December 1stof every year means that there are only 30 days remaining until the new year begins. It is a perfect time to look forward to the coming year and to reflect over the past months to prepare a plan for your and your family's future. Whether you are single, coupled, married, with or without children, it is advisable to set aside some time to vision for your near and distant future.
The sad reality is: "People spend more time planning their vacations than they do planning a successful life."
Businesses often divide their years into quarters. December 31 is the end of the fourth quarter of the business cycle. Using the business planning model to set your personal, financial and family goals can assist you in setting realistic and manageable goals as well as in tracking progress and evaluating your success. If you fail to vision for your future, then you will likely not set any goals and you will most assuredly not create a plan to achieve the goals and enjoy the vision.
An example of visioning and goal-setting: You purchase a hammer, why because you wanted a hammer, NO! Obviously you plan to drive a nail into a wall. Do you want the nail in the wall? Not really, what you actually want is to hang something, perhaps a picture on the nail. So you bought the hammer to hang the picture? NO!
You purchased the hammer because you gain pleasure from the beauty of the picture. The hammer, the nail, the wall and picture are interrelated in much the same way as an objective, a goal and a dream are connected. At the very root of Visioning and Dreaming is the intent to create a specific experience and feeling for either you or the people who share the dream. No one purchases a hammer for the sake of simply owning a hammer, anymore than you should set a goal just to have a goal.
So, What do you want? How to you want to feel!?!
Personal Goal Setting: Often considered the selfish side of goal-setting, personal planning is important because we tend to be motivated to achieve when we stand to directly benefit and prosper.
"Success lies, not in achieving what you aim at, but in aiming at what you ought to achieve, and pressing forward, sure of achievement here or if not here, hereafter." R.F. Horton
Overcoming Personal Drift begins with setting a destination, a Vision for 2008 and beyond. Take time to Vision for your future, Do it Today! You Will Be Glad That You Did!
How much of our life is governed by the laws of Nature and how much is governed by Nurture? The argument has yet to be settled even though it has raged for decades. Regardless of whether Nature or Nurture is the most dominant factor in our lives, there is one undeniable reality; there are laws which govern and predict our behaviors. One such Law of Nature is Newton's First Law of Motion which says:
An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
Newton's Law predicts how objects will behave based upon the state of energy applied to them. In a bizarre, yet intriguing way, Newtonian Physics applies all too perfectly to human life. Here is what I mean; people who seem mired in mediocrity tend to remain in mediocrity and people who are in hot pursuit of excellence tend to continue in that pursuit. Neither state of a person's growth and development will be altered unless there are equal and opposite forces that effectively redirect the energy being applied.
A Body At Rest
People who appear to be lethargic, and who lack the internal drive to achieve tend to remain "at rest". They continue in lethargy until and unless there is some force of equal or greater magnitude that impacts the person and redirects them toward achievement.
A Body in Motion
Equally true of the individual who is internally motivated and externally active in pursuit of achievement. The person who is driven tends to continue to pursue their purpose. The achiever can and will continue pursuit unless and until some substantive event or circumstance intervenes to disrupt their momentum.
The reality is that not one of us is immune to the challenges of personal entropy. Just as true is the fact that none of us are so dis-empowered that we cannot be inspired to passionate pursuit of some worthwhile goal or dream. Personal Entropy means that you and I tend toward disorder in our thoughts and actions unless there is some force that continues to exert energy in the direction of order. Ice will melt unless it is in an environment of sufficiently cold energy to maintain the "Ice" state.
Overcoming Personal Inertia
How do you create a state of perpetual motion and overcome inertia? There is no simple answer to this question. In large part, the answer is determined by both your personal nature and the nurture you experienced in the past and the nurture you enjoy in the present. People who achieve tend to be characterized in one of the two following ways:
Some people require constant validation by some other person or group of people to continue to achieve. Others simply require the personal ambition to achieve beyond their personal accomplishment; meaning they constantly strive to achieve beyond their personal best by competing with themselves.
Which are you? Neither is preferable to the other, but they certainly require different tactics to become and remain effective.
Growth is essential to continue a healthy state of being. The reality is that growth is the only evidence of life and an increasing quality life is the direct consequence of healthy growth. Being mired in a perpetual state of inertia whether it be physical, mental, emotional and, or spiritual is evidence of increasing risk of sickness.
There is a Proverb found in the Christian Bible which says:
The human spirit can endure a sick body, but who can bear it if the spirit is crushed? Proverbs 18:14 NLT
Personal Inertia or Laziness?
It is important to distinguish personal inertia from laziness. While they essentially have the same net result they are substantively different. Personal inertia is a resting state resulting from a disconnect between the person and the purpose that once drove their achievement.
Personal inertia results when focus is blurred, and the value of effort in the direction of the previous focus is no longer perceived. The challenge is that the individual suffering from personal inertia desperately wants to achieve yet finds it difficult to rekindle the fires of ambition and action that once characterized their efforts and achievement.
Laziness differs from personal inertia in that it is characterized by apathy. Laziness could be defined as the "I-don't-care" attitude externalized through personal inaction. Gordon Graham said, "There are two kinds of discontent in this world: the discontent that works and the discontent that wrings its hands. The first gets what it wants, and the second loses what it has. There's no cure for the first, but success; and there's no cure at all for the second."
Breaking the Cycle
If you recall, I concluded in the last installment that there are two different ways by which people achieve the inward motivation and impetus to achieve.
1.) First, by receiving validation of another person or group of people to continue to achieve. Before you believe this to be a weakness or character flaw consider the value and impact of an exercise buddy, or a study group on a person's continued success. It is absolutely the best thing you can do for yourself to associate with people who encourage, validate and emotionally support your efforts to achieve without judging you.
a.) Action: Seek out and join organizations which support and encourage achievement in your chosen vocation or avocation.
b.) Action: Partner with others and in this way add your strength to the strengths of others and effectively mitigate the impact of your individual weaknesses.
c.) Action: Seek out a mentor, someone who will honestly care about your success enough to tell you without fear what you need to hear to help you move forward.
2.) Secondly, are those who are driven by an inward ambition to achieve beyond their personal accomplishment; meaning they constantly strive to achieve beyond their personal best. These people achieve by competing against themselves. Beware the error of ignoring the timely counsel of others who have demonstrated their ability to give credible, sound, valuable and actionable advice.
a.) Action: Seek a mentor whom you respect for their ability to blow the smoke away from your self-assessments, good or bad and to provide a clear perspective.
b.) Action: Commit to writing your past personal bests as well as your current focus, then and only then set reasonable benchmarks for outpacing your previous bests.
c.) Action: Be honest with yourself about your past personal bests. Is there more margin for achieving in that direction? Can you do more or has the well run dry? Perhaps you need to invest your energies in pursuit of another purpose. Rule of Thumb: Analyze, Analyze, and then Take Decisive Action.
d.) Action: Focus, Re-Focus and Then Re-Focus Again. Your creativity and energy tends to become scattered because others want you on their team. Make sure that you give the right amount of time and the right amount of attention to your Purpose and Goal, then and only then you are free to assist others. You may be accused of being selfish, but remember, You'll feel better about sharing the contents of your cup when your cup is truly running over, so fill up your cup First!
Breaking the Cycle of Personal Inertia is the single most important thing you can do regardless of what time of the year or what point in life you find yourself. Breaking the cycle of personal inertia is important. By breaking the cycle, you and those you love and care about can truly benefit in the days, weeks, months and years to come! Act NOW!