Learning to become less scattered and more purposeful takes more than a night. Learning to live your life with intention requires that you be completely honest with yourself – realizing who you are at the center of your being, knowing where you’re headed. Facing your weaknesses and isolating the obstacles that stand in the way of your personal effectiveness. Sailing past those obstacles, and onto brighter horizons.
I get a real kick out of watching people understand that they have the power to change. It’s like the proverbial light bulb going off and someone saying, “Wow! I can have anything I want!”
They say we receive in kind those things we project into the world around us. Be it kindness, meanness, honesty, or deceit, the world has a way of paying us back in spades.
When Did You Last Play?
Most of us, when asked when we last played, would be likely to snort in derision (I’ve always wanted to snort at something in derision, but never have), and say, “I’m an adult. I have responsibilities.”
No matter who you are, where you’ve been or where you’re headed, there is always room
for change – a new perspective and a new plan to define what’s most important to you.
Remember – the goal here is to know that a cookie-cutter prescription for success simply doesn’t exist in today’s world. To know that it’s ultimately up to you to make the plan.
There seems to be an ever-growing feeling, in our culture, that “self-help,” self improvement, and self growth are not only important, but the be-all and end-all of life. In other words, if you’re not constantly trying to improve yourself, you’re doing Something Bad.
M. Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled was very successful, selling steadily for year after year. Many people loved the book, many hated it but read the whole thing anyway. Most loved it.
But I wonder how many of us really accept Dr. Peck’s premise, “Life is difficult.” As Dr. Peck said, basically that’s the thing. Life is difficult. Not “life is difficult because…” Not “life is difficult but…”
I’m not sure being polite to convenience store clerks has ever been covered completely in self-help literature, but I think it may be one of the best things we can do to actually become, and remember, who we really are.
Read my post over at IWillChangeYourLife.com, titled changing habits: from workaholic to achievement junkie to husband, father and friend.
You’ve probably done one of those exercises where you imagine your own funeral and what people would say about you, in an effort to determine what parts of your life you might want to change now. You may have also been asked, and even thought seriously, about what you would do if you knew you only had a few months or a few days to live. I’d like to suggest an even more extreme exercise right now.
It takes hard work and perseverance to go from overbooked and distracted, to productive and effective. We must first learn to overcome obstacles – old ways of thinking, defeatist patterns of behavior, fears and so forth. But through patient persistence and gentle guidance, people are able to discover their own unique ability to define and create ideal lives for themselves, against all odds and despite what everyone else is saying.
Check out a fun podcast interview I did with Mike Vardy of EffTD™. Mike has a great sense of humor and shares it with us
Have you heard of the 90% rule? You live on 90% of your income and save the other 10%. Easy isn’t it? Nope, not in
They are being called Millennials: the otherwise known as Generation Y – those born between roughly 1976 and 2000. They may come from different races, backgrounds, and socio-economic statuses, but one thing is for certain – they are ready for change.
Do you wonder what defines growth in all areas of our lives? Check out my post, the essence of all growth in life over at
I’ll be making my fourth appearance on Karen Ellenbecker’s Money Sense radio program. My appearance is scheduled for Sunday February 3rd, but don’t worry there
I’m a relatively happy guy, but sometimes I can get pretty out of sorts. Usually that is related to something I’ve been meaning to do, or always wanted to do. Something, of course, that remains on my “to do” list, and never quite makes it to my did list.
Admittedly, it’s tough to just suddenly pull up the emergency brake on a life in the fast lane. Many people feed off the adrenaline rush and frenetic pace of today’s hooked-up, turned-on world. But the truth is that if you don’t get control of your own future, you’ll eventually crash and burn. I know this for a fact because I was this close to facing a dire situation in my own work and life.
