2014 10 03 - Be Better than you Are

Be Better than you Are

I was listening to Earl Nightingale recently and he quoted Carl Rogers. “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am then I can change. To be what you are is the first step in becoming better than you are.”

Wow. When I heard that phrase, I backed up and played it again and again and again. I believe that anyone can change and become better – or worse. And I also believe that it is a choice, not fate, that makes that so.

I was lying in bed about 6 or 7 years ago staring at the ceiling. I knew I was in trouble – financially, emotionally, everything. I was starting a process that is still underway today. I was “taking stock” of my life. Unfortunately, I was still playing the “blame game”. You see, I was still thinking that people were doing things to me, not reflecting what I was putting out to them. I was still a child.

You see, up to this point I thought I was perfect. Or at least pretty good. I did not realize how poorly I was treating other people. I did not realize how poorly I was treating myself. In my exposure to people through teaching, I have seen many people who put themselves down. Most of these people were products of their environment. I still remember one lad whose own father used to tell him, “You can’t fix stupid.” I also felt similar feelings but internalized them. I needed to look closely and identify my weaknesses, accept them and build them up.

Jim Rohn taught me the day you become an adult is the day you stop blaming other people for your problems. It still took me a couple of years to figure THAT out but at least I was on my way. I was at last starting to look at my life with a critical eye. When I stub my toe on a box that was left out, it is not the fault of the person who left the box out and it wasn’t the box’s fault. It was mine. My toes. My eyes. My perception.

I now realize that when people do not seem to be very nice to me it is very likely because I have not been nice to them. They say that 95% of the people on this planet are covered with reflective mirrors. They reflect back out to the universe what is shone on them. Therefore when someone is nasty, it is likely they were exposed to something nasty. They are outer directed people. They are reactors.

I decided a while ago to be a broadcaster of goodness. No matter who I am presented with, I do my level best to be the charming, optimistic person I really am. I worry not about what people think of me but rather what I think of myself.

Back to Carl Rogers. I had to look at every aspect of my life and make plans, set goals and work hard. I had to look at those areas of my life where I was not happy and identify what needed to be done. And to a trait, it was me that needed to change. I had to accept myself on every level as being me. I had to look at everything and accept it as being as it was.

Now to me accepting is not being fateful. I had to accept I weighed 260 pounds. I had to accept I was a poor eater. I had to accept that I was unhealthy. Once I did that I had to make a plan to change and then work the plan. I now weigh less than 250 pounds. I eat less, drink more water and move around more.

I used to believe in the power of positive thinking. Now I think that is a little naive. Maybe just plain old naïve. I now look at myself without any filters. I see my weaknesses and am working to strengthen them. You see, I had to become Matt and accept the “old Matt” before the new Matt could be built. And the new Matt is a work in progress. It is hard to change 45 years of conditioning in a few days. Every day is a struggle. But the feeling at the end of the day having achieved small goals is tremendous.

Right now I am having issues with Linda. I am not really sure what is going on to be honest. What  am doing is looking at how I treat her. How I act and speak to her, about her and in front of her. I know that what is going on is mostly, if not completely a reflection of my actions and re-actions. I believe that my actions are better than they were. I am working on my re-actions. And you know what? That is my choice. Each and every one of us has a choice every time something “happens” to us.

So my goal today (and tomorrow) is to act. I choose to be a positive influence in the universe. I will do my level best not to react but to act. I will act with kindness and optimism. I will be a positive influence in all with whom I come in contact today and tomorrow and all of the tomorrows.

I have met myself. I have accepted myself and now I am making a better me. I do this to make other people better. I also do it for a purely selfish reason. I feel good. I see my goals coming over the horizon. I am on my way, never to look back. I am never going back to the old me. Please do not get me wrong, I love the old me. Without the old me I could not be where I am today. Without the me I have today, I cannot be the me I will be tomorrow.

And remember, you cannot look good and get better at the same time!

2014 10 02 - Wake up

Wake Up

I heard a great phrase this week. “The first thing you have to do to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”

That is an interesting concept. How many people do you know live in a perpetual dream state as far as their live is concerned. I know a lot of people in that state. What do I hear all around me every day? People tell what their dreams are. They are dreaming of a vacation. Dreaming about retirement. Dreaming of a new car. Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. It is time to wake up.

