Search This Blog

Tuesday 26 May 2015

Move with Purpose


Move With Purpose

© Scott Wilson 2015


My tip for today from my study on successful leaders:  Move with purpose.

In my interactions with and observations of effective leaders I have noticed that they tend to walk and move with purpose.  Their bearing and demeanor let others know that they are in charge.  I am not stating that their is not a time and a place to meander and stroll.  However, when these people are working towards their goals they move with purpose.  Their minds and energies are focused; they do not indulge distraction.  Likewise, I am not implying that these people are stiff and formal.  Good leaders are usually relaxed and tend to convey that easiness to others. 

In French there is a saying "Il sens bien dans sa peau." which means "They feel comfortable in their skin."  This is definitely a key trait of the most successful leaders.  They are at ease with themselves and tend to put others at ease.  I believe that part of that relaxed nature is due to their sense of purpose and drive.  Leaders have a plan and they are working that plan.  They are not waffling about their decisions.  They make decisions. Commit to them and see them through.

If a decision leads to an undesirable or unexpected outcome the excellent leader stops, takes ownership of the event, changes course and moves on.  This should be our lesson.  First, learn to accept ourselves and become comfortable with who and what we are; only then will we be able to extend that grace towards others.  Note that only we can determine who and what we are; others will always see us from there own biased perspective. We are so much more than mothers, fathers, lovers, friends, workers and colleagues.  Get to the core of yourself; know definitively from head to toe who you are.

Next, from a proper sense of self we determine a purpose that we wish to pursue.  Famous motivational writer Earl Nightingale called this "a worthy ideal."  A worthy ideal can be any goal that one strives to achieve and maintain, anything from weight loss to career achievement.  This must be chosen with care as we will be orienting ourselves to achieve this and shedding any distractions.  Difficulties will arise when we develop goals that compete with each other for our time and energy or when we permit distractions.

So finally, having wisely chosen our goals, we move to achieve them. We move with purpose.  When conflicts arise we own them and deal with them either according to their priorities or we adjust our priorities.  Make your decisions with confidence based on knowledge and tempered with instinct.  Listen to both your heart and your mind and do no waffle.  Accept that priorities can change and goals can be paused.  For example, an ailing family member may temporarily trump weight loss plans or career goals. Do not distress - choose and continue to move with purpose in the new direction.

No doubt there those who read my words above and are distressing that they do not have the confidence in themselves or they lack commitment to their purpose.  I offer this advice.  Act as though you do.  Some call this "faking it till you make it."  You want self-confidence.  You want purpose.  Your mind is rarely the problem.  Your fearful heart is usually the culprit holding you back.  In this situation your best course of action is to act decisively with purpose.  In so doing you will be teaching your timid heart to become more bold and to build its trust in you.

I teach young Air Cadets.  One of the things that we instill in these fine young folks is to walk in a certain way when in uniform.  I am not talking about marching.  They are instructed to stand tall, carry items in their left hand and to keep their arms relatively straight.  Having their right hands free allows them to easily salute or shake hands.  Keeping their bearing upright and in control keeps them alert and ready to respond to others.  In short, by teaching people to walk with purpose their thinking  and demeanor changes.  They are beginning to feel and act like the very leaders that we are training them to become.

I do not downplay the difficulty of what I have outlined.  Learning who we are takes a lifetime so we better get started.  Choosing our goals can be equally challenging for they can impact who we become.  But if we want success we cannot shy away from these requirements and then putting them into action.  So I heartily encourage you today to:

Learn who you are...
Choose carefully your goals...
And move firmly with purpose!

 

Friday 8 May 2015

Get a perspective!

Get a perspective!
© 2015 Scott Wilson
 
"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." – Charlie Chaplin
 
As we navigate this thing called life we will routinely encounter both joys and sorrows. Goals will be thwarted.  Dreams will meet with difficulties.  Steps in the correct direction towards self-improvement will seem to stall and fail.  How we choose to deal with these events will literally make the difference between genuine success and failure.
 
If these events were simply logical matters we would all naturally resolve them in a dispassionate way.   Unfortunately, despite our beliefs to the contrary, we are not truly driven by rational thinking.  We are emotional creatures and emotions tend to drive thinking and trump our best intentions.  Emotions are the elements that turn easy tasks arduous and dreary work into joy.  When we simply try to mentally suppress our emotions we inevitably cause them to build in intensity until they overcome our control.  So we need to understand what factors affect our emotions.
 
One of the most powerful influences on our emotions is our perspective.  Fortunately, perspective is also a variable that we can greatly influence with our rationale minds.  Our minds can gain a measure of control over our emotions if we are willing to understand how our emotions are affected by our perceptions of the things and events around us.
 
To explain the power of perception and emotions allow me to use the extreme illustration of a phobia.  Arachnophobia is the extreme fear of spiders.  I have seen grown men and women jumping up on chairs and leaping great distances to evade the approach of a harmless house spider.  This tiny delicate creature that could easily be smashed by even the smallest toddler has the power to hurl an over 150 pound human being across a room.  Amazing.
 
Why does this happen?  Because the people affected by the phobia perceive the spider as a far greater threat than it is in reality.  Phobias are usually overcome by gradually changing the person’s perspective towards the object of their fear.  By repeated exposure the individuals come to realize that the objects of their fear are not truly threatening to them.  For the arachnophobic people, they come to see spiders for the delicate and benign creatures that they are.
 
This understanding can help us with our own difficulties.  I often see people developing a great deal of stress about what someone said or did to them or about some personal failure.  We tend to internalize these external stressors and then exaggerate their implications.  A person who is trying to lose weight succumbs to temptation and overeats on a weekend and then beats themselves up for the rest of the week.  Or worse, they contemplate quitting their efforts to improve their health.  We do this because we have lost perspective on parts of our lives and enable our emotions to overcome us.
 
I have a simple solution for such events.  I close my eyes and take a deep breath.  When I let out the breath slowly I try to imagine how I will perceive this difficulty tomorrow.  I then imagine how this problem will look in a week.  From there I move to a month and then a year.  Beyond that I seek to imagine the trouble from 5 and 10 years away.  Lastly, I imagine this matter from the perspective of my deathbed.  When I return from my time-travelling I ask myself “How was it?”  Based on my answers at the various times I respond accordingly.
 
Obviously I want to extend significant effort to those things that will have an impact on me when I am in my final moments.  However, I rarely find that any of my troubles seem to look all that bad beyond a day or a week.  What happened to the emotions and the trauma of the event that I am dealing with?  They are now tempered by the proper perspective of the situation.  If something will be forgettable or insignificant in less than a year then why would we want to give it so much of our hearts and our minds today?
 
This is only one exercise.  My point is that we can use our imagination and our minds to change our perspective on virtually anything from weight loss to a difficult spouse or from a troubled child to a bad job situation.  Perspective will not absolve us of the need to take action but it will help to relieve us of much of the fear and anger that might cloud our best response.

So if something is troubling you today then take a few quiet moments to honestly and creatively look at your problem from some new and different perspectives. You could discover that it is not nearly as bad as you thought or you might even find some solutions that you never considered before!