Archive for personal growth
If at first you do succeed, try something harder
Posted by: | CommentsThe willingness to take greater risks is a major key to achieving success, and you may be surprised that it can solve two very different kinds of problems.
The problem of hitting ALL of your goals,
AND
The problem of hitting NO goals… because you never make any.
Let’s look at #1: You’re not afraid to set goals and commit to a course of action. That’s the good news. But the goals you set are not hard to meet. In fact, you achieve success in them with little effort or time invested. That’s the bad news, because the road to success is uphill. You can’t coast and climb at the same time. Your solution: Take more risks; set more challenging – even frightening – goals. No, you probably won’t achieve all of them. But you will have stretched yourself and grown in the process. And the successes you have will be that much sweeter.
Now, on to #2: You may work hard and keep busy, but your labor lacks direction. Your successes are haphazard and unrepeatable. You’re like an archer without a target: sending arrow after arrow off in some general direction. Your avoidance of goals probably means you’re afraid to fail. “If I don’t set any goals, then I can’t fail at meeting them,” is your mantra. Again, you’re not taking any risks. Your solution: Paint some targets, in a variety of sizes. Give yourself big, medium and small goals, so you can start succeeding and develop momentum.
For today: Think about something you’d like to achieve. Make it big enough to scare you a little. Now write down a plan for moving toward it. Create mini-goals within the big goal, to set yourself up for continual progress. And include some risks. Find parts of the process where you can push the envelope, take more chances, and increase your opportunity for success.
Wherever you go, there you are.
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Travel is a big part of my work now. And this week’s schedule is especially heavy. In seven days I’m teaching in Louisiana, California, Ohio, Georgia, then Ohio again. Of course, it’s not a hardship because I get to connect with and pour into so many wonderful people. One connection that I especially enjoy is one-on-one, when I set aside time to chat and answer questions before or after my teaching sessions.
And there’s one topic that is often brought up: writing. Specifically, people come up and confide in me a desire to write. They want to know how I became a writer, and more importantly, how THEY can become a writer.
The first question I always ask is, “How much writing do you do right now?”
Some answer with a list of articles and other pieces that they’re writing or have already written. But I bet you can guess what most people answer: “Well, I haven’t really written anything yet.”
“Then you need to start writing,” I explain. “You’ve got to start small and work up to it.”
It’s the same with any endeavor. Take leadership: You’ve got to start small and work up to that. A person who has never led before should start by attempting to influence just one other person. Already have some influence? Then try to build a team. The key is to take the next step, not focus on the step a mile ahead.
Your dream may look unreachable. Of course, you could give up in the face of that. Or you could be like a friend of mine who went back to school in her late 40s.
“At first I was discouraged,” she said. “I’ll be a 52-year-old when I get this degree and start a new career.
“But then I thought about it. No matter what I do, I’ll be 52 in four years anyway. At least with this plan, I’ll be a 52-year-old college graduate.”
St. Francis of Assisi said, “Start doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” No matter how far away your dream is, you’ll only reach it by moving toward it. Everyone starts in the same place:
Where They Are.
The small responsibilities before you now comprise your first great conquest. Want to conquer the world? Start by conquering your backyard.
Are you driven by Emotion? Or Character?
Posted by: | CommentsEarlier this week on Facebook and Twitter, I shared this statement from Dick Biggs:
The greatest gap in life is the one between knowing and doing.
Life would certainly be easier – and success more simple – if all it took to achieve was to KNOW the right things and DECIDE to do them, right? But I think it’s more accurate to say that a decision is just one bookend of achievement. The other is discipline. Decisions can only help us start. Discipline helps us finish.
That’s where character comes in. Emotion might drive us to make a decision. But character is what keeps us going, even when it gets hard.
In Developing the Leader Within You, I wrote about some differences between character-driven and emotion-driven people:
Character-driven people…
- Do right, then feel good.
- Are commitment driven.
- Make principle-based decisions.
- Let action control attitude.
- Believe it, then see it.
- Create momentum.
- Ask, “What are my responsibilities?
- Continue when problems arise.
- Are steady.
- Are leaders.
Emotion-driven people…
- Feel good, then do right.
- Are convenience-driven.
- Make popular decisions.
- Let attitude control action.
- See it, then believe it.
- Wait for momentum.
- Ask, “What are my rights?”
- Quit when problems arise.
- Are moody.
- Are followers.
The late Louis L’Amour is one of the best-selling authors of all time, with over 300 million copies of his popular western novels and short-story collections sold. When asked the key to his prolific writing, he responded, “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
On priorities: Which ball do you drop?
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In a university commencement address several years ago, Brian Dyson, CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises, spoke of the relationship of work to your other commitments:
Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit – and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back.
But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same.
I love this! Think about it: A glass ball is not only more fragile than a rubber ball; it’s also more valuable. So why do so many of us devote ourselves to keeping the rubber one from crashing?
Keep your priorities straight. Taking care of your family, your health, your relationships and your spirit is not a selfish act. It’s a sustaining one.
Do you have a personal plan for growth?
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On Twitter and Facebook on Sunday, I quoted my friend Paul Meyer, mentioning that he was the person who helped me create my first personal growth plan. In the hours afterward, I received dozens of requests, all asking the same thing: “How do you create a personal growth plan?”
The answer to that takes more than 140 characters, so I thought I’d post it here:
The key to a life of continual learning and improvement lies in developing a plan for growth and following through with it. Paul Meyer knew this. In fact, when I first met him and we had lunch, he asked me a question that changed my life: “Do you have a personal plan for growth?”
In answer, I told him about my work schedule and how much I did and how I was learning on the job. I kept going on and on. The more I talked, the more obvious it was that I had no plan. Paul helped me find one.
Growth is does not happen by chance. If you want to be sure to grow, you need a plan—something strategic, specific, and scheduled.Motivational speaker Earl Nightingale said, “If a person will spend one hour a day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject.” Isn’t that incredible? It shows how far we are able to go when we have the discipline to make growth our daily practice.
So if you want to follow a plan, recommend that you start by identifying an area or two in which you desire to grow, such as leadership. Then start gathering useful resources – in print, online, on video, etc. Now your goal is to schedule learning time EVERY DAY. Here’s the rule of thumb I’ve used for years: read one book a month and digest one article/podcast per week.
As an example, this is the weekly schedule – 5 days a week, 1 hour a day – that I recommend for personal growth as a leader:
Monday: Spend one hour with a devotional to develop your spiritual life.
Tuesday: Spend one hour listening to a leadership recording.
Wednesday: Spend one hour filing* quotes and reflecting on the contents of Tuesday’s material.
Thursday: Spend one hour reading a book on leadership.
Friday: Spend half of the hour reading the book and the other half filing and reflecting.
The average American adult watches close to 30 hours of television per week, with little positive return. What do you think would happen if you devoted just five of those hours to personal growth?
Why not start acting on a plan today and find out? Then let me know if it was worth it.
*For my tips on how to collect and file material, read this post.
