How much is caused by others and how much do you cause yourself?
When you really think on this, you uncover some rather painful truths about stress. Most of it is caused by yourself.
Like you. I like to place demands on my performance. Far greater demands than I would ever allow anybody else. Well perhaps my wife would debate that, but I don’t demand so much from other people.
Like you, I have a desire to leave something of a legacy. I want to achieve something bigger than myself. Something important. Continue reading →
We’re all aware that there are no shortcuts to success. But, have you noticed that success seems to come more easily to some people and not so easily to you?
It’s OK, you’re not alone. In fact, everyone sees it this way. Even that eejit in your class at school. You know, the one in the big house, with the wealthy parents. They got given a swanky BMW for their 18th birthday. Yes, even they look at others and believe that success came more easily to them. And you know what. They probably even look at you and say how ‘lucky’ you are to have so easily been successful.
“Me?” you say.
Our real problem isn’t the failure, it’s in assigning blame.
Yes, you. Because you are successful in so many ways. Perhaps not yet in the specific way you think you would like, but you have a remarkable number of successes under your belt already.
And you know how you achieved those successes?
You failed. Yeap. You heard me right. You failed. Sometimes, you failed miserably, other times you just failed. But you failed nonetheless. And from that failure, you learned to succeed.
This week I’m going to share with you some insights on failure and why it carries such a stigma. Then we’ll look at the positive role of failure and lastly, learn how to embrace failure… or something I’m going to call: “Unfailure.”
It seems to me if a tool is so widely used, there must be something to it. As a leadership caddy, procrastination is almost always the first thing my clients want to eliminate from their lives. As you will read, I advise them not to eliminate the very tool that is there to help them navigate the rough spots in life and business.
“If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.” Rita Mae Brown
Detour ahead
It’s time I think to do a little more brain hacking and think of procrastination as a detour in the road. The purpose of a detour is to give us a warning, help us avoid something unnavigable, or dangerous and provides a safer route. Detours usually take a little longer, they circumvent the problem, but in the end we arrive at our destination unscathed. In most cases you will discover that properly employed procrastination, like a detour, will give you an alternate route to the solution of the problem at hand.
My mum would often tell me “all will be well in the morning.” For her, it was just experience and age-old wisdom.
All will be well in the morning
And things always were better in the morning.
Somehow, all the clutter and stress and worry, while, not gone altogether, was, at least more manageable.
As I slept, my brain was free to sort through the problem, process it entirely and put it in a suitable place close to a similar experience in memory. I had learned how to resolve whatever the issue was.
More often than not, it didn’t even need addressing anyway.