Zig Ziglar says something like “a goal is a dream with a deadline”. What does that mean to you? It means to me that as soon as I put a deadline on something, it starts to become true. That may seem over simplified to some but I believe in the concept. I used to have a lot of dreams. I have lived long enough to see a lot of my dreams have passed me by. And seeing a dream disappear from your mind like fog melting over a lake is not soul building. So I woke up. Now what have I got? Goals.

I now have a list of goals. Not only do I have goals, I have a plan of achieving them. One of my favourite books is The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. The premise of the book is simple – great things can be achieved by taking small steps. Small steps taken with an almost diabolical focus on being consistent.

Does it work? Yes it does! How can I illustrate this,….

OK, for the first 45 years of my life, I was what I now look on as a looser. I was a bit of a paradox though. I had belief in most of the success principles but I was not living them. I was blaming other people and my circumstances for my “lot in life”. Now I understand that life is my own damn fault. Good and bad. I woke up.

Making your dreams come true is relatively easy. The challenge is in understanding that one must take complete and utter control of one’s own life. The “good” and the “bad”. I have realized that the “bad” is usually my reaction to a situation that is likely out of my control. So I must learn to control my emotional response to “bad” situations and attack them with logical thinking. I woke up.

Making your dreams come true is checking to see if your dream is SPECIFIC. Rather than saying “I want a new car!”, make a specific plan. Map out the make, the model, the colour, everything. Make sure the goal is well defined. Wake up.

Making your dreams come true is making them MEASURABLE. Instead of just saying “I want to pay off my credit cards!”, make the goal measurable. Say “I want to pay off my $14,000 MasterCard debt by December 2015!”. This way you can track your progress. Wake up.

Make your goals ATTAINABLE. Instead of saying “I want a Lamborghini!” when you are working in landscape construction. Set an attainable goal. Now, a Lamborghini is not a BAD goal, and it may very well be attainable, but make sure the horizon you are setting for yourself is close in enough you can see progress. Wake up.

Make sure your goals are RELEVANT. Make sure your goals align to your core values. If you are a granola groupie there is no sense in making a goal in owning a Hummer. I see people setting goals that are not relevant in order to fit in. For example, one of the leaders in ACN was telling us how all of his peers have Bentleys. I wonder how many of them would prefer a different car but made that goal even though it was not relevant. If you are that granola groupie, make your goal a Prius or a SMART car. Wake up.

Make sure your goals are TIME SENSITIVE. Remember what I said at the beginning about Zig Zigglar? A dream with a deadline. Time sensitive. Set deadlines for all of your goals. Wake up.

I believe what I just wrote I gleaned from Dennis Waitley. I sure hope it was him, I didn’t cite anyone in my notes! Make your goals SMART:

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Attainable

R – Relevant

T – Time sensitive

And here is my illustration:

I started making a habit of setting goals. I make my goals very specific. (that credit card example was indeed mine). It is very measurable, my credit card provider is very nice and sends me a statement each month. It is attainable. I can pay off the debt by December 2015 – but not much earlier. It is relevant as my core belief is to be debt free and never looking back. It is time sensitive. Once my credit card debt is taken care of, a portion of the payment savings will be put into personal savings and the other portion will be put into paying off the line of credit. I woke up.

Dennis Waitley and Darren Hardy have also taught me something else about setting goals. Make small steps and as Dennis says, “ratchet your way to success.” Making a big hairy audacious goal is not bad to do. It is key to break large goals into smaller, easier to complete mini-goals. My credit card situation is merely one step in becoming completely debt free.

Dennis also talks about 90 day goals. He chooses 90 days as that is 3 months, or a season. When I lok at successful people like my Uncle Ralph or my dad, they planned their life by the season. My Uncle was pruning pears and grapes, tying grapes and stretching wire, summer pruning and other care and finally the harvest. My dad’s was personal tax time, corporate tax time, general accounting and auditing, and preparation for tax time. Both of these men understood perfectly well the Law of Compensation. Or as Emerson put it, “Do the thing and you shall have the power, but he who does not the thing shall not have the power.”

Wake up and start changing those dreams into goals. If you follow the SMART formula, it will work very well for you. There is nothing like looking at a credit card statement and seeing the balance is lower than last months. And the interest payments smaller. Wake up.