You need a philosophy before goals

This post is around a comment by subscriber Willis Ponds.  He put it better than I did when talking about the futility of very long-term planning.  When thinking about what your life (or business) will look like in five years, ten years, or longer, you can’t help but make many assumptions.  In an unpredictable fluid world, you will much more than likely be wrong.

Instead, Willis tells us, you need a philosophy for living.  Then strive to live by it and take opportunities as they come.  When presented with a choice, follow the paths you love.

Philosophy.  Jim Rohn talked about it a lot.  

What is your philosophy for your life?  Good question.  I bet you never thought about it that way.  Tomorrow I will try to express mine for you.

You gotta have a system to stay organized

An active high performance life requires you to stay organized, plan your days and weeks and years, and not drop any balls or let people down. 

 Let me tell you how I do it.  I use a planner book.  The one I use is the Jim Rohn One Year Success Planner. (You can get one on Amazon.)

I can hear some of you young whipper snappers now – “Paper and pen?  OMG.  So old school!”

Ok, maybe, but you have to find something that works for you.  This works for me – really well.  It is also a big part of my liberation from screens.

It’s simple.  I can plan my year, my weeks, and my days.  I use the boxes at the bottom of each page to write in calls I have to make.  If it’s a hard appointment I write it in and draw a rectangle around it.  I put stuff to do first thing at the top of a day (column) and afternoon stuff toward the bottom.  When I complete something I highlight it with a yellow highlighter.  Of course, I use different color ink when I write things in to separate on thing from another with color.  

The only downside is if I lose my journal I am in a bit of trouble.  But I do not get a constant barrage of notifications and reminders about things I wrote in, and I don’t need or want them because I have the habit of carrying my planner home and back to work all the time and following it.  It works for me.  I will continue it.  I solved this challenge long ago.  I love it.  

I know there are many ways to stay organized and some have benefits.  Which one you choose is not the point.  That you have a system that works for you is.  

What is your time planning system?

From the Inner – the Outer

“It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Sir Edmund Hillary

From the inner – the outer.

Your life, in all it’s dimensions and results, is because of what is going on inside your head.  That voice you think is you.

You don’t come with an instruction manual.  Work on you.  Understand you. 

Understand what emotions are there, why, and what you need and don’t need.  What you should act on and what you should not act on.

Become a different kind of person inside – a different kind of thinker.  Become the kind of person that attracts and manifests what you want.

It’s an inside job, and you are the only one you have to be concerned about.

What makes you come alive?

“Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive; because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

I have this theory that we are all made differently; each equipped with a combination of talents, interests, and characteristics that humanity needs to get it all done.  We are not all the same.  God has this figured out.  But we need to understand ourselves and find a path that matches who we are.  Then, get in your zone and be the best version of yourself that you can be.

When you are doing something you are inherently good at and interested in, you will be happier and go farther in that field with greater ease than if you were doing something you did not like. 

Emotion is Created by Motion

Continuing with ideas from my book “Iron Sharpens Iron”, available on Spotify, iTunes and Google Play.

“Emotion is created by motion”.

Sometimes we just don’t feel like doing a thing even though we know it is what we should do and it is good for us. 

Just do it anyway.  Get started.  Don’t think about it.  Just move your body and get going.

When you do it, you’ll feel like doing it.

Self-discipline is required to be a high performer.  Because successful people do the right things, whether they feel like it or not.  Soon however, they feel like it.  And when it becomes a habit, they don’t have to think about it much, they just do it without a lot of mental struggle.

What do you need to be doing today?

Before the Deed Comes the Thought

It’s impossible to do something without thinking about it first.

When you start thinking about doing _________ , and you think about it over and over, you will find yourself doing it.

If you expose yourself to something (watch, listen, learn, witness), you will find yourself thinking about it.

Use this to your advantage, not to your detriment.  It’s part of the human instruction manual you didn’t come with.

Be careful what you think about.

What do you want to avoid in your life?  Don’t watch it, listen to it, witness it, or learn about it.

What do you want for your life?  Watch it, listen to it, witness it, and learn lots about it.

Action Illuminates the next step

I’m continuing with passages from my book “Iron Sharpens Iron”.  

Don’t know what to do?  Stand up.  Now walk toward the challenge/work/problem.  Now look/ask a question/start….

You don’t need to know the full answer or have a complete plan.  Just do something.  Get started.  When you do, the next step will become apparent.

When I started my business in 1982, I had no idea what it would lead to, what I’d have to learn and overcome, and what opportunities were there.  I just got up and went out there with a hammer and saw and talked to people.  Next steps just came.

Action illuminates the next step. 

Impossible is not a fact, it's an opinion

“I can’t do it.”  We hear people say that all the time.  Of course, if you really believe that then you are right because you don’t try, or at least don’t give 100% when you expect to fail.

The people that think they can, often do.

What is your opinion about yourself?

Two kinds of suffering

For the next couple of weeks, I am going to feature passages from my book “Iron Sharpens Iron”.  You can get the audio on iTunes, Google Music or Spotify.  Or if you send a check for any amount to me, made out to the Boy Scouts of America – Housatonic Council, I will send you a copy of the book!  Send to Larry Janesky, 60 Silvermine Road, Seymour CT 06483.

Here’s goes –

“There are two types of suffering in the world; short-term and long-term.  You have to decide which one you want.”

This is all about delayed gratification.  It’s about working hard and doing the right thing (which may not be the fun thing or the easy thing) now so you can have no regrets later.   It’s about the difference between short-term thinking and long-term thinking.

I’ll take short-term suffering.  I’m in the “long term” now, and I am very happy with my choice.

How about you?

Update your beliefs

We have all learned stuff (from our first teacher, or a teacher) and then, our immature and inexperienced selves made decisions about how things are, (perhaps prematurely).  Let’s call them beliefs.

Many people look for confirmation they are right and dismiss anything that shows their beliefs are wrong.

Good judges are good belief updaters. 

It’s called learning.