Seasons: They are about more than the weather

October 26, 2023 By

From our first breath, we live our lives in cycles, in seasons.

This can mean very different things. A climate season, a learning season, a life season and so on. But there are definite cycles we experience that bring with them influences and nuances that factor into our lives.

Seasons are also a factor in life in terms of our own development and acquired wisdom from experience. We refine our philosophies along the way and become increasingly aware of our value and influence in the world.

It’s been my experience that seasons are one of the best gifts of life. They keep us from stagnating. They keep us moving. They create a current of change that continuously pushes us to what is next. While some might argue that a lovely, mild climate might be ideal year round, others would definitely miss winter. Others would miss summer. That is the other gift. In many ways we get to leverage seasons based on what is ideal for us at any particular season of life.

This is also why we must stay in design mode throughout our lives. Because there are always new and exciting factors coming in and those that have finished are moving out even if only figuratively.

As I move through my current life season, this is something I am thinking about quite a bit because I believe this is where a collective conversation can bring meaningful individual growth. What about you? Where do you see seasons shifting things in your life and work? One thing is certain, change will happen. The key is whether or not we are designing it and celebrating it or something altogether different. As with everything in our lives, it is our perspective and how we see it that makes the difference.

Live today like you want tomorrow to be. Live well!

“What an abundant harvest has been collected in autumn! The earth has now fulfilled its design for this year, and is going to repose for a short time. Thus nature is continually employed during the greatest part of the year: even in her rest she is active: and in silence prepares a new creation.” ― Christoph Christian Sturm

Filed Under: Learning & Growth, Possibilities & Perspective, Winds of Change Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Journey – Poetry, Music and Imagery

October 3, 2023 By

Cavafy’s “Ithaca” remains one of my most beloved poems.

So, of course it came to mind last week while on a writer’s retreat when the discussion turned to poetry.

One of my favorite ways to experience the poem is by watching a stunning video that has a beautiful score by Vangelis. The poem is read by Sean Connery.

I invite you to experience it as well.

While there are many interpretations of this work, its essence is that the journey and the destination both matter.  The beliefs we take with us on the journey about our destination will determine much about the experience.  And the depth to which we experience the journey will only serve to help us better understand the real value of our destination once we arrive.

I have found success works like this.  We each define what success means to us and set out on our journey to reach it.  By the time we arrive, it will have changed because we will have changed from the journey and gained new understandings.

As Jim Rohn taught, more important than the goal itself is the person we must become to attain it. That is the essence and story of Ithaca for me. It’s a reminder to choose our destinations carefully and then travel well.

ITHACA [1910, 1911]

As you set out for Ithaca, hope that your journey is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laestrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon-don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare sensation touches your spirit and your body. Laestrygonians and Cyclops, wild Poseidon-you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul; unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope that your journey is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you come into harbors you’re seeing for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind- as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and learn again from those who know.

Keep Ithaca always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don’t hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so that you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithaca to make you rich. Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you would have not set out. She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you’ll have understood by then what these Ithacas mean.

Filed Under: Adjusted Sails, Inspiration & Creativity, Personal thoughts & insights, Possibilities & Perspective, Winds of Change Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The Myth of Indecision

June 22, 2023 By

Do you struggle with making decisions? I didn’t consider myself particularly challenged in this area until some significant and disruptive changes occurred. I began to second-guess myself at every turn. I doubted my ability to make good choices, even small ones. After all, some I had made certainly didn’t seem to be working out as planned. Indecision started settling over me and, with that, a marked loss of confidence.

In very short order I recognized that there is a definite myth when it comes to indecision.

It isn’t indecision at all. It’s a surrender of choice.

When we fail to decide, we are, in essence, letting someone or something else direct the results. When that happens, those results will rarely be what we would have chosen ourselves.

It was clear that I needed to take back the reigns and get on with it!

It is often said that we don’t truly appreciate something until we’ve lost it or at least faced the threat of losing it. That was certainly true for me here. I had taken my ability to make decisions for granted. It came easily to me. I needed to restore that ease and confidence.

How did I do it? It started with the recognition that decision-making is not a talent. It is a skill. As with any skill, our confidence comes from the doing. I began to just decide, to make a choice. Big ones, small ones, and many that were in between. The confidence came from the return to knowing that with each decision also comes the continued opportunity to evaluate and adjust.

