Did you take the test? How hard did you make it? Did you pass it? Life isn’t about taking it easy, especially on yourself. There are not superior rewards for mediocre performance. If you failed any of your tests this week, I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. It very well could be because you set a solid goal that required deep, significant personal growth that takes more than a week. How ever you tested yourself, did you respond differently than the old you would have? Did you see the situation differently than before? One way to think of how your test went is that it could be you, or it could have been the test. There are certain “tests” that I continue to fight. I don’t accept it. I don’t give in and say I won’t change. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I loose. I will never make the change if I give up, so I keep on believing. I continue to keep up the fight.
What I have found is most tests, most personal development challenges, are not nearly as hard as I feared they would be. If you go and buy a guitar, you probably shouldn’t expect to be giving a concert at the end of your first week. You could, however, be playing songs at the end of a week. Granted they may be fairly simple, but you can be playing songs. Bam, you are now on your way to being a musician. You can be almost anything or anyone, that you want to be. One step, one small change at a time. Your life and a fire have a lot in common. Fuel, oxygen and a spark is required for a fire. Vision, belief and persistent effort are the building blocks of personal change. The more fuel the longer the fire can burn. The more compelling the vision the more it will keep you driving forward to achieve the change. The more oxygen, the hotter the fire. The more belief you have the stronger your drive to deliver the change. All it takes is a well-placed spark to start a huge fire. All it takes is well placed effort to ignite the change. Start with one push-up as your exercise routine. Bam, on your way to being fit. Then 2, then add some squats… you are now already more fit.
This Week’s Talk
As I was writing the above section discussing physical fitness, it triggered in me a line of thinking to the whole concept of micro habits and linking actions together to create new habits. For me, some changes died out not from lack of effort, but because it was too hard to remember doing them. This is where linking actions together, so one triggers the other and then others, comes in. For our physical fitness example, imagine that you link bending over and touching your toes and doing some simple stretching exercises to getting dressed. At least twice a day you would be doing some stretching exercises. Then you link a few simple floor exercises in with that and then you are getting exercise and stretching twice a day. Our lives are a series of routines and actions. Identify some small actions related to what you want to learn, be, do, become… and start linking it into parts of your normal routine and you will be well on your way to achieving personal growth. I am a believer in the inverse rule of mental effort. The more you try to force change to happen the harder it will be to achieve what you want. The above steps give you a method to make change easy, and manageable. One bite at a time.
This Week’s Assignment
The end is near… OK, maybe a bit overly dramatic. The end of the first section of this blog that directly follows the book. We are at the end of the story and the beginning of Scrooges new life. Cratchit and Scrooge have their exchange and Cratchit has doubled his salary and gained support from Scrooge to help his family. That’s what Cratchit got but what did Scrooge get? He got the greatest gift of all, a new lease on life. Most movies end with words similar to the books quote “Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew…”
Every day, every moment, holds the promise to be the start of something amazing. I was borderline homeless, suffered from food insecurity, began having what today is called passive suicide ideation because things seemed so hopeless. Today, it seems inconceivable things were ever that bad. I will close with a quote I have already used in this blog, but it seems appropriate: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t– you’re right”. Henry Ford. I use 3 x 5 cards to record my goals and review them daily to continue to program my autopilot to stay on track. Use what works for you. A cell phone app, handwritten notes, a dream board, write your own autobiography telling the story of how you became great… but do something. What got you here… won’t get you there, so start, now! Today, now, before you start anything else, be the new Scrooge and start your new life as the new you.
See you next week…