Whats the meaning here?

Last night was a busy night. I had to leave by 7:30 and my wife was having a group of moms come over to prepare loot bags for a school program. The kids that bed time was the time to fight over everything and through endless tantrums. By 7:15 our patience was really starting to wear thin. By 7:20 we were starting (lets say more in the middle) to lose our cool.

Now the fighters and tantrum throwers are 7 and 5 years old. And even though we sometimes expect them to act like adults, the reality is they are normal healthy kids and fighting and tantrums are part of what they do.

So why do two adults loose their cool over this?

One of the thoughts that came to my mind was that we were getting frustrated because we were concerned about what others were going to think.

You see for us the best response would have been to ignore the kids while they were having a cow. There is no communicating with them when they are in this state. They would eventually calm down and then we could get them to bed.  But because guests were coming we needed to stop this right away, because we can’t have our kids acting this way when they arrive. What would they think??

So we got frustrated, we raised our voices they raised their voices, they tantrumed more we got frustrated more and by the time we finally got them into bed we were all drained and irritable.

Why?  Because We cared about what other would think.

If we didn’t care we would have taken the better approach. The tantruming might have been shorter and the interactions healthier, by the time the kids got to sleep we would have been more relaxed and less exhausted. The learning experience would have been much better for the kids as well.

Sometimes we will break our standards, step out of alignment with our values and goals because we are worried about What others will think? We are so concerned with their interpretation of what they see that we are willing to sacrifice the best paths in our life’s journey.  Not only do we prevent our own growth, but the frustration of being out of alignment causes us to not function at peak performance in other areas of our life as well. When our mind is in a negative state it is hard to accomplish much positive.

So though it is important to care and respect our fellow man. When it comes to making the right choices in life, sometimes you cant give a Damn what they think.

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For as long as people have been celebrating new years, they have been following this same pattern. They make large goals for the year ahead, and then as the exhaustion and hangover dissipate on the morning of January 2nd, the frenetic pace of life returns and, the resolutions of the week before are long forgotten.

If your journey is to the east and you travel south, you will never arrive at your destination.

We talk about goals of eating better, exercise, deep relationships, and overall discipline, and then we start are year with excessive eating and inebriation, meaningless kisses, and excessive sleeping and time wasting. Then as a result of our less than stellar choices, we reinforce the negative and make the possibility of achieving our goals all the more challenging.

As you live your moments, so you live your days, week, months, years and LIFE.

Making massive changes in you year and life can be overwhelming, intimidating and debilitating. To change a moment is manageable almost easy. Taking control of those moments will lead to massive life change.

Setting the stage for tomorrows performance.

You have some goals for this year. What is the goal that you want to work on? What is the process, the steps involved to reach that goal. When the stage crew sets the stage for a performance they put one piece, work on one detail at a time. Each piece/detail is not the set, the set is a result and combination of all the pieces.
A goal is not some thing we do, it is something we achieve, and we achieve it through taking the proper steps (one at a time) and the combination of those steps will result in the achievement of your goals.

A new way to enter 2010

Don’t repeat the same process that you have been doing all these years and expect different results.  For tonight just enjoy yourself (responsibly).

Tomorrow can be the beginning of your finest year. To achieve that you must begin with thinking.  Nothing heavy mind you. Partying all night and deep thought don’t really go hand in hand.

For starters just take some time on January 1st to ask your self some thoughtful questions.

What was great about me in 2009?

What strengths did I see in my self?

How did these great moments enhance my life?

What could I do different in 2010 to make my life even better? (answer in the positive)

How would it improve my life?

You’ll know that all these questions focus on the positive.  Positive Focus. Positive State of Mind. Positive Outcomes.

Sun Set. Sun Rise

A year will end and a new year will arrive, you have no controll over this. How you step into the year is in the sphere of your control.
Step forward, step with purpose, step with strength. Be Great.

Enjoy Your Success In 2010

Rob

A businessman decides one day that he wants to create an inheritance for his family. Something that will help them in the generations to come. He choses to grow a forest. He has plenty of arid land and if he plants the forest now, in 50 years it will be a valuable resource for his descendants.

He buys 1000 Saplings and hires a worker to plant them.

The week that the project is to begin he is called out of town on business. So he shows his worker a map of his land and tells him to plant the trees while he is gone.

A week later the businessman returns anxious to see his future forest.

He asks the worker to take him to where he planted the saplings. The worker proudly takes him to the lake where he did his planting. When they arrive at the spot the businessman only sees a handful of saplings by the lake. He asks were the rest are. The worker with a confused look on his face tells the businessman that he has planted all the saplings here by the lake. It seemed like such a good place to put them right by the water, so no one would have to carry buckets of water to care for them.

The businessman asked the worker.

“Didn’t you realize that the tide would wash away the sapling from the shoreline? And besides, there is barely enough room here by the lake for 20 trees, how could you plant all 1000 right here?”

The following week after learning what was involved in planting and growing the businessman bought another 1000 saplings and explained to the worker what the forest was to look like in the future, where to plant the trees and how to care for them. Throughout the process the business man was there supervising and supporting the workers efforts.

And so it became that the dream of the businessman was realized. Fifty years later those saplings had grown into mighty pine trees. As the trees grew they released their own seeds into the land and now there were far more trees than those original 1000. It was a fine forest providing lumber, saplings and other materials for many generations to come.

Do you have vision? Do you hold a picture in your mind of what your future life will be? And if you do how is that vision expressing it self in your daily actions.

In the story the businessman is your vision of a meaningful future. A realization that action has to be taken know to ensure material/physical/spiritual success down the road.

The worker is our actions. The doing required to achieve our visions and goals.

In the story our worker (actions) failed the first time around because our businessman (vision) went away and left the worker without sufficient information. This is representative of actions taken on a fleeting vision. You here or think of something that inspires you and you rush to take action on it, but your action is without solid awareness of what is required. The result is failure, frustration and lost effort.

In the end our businessman realizes that it is more than just having a vision, he must deepen his awareness of what is involved in bringing that vision to realization. And with that clear understanding of what is involved the worker can take the proper action, and be guided by the businessman holding the vision ever present.

YOU must SEE and KNOW the forest, before you plant that first sapling.

Coaching Questions.

What is your goal?

Why is it important to you?

What information do you need to make that goal happen?

What are the action steps required to achieve your goal?

What is the first action step?