Over time a pattern began to emerge that showed me where decisions were happening with greater ease and confidence. As they say, success leaves clues. In this case, a simple four-step process had emerged that worked every time.

Step 1 – DETERMINE the real question or need

This is essential. If we think we are making a decision about A – but the actual issue is B, something is going to get missed, and the decision is going to be made with a false sense of need. By drilling down with questions and getting to what the decision is really about, all of the distracting debris falls away.

Step 2 – Allow (and limit) an appropriate amount of time and effort for DISCOVERY

Big seems little, and little seems big. When perspective gets out of kilter, we can tend to over-analyze everything. Be brutally honest with yourself about the impact of the decision and respond proportionally. The way to do that is to consider how long you are going to live with the consequences of the choice. It can be easy to forget that most things, including our choices, are temporary anyway. By putting limits on discovering what our choices will be in terms of time, effort, and other resources, we contain the situation effectively.

Insight: I also found a +3 rule invaluable. If I needed to make a decision, instead of allowing any of them to be between just two options, I would apply the +3 rule. If someone said to choose A or B, I would challenge myself to come up with C, D, and E. If there were 3 choices, I came up with 6. Sometimes the decision is tough because the right choice isn’t there. Instead of agonizing over which to choose, create the choice. Just do it within a process and time frame that doesn’t allow it to drift away from you.

Step 3 – Make a choice – DECIDE

When it’s all said and done, the skill can only develop as we practice it. For us to have confidence in our choices, we first have to make them. It’s really that simple. If we understand the situation and have an adequate array of choices, this step gets much easier.

Step 4 – The decision is only truly made when we take action. The fourth step then is to DO.

Non-action negates the decision. Implementation is the key to everything in life. We can fully understand our needs, create truly innovative approaches for the solutions, and make brilliant choices. But all of that will not accomplish anything if we don’t ultimately take action.

The most critical insight for me was recognizing that how we handle the small things in life is the best predictor of how we manage the more significant things. If we aren’t making good choices during our day, ultimately, that shows up as ineffective choices for our lives. Personal leadership and responsibility are the keys.

Live (decide) today like you want tomorrow to be. Live (decide) well!

Filed Under: Learning & Growth, Possibilities & Perspective, Winds of Change Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Have you considered the gifts of change?

June 19, 2023 By

The value of any disruptive change is whatever we choose it to be.

Does it, in fact, matter? How could it be helpful? Does it cause concern? Does it include joy?

In other words, are we happy about it? Sad? Angry? Afraid?

These are natural and normal responses.

The key is recognizing they are also choices.

However, choice is not where our response begins.

Our attitude toward change shows up long before the choice is made and, to some degree, dictates the outcome.

In his book, Jumpstart Your Thinking, recognized leadership expert Dr. John C. Maxwell offers that our attitude acts like the “advance person” of our true selves. In other words, it shows up before we do, long before the main event. Over time it becomes almost instinctive. Because of that, every choice we make begins here.

It would seem then that this is an important concept to focus on when we consider where we want to grow. Do we have an attitude about change that is preempting its value?

If that is true, how do we change our attitude toward change? In the same writings, Dr. Maxwell offers this commentary about the role it plays: “It is the librarian of our past, the speaker of our present, and the prophet of our future.”  This statement holds the key. If our attitude is the speaker of our present, to change our attitude, it would seem to mean we must first change how we speak about it.

Let’s start by considering what is on the other side of change – what gifts it brings and will leave in its wake.

#1- New People

Our lives expand based on the growth we allow in our inner circles. Every new relationship represents growth which is just another label for change. What are you encountering just now? What new connections are waiting there? Every best friend was once a stranger. Every business partner was once unknown to us. Change brings new ideas from new minds and new people.

#2- New Places

As a writer, place has been somewhat of a conundrum for me. We like the comfort of our “creative space” and can even begin to rely on its trappings. That was certainly the case for me. But when the creative flow stalls, quite often, it is a change of place that allows it to begin streaming again. Once I realized that going to new places was a core fuel for inspiration, my attitude toward them shifted. But it’s not just about our craft. We need to experience new places to see life from a different lens.  Robin Sharma teaches that “The value of travel is not just the travel but what the travel makes of you.” Whether your travel is across town, across the country, or around the world – seek out a new lens on your life and work based on what you experience there.

