Balance

Our personal growth is like a tapestry. We take bits from all our nurturing, education, and experience to become who we are. No two are the same and all of us are continually adding to the tapestry.

Invest time to determine and prioritize what is truly important to you and then build your life around your priorities.

Wherever you are… Be there!

Everyone feels overwhelmed from time to time.  And while there are several effective strategies you can deploy to help alleviate the stress, one that is often overlooked is – Does this task need to be done at all?  Make sure your stressor passes this test.

Abundance Mentality.  What a life-changing concept!  You don’t have to lose for me to win.  If we work together, if you help me and I help you, we can both win.  Our companies win and our communities win.  Open up and share your talents.  We can all win!

My Dad used to tell us if you borrow something, always bring it back in better shape than you found it. That advice also applies to the life we live.

When your work is meaningful and fulfilling, you are already successful.  Bonus… and at that point, it is not really “work”!

Things get complicated.  Make sure you try to see the issue from their perspective before you diagnose and prescribe.

During this time of disruption of our normal routines, we all have the opportunity to form and freeze new, positive habits. The opposite is also true. What can you do to make this into a positive turning point for you?

This experience (Pandemic) has caused everyone to rethink what’s really important.  Some things we never needed; others we took for granted.  Let’s stay positive and grow from this.

With all that is going on it seems that “work/life balance” is more like “work/life unbalanced”.  For many that balance has taken a rare swing toward life, especially family life.  Don’t miss this opportunity because it’s going to swing back.

Goals

Have you defined what success is for you? Try this… get to a quite place and WRITE down what you want your life to look like in 10 years – Work, home, socially, and community.  This is a life changing exercise if you visualize where you want to be and set goals to get there.

Self-motivation or what I call “Want to” is essential to success, but without goals, a plan, and focused execution you are unlikely get to where you want to go.  Set realistic goals, develop your mile-posts, track carefully, and adjust as needed

Now that you have set your goals, the execution comes down to focusing on details.  Do you have milestones?  Where you want to be and by when?  Tracking your progress is critical.

Typically, achieving goals of any kind requires a series of measurable steps.  Sometimes the steps can be completed in parallel with other steps and sometimes they must be in sequence.  Either way, tracking your progress is essential.

Goals need to be compelling.  Often the excitement fades quickly when rapid progress is expected and not achieved. Sometimes, the goal is abandoned altogether.  Compelling yes, but goals must also be realistic.

Is your goal realistic?  Break it down into measurable steps with milestones. Then review each milestone for feasibility in both best- and worst-case scenarios.

LSU won the college football championship last year and Coach Orgeron’s consistent message all year was “We are focused on winning the next game.”  As you work toward your goals, focus on reaching your next milestone.

As you track your progress, it is critical that you use objective measurements.  How many, how long, how often, and so on.  We all have unconscious bias that can unintentionally distort your actual progress.

Innovation 

When it comes to innovation, “Have To” leaves “Want To” in the dust!

It is astonishing how much creativity has been released by the Pandemic! Everywhere you look people are devising solutions and workarounds. It all comes down to “Want to” and in some cases, “Have to”!

Have you found your creative sweet spot?  Morning, afternoon, night?  Whenever is best for you, don’t waste it on routine activities like returning emails, preparing reports, etc.  Block off this time because here is where breakthroughs live!

The positive thing about a crisis is it accelerates innovation and adoption. Working from home for example. It was a novelty until now, but necessity has removed many if not all the objections. Will it be the new norm? It’s surely a lot closer to reality.

Change is typically incremental because there is risk in rocking the boat: if it’s fixed don’t break it. During a crisis, that dynamic is flipped. There is more risk in NOT making changes. What are your opportunities make progress?

Everything we do has risk.  It is eye-opening to see the innovation that has occurred recently.  A big reason is the shutdown FORCED us to get out of our comfort zone and gave us cover to take a risk.

“It’s never boring!”  Most of us have said that because we are so transactional driven and so digitally plugged in. Think about setting aside quiet, boring time for yourself.  This is where you will find inspiration and breakthroughs.

Motivation

Home, Work, Family, or Happiness: it all comes down to “Want to”.

Are you living one day at time or are you improving one day at time?  The accumulative effect of daily incremental self-improvement will change your life and your legacy.

Personal responsibility.  The more we look for someone else to solve our problems or to blame, the weaker we become as a society.  It’s a scary spiral downward.

It’s true. Most of the limits we have, we place on ourselves.

I planted a Catalpa tree from a seed 21 years ago.  We now have over 20 of these trees from seed originating from 6 states.  What personal/professional seeds are you planting today that will payoff over the long-term?

One of the four keys to success is being able to look in the mirror, accept responsibility, and ask yourself, “What can I do to improve this situation?”.  Then make it happen!

Want to understand what’s really going on?  Study history.