibilities you never thought could happen.

Victories in the truest sense are only accomplished when all parties win. This means we have to learn how to work together rather than fight, and do our best not to hurt others , and work hard to not hurt others to the point that they would seek justice. It only ends up setting all of our victories back further.

Why? Because as Mahatma Gandhi said: “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” If you’re so focused on getting justice for how you perceive you were wronged you’ll only bring to pass what Gandhi predicts: the whole world will end up in turmoil trying to get their wrongs played out on those that hurt them. This isn’t how we accomplish victories though. A punishment will never truly right a wrong, but it’s what we think is our best option for serving justice, and has been for centuries.

With every choice, action, or lack thereof making an impact on your future you would think more of us would do the right thing more often. It can get frustrating that we don’t see the progress, but one day we’ll realize exactly how far we’ve come and how many pages we’ve turned and we’ll either be thrilled or mad. If you were to turn the page and find that tomorrow morning your story ended, how would you feel? Choose to make this a week that gets you even a little closer to your goals.

Ready for a Revelation?

As we head into the last month of 2017 and think about 2018, this month the topic we’ll be spending some time on is the topic of revelation. I think this is an important topic for us to consider for all aspects of our lives, past, present and future. Let’s start with what revelation means, and then we’ll talk about why we’re discussing it this month.

The dictionary says ‘revelation’ means: “the act of revealing or disclosing; disclosure. Something revealed or disclosed, especially a striking disclosure, as of something not before realized. Exposure.” Sometimes when there’s a revelation it’s not really a good thing, or the revelation reveals something negative that’s been hidden, while other times when there’s a revelation it’s like the sun has finally come out after weeks of rain.

Over the past few years we’ve seen more examples of honesty and openness between people and in business. We’re doing more fact checking, asking more questions, working through the traumas and challenges of our pasts, building relationships and friendships with people who are supportive and not draining, looking for the truth, and getting really good at knowing when there’s BS around. We’re less patient with lies and partial truths and want more authentic, organic, conscious and future-sensitive choices. There’s a clear movement towards being a more “revealed” world.

What about us though? Do we want revelation? Some of us are very eager for revelation, we want to work through what’s frustrating us or holding us back, and we don’t like being where we are, or we just want to be somewhere better. Some of us aren’t in need of personal or professional revelations, but we are on board with the trend towards revelation in the world at large. And others are fighting the revelations as hard as they can, they prefer to be in the shadow world, out for only themselves and not caring about others. But I believe if we really want to leave the world a better place for the next generation, we have to be open to, and seeking out, revelations, and be open to the changes that might have to happen as a result.

What about you? Are you in need of a revelation today?

Set for Relationship Success

Today we’re talking about relationship success. While there are always factors that can’t be anticipated, and people do change, I believe that there are some things you can do to help your relationship be more successful than most. Here are 6 things you should consider to give your relationship a good chance at success.

Attention: does your partner get your undivided attention at least once every day or are you frequently doing more than one thing at a time while talking or being with them?

Actions: how do you behave towards them? What do the actions you take on their behalf, towards them or because of them say about you and your relationship with them?

Attitude: do you dismiss them and their feelings? Have you grown to resent them or their place in your life? Do you treat them as a burden or distraction?

Care: do you show them how you feel about them and how important they are to you? Do you make a point of doing special things for them? Do you sometimes put their needs ahead of your own?

Communication: how often do you two talk? Do you share the things that go on in your day and listen to them share about their day? Do you take minutes here and there to just text them that you love them?

Consistency: relationships aren’t made or broken in one day or one event, are you consistnetly showing your partner that you are their partner, or consistently showing them you’re not invested in the relationship?

I encourage you to take time to consider your relationship this week and take the necessary steps to evaluate and improve your relationship so that it’s fulfilling for both you and your partner and has the best chance at lasting success.

Processes and Procrastination

As we head towards the end of another week you may be thinking about what you can toss onto the piles on your desk or mark so that you deal with it next week and not today or tomorrow.  I’m familiar with the process, everyone does it to some extent. And to some extent it’s necessary to do because there are only so many hours in a day and while you may have something sudden and time-sensitive come up today, you may not have that tomorrow and be able to deal with things from today tomorrow.  The danger comes in when you never get to “tomorrow” and you keep having to put out fires and deal with emergencies today and never get to that other stuff you keep putting off.

The good news is that a portion of what you keep putting off can be handled by someone else.  You can get someone else to file the papers or place/pack orders or refill supplies or input data to a spreadsheet or program or app.  The bad news is, as you probably guessed, they can only do so much as they are not you. All that help is great to a point, then you have to step back in and choose or approve purchases, reply to clients, or confirm the data.

But what it comes back to is that you need to stop and realize that there’s a problem and you’re tired of seeing the problem day after day and not being able to do what you want to with or about it.  Maybe it’s as simple as changing the software, program or procedure that you do things with/through.  Maybe it’s creating a schedule and following it 95% of the time.  Maybe it’s just hiring someone to help out a few hours a week (on either the personal or the professional side).  But I believe that for many of the things that we’re putting off, there’s a simple solution that can make it much easier and much less painful to do the job and get it done quicker and with the results you’re looking for (or at the very least results which is something you didn’t have before).

If you’re struggling with the never ending search for tomorrow in your work or home, I encourage you to take an important first step before the end of the week.  Maybe it’s reaching out to an organizer or coach like myself who is local to you and getting the conversation going.  Maybe it’s taking 30 minutes to investigate other program/procedure options.   Maybe it’s sitting down with your team and talking about who’s doing what and who would rather do what and who can help you clear things off your plate (making things easier for everyone).   What will you do?

To Do or Not To Do

I read an inspiring quote recently that I want to share with you today.  It shares a simple but challenging message, one that we talk about but aren’t always able to follow through with:

“Every time you say yes to something you don’t want to do, this will happen: you will resent people, you will do a bad job, you will have less energy for the things you were doing a good job on, you will make less money, and yet another small percentage of your life will be used up, burned up, a smoke signal to the future saying, “I did it again.”  James Altucher

Have you felt that way before?  I know sometimes we force ourselves to do something and it turns out better than we expected, but other times we’re busy telling ourselves all the lies about why this has to happen or why we have to help this person or why this might be/may be/could be/should be something we should do.  I get it, we’ve got pressure from society and the people around us every day trying to (and sometimes succeeding in) affecting our choices.  Sometimes that’s a good thing, but other times we’re just caving.

Taking risks is part of having a healthy life and healthy self esteem.  So you do need to determine if you’re hesitant because you’re worried about the risk or because deep down you know it’s not the right choice for you.  This week I encourage you to take at least one risk and say no to at least one thing you feel won’t be right for you.  I’d love to hear what you learn!