#3- New Skills

Perhaps the most compelling gift of change is arguably this:  Change always brings something new to learn. That can be a daunting roadblock if we are afraid we may not be able to acquire that skill. As with people, recognizing that everything we know at some point was unknown to us can turn the dial of our attitude up. Everything we can do today, at some point, we did not know how to do. And with new skills come new opportunities.

#4- New Ideas

Change is a wonderful stimulus. What we consider (or reject) changes based on new information. We find that we have greater agility for transferring knowledge and skills. We are able to cross-pollinate our understanding of how we work best. The words of Marcel Proust come to mind for this point: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Even what is familiar can take on new life and new breath when we allow change to adjust our lens and spark a new perspective.

#5- New Possibilities

This is my favorite because it’s the culmination of everything else. It’s the pinnacle of success when it comes to real change. When we integrate new people, places, skills, and ideas into our strategies, the possibilities exponentially grow.

We can change our relationship with change by changing our attitude toward it. We change our attitude by changing our perspective and how we view it, how we speak about it. What new people can I meet and serve? What new places can I experience? What new skills can I acquire and master? What new ideas can this generate? How does this expand the possibilities for my life and work?

In summary: What does this make possible? Once we embrace that question, we begin to master the power of true resiliency.

Live today like you want tomorrow to be. Live (change) well.

Filed Under: Adjusted Sails, Learning & Growth, Possibilities & Perspective, Resilience, Winds of Change Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Rethink productivity: Balancing your list with your life

May 12, 2023 By

Hourglass time clock with sandEverything we have or do depends on one or more of these three resources:

Time – Money – Energy

It is easy to miscalculate their priority if we don’t understand one essential fact:

Only one of these resources is actually limited.

The other two can and are continuously replenished and remain available to us in far greater quantities than we can even imagine.

Only one resource is universally finite: Time.

Coming to terms with time being the most precious resource I will ever have caused me to re-evaluate and re-organize how I approach just about everything in my life. That understanding also created a marked change in my personal productivity. Those changes began to make time seem less finite because I was getting so much more accomplished! Where did all of that time come from?

Those results came down to five essential keys that have unlocked true productivity for me. They aren’t the usual suspects.  It’s not about “touching things once” or having a killer app on your phone or calendar reminder for “what’s next”.  Those can be important but they aren’t the essentials.  What I have learned and embraced is the importance of partnering with time as an ally. Seeing time as our most valuable resource and loving it for what it allows us to do creates a powerful partnership with it.  Perhaps these keys will open some life locks for you as well.   (These are written in first person, counting down in importance. Here’s a tip: Read this out loud. Say them and claim them for yourself!)

#5 – I don’t have to do everything.  WARNING: This point isn’t about delegation.  This is about choice.  I do not have to do everything.  Long to do lists do not create more meaning for my day. They only clutter the day with things that diminish what I can give to what really matters. It is far more satisfying to have 5 things finished than to have 10 things started.

#4 – Sometimes I serve others more effectively by NOT helping them.  (This was my hardest one to learn..) Allowing others to DO for themselves or even SERVE US is quite often a better choice.

#3 – Things sometimes take longer than I planned.  And that’s okay.  It’s important to be prepared to miss cutoffs or deadlines and to have a backup plan.  Delays are not failures.  They are just delays.  Accept them for what they are:  a change in the schedule, not a change in the plan.

#2 – New information needs to be factored into existing plans.  New knowledge can show up in many forms.  Our ability to remain fluid within change and discern when it is creating a “new” decision point is an important skill with managing our investment of time.

#1 – Being clear about what I want to accomplish is ultimately the most important factor in true productivity. Being clear means more than a general feeling or desire to achieve something. It means being really clear.  Less impressionistic – more photographic. Sharpen every pixel in the image.  This is what makes all of the decisions along the way productive in their outcome as we partner with time.

Five essential keys that have unlocked time as a partner in my life.  Perhaps they will for you, too.  Which of these would make the most productive difference for you? Start there.

Live today like you want tomorrow to be.

Live well.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Adjusted Sails, Learning & Growth, Personal thoughts & insights, Possibilities & Perspective, Winds of Change Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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