You have your arrow in a bow. And you are about to shoot it…
How far is your target?
If your target is within certain distance and you aim it well, your arrow will be on the target. However, if your target is too far, your arrow is not going to get there…
This is like your goal setting. If you set your goal too far ahead, you are not going to get there. You need to set up your goal close enough, so that you can reach it.
What is your goal setting look like?
You hear these three words very often: dreams, goals and tasks. What are in common among them?
May be not much. However, they are closely and intricately connected.
We all have dreams. They keep us alive.
Sometimes, we share our dreams with others and we get a sense of accomplishment.
Sometimes, we also share our goals with others and this also provide us a sense of achievement.
But, if you stop or hang over at these stages, it’s not a surprise. Because your psychological mind has played a game with you, ie. it makes you feel you’ve got there after you tell others about your dreams and goals. Therefore, you don’t feel and have the urgency to do anything about them.
The real thing that leads you to realize your dreams and goals is the task.
You need to do your tasks to make your dreams and goals come true.
“I long to accomplish a noble and great task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they are noble and great ones.” Hellen Keller.
Find your daily tasks. Every tiny, small tasks will get you closer to your dreams and goals.
You know that you are the sum of your action. Then are you aware what makes you to take action? What are the signals for you to take action?
Just pause for a second…
What did you do before you read my blog? What did make you to read my blog now?
When you reflect this, what picture appears in front of you? May be you can “see” what makes you to do what you do.
There are some signals that may stimulate or trigger you to take action:
We are living in a very noise environment, literally there is loudly sound at malls, in buses, restaurants…
And the fast- paced world distracts us from our focus, our quiet time, makes our mind spin.
We response automatically to things happening to us and around us, because there is little time to think.
Our time is robbed by constant outside distractions, demands and requests. We feel busy every day. It actually gives us a super facial sense of accomplishment…
… till one day,
one day we suddenly feel somewhat empty, realize that we don’t know how to think any more.
We are so good at responding, it becomes our second nature – our habit. We are drifting in life.
We forget who we are, what we want, how to create our values…
This is the time when you need a quite time.
Be quiet.
Listen to your heart: what makes you happy? Who you are? What is your dream? What do you want?
If you want to do one thing today that gives you a big smile, put your mark on it, what would it be?
Listen to your mind: what can make you sing, smile and jump out of bed in the morning? Do one such thing today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow…
Find a quiet moment every day.
In the quiet, you will find yourself again.
Just be quiet.
We say to be open is a pleasant trait. Therefore, we all strive to be an open-minded person.
What is exactly being open-minded?
Being open is an altitude. It’s an altitude towards work and life. Being open provides you more opportunity to see things in many angles, with more possibilities and options. It also provides you more opportunities to connect with people, to get closer to the truth of a matter, to get more accuracy to do things.
Does open-minded mean you have to listen to others all the time? Most of the time? Or some of the time?
It really depends…
Being a leader, you may need to be more open in order to get fuller evaluation of a situation. Therefore, you will get better judgement and reduce the chance for potential risk. You can make decisions quickly for smaller things, but with open discussion and debate for bigger (fewer) decisions.
Jeff Bezos said “People who are right a lot listen a lot, and they change their mind a lot.”
He believes that if you do not change your mind frequently, you are going to be wrong a lot.
Therefore, being open means you need to be ready to change your minds, to face tough situations, to embrace the pain to grow stronger.
Being open-minded is not a show. It gets to be from the bottom of your heart. Only then, you can learn, grow, and get better for what you do.
Live truly for yourself with a growth-mind, ie, an open-mind.
We all want to have the drive for a good work.
However,
Some days we are not clear what we do will deliver our expected results or not. Some days we are frustrated by many meticulous things in life and at work. Some days we are distracted… or tired…
we are human.
To have a good day of work is to know your purpose every day. Every time you feel not clear about what you do. You will need to take a break and dig deep to think your purpose of work.
Because every moment is unique. Once it passes, it’s gone forever. To make our work enjoyable, we need have a purposeful doing. This will make us feel meaningful, energize us and have a good day.
You could have a few times a day, say five moments, to pause, reflect, meditate, looking for bigger picture, appreciate… realign your work with your purpose.
Each moment could last a few minutes, or even some seconds. It can make a big difference to your quality of work.
Work with purpose.
You prime yourself before big events, such as a big exam, a serious presentation, or a tough conversation.
You know it is very important to prepare fully and give your best fully during those important occasions.
How do you do priming on a daily basis?
We encounter many things and need to make hundreds and thousands of decisions daily. We need to be present and do our best to live our true self and happy and fulfilled self. Therefore, we need prime ourselves constantly.
The daily priming does not have to be long or complicated.
You can build up your routine to do priming, for example, in the morning every day. You can do priming every evening if you prefer. You can do the priming during the day when you get a moment, a few minutes – interval, may do the trick. After some practice, you will find your rhythm to get your mind and emotion to be your best,
You can use meditation, yoga, running, walking, reading, writing, self-talking… anything that suits your pace and style to do your priming.
The key of priming is to get yourself to the present, enjoy and fully express yourself.
Priming yourself constantly is a life style. It is the connection and bridge of who are you and what do you want to the present. Priming yourself is the platform to live your life purposely and fully.
We are living in a UVCA (uncertainty, volatility, complexity, ambiguity) time. Everything changes fast with many dimensions.
We are lost from time to time, don’t see clearly which road to take forward. This is not uncommon. No frustration or panic is needed during these periods.
What we need is to put one foot in front of another – one step at a time, towards our big goal and destination.
We need have faith for ourselves. We need determination towards our purpose. We need keep going, focus our next step and move, no stopping.
We judge people from their action, not what they say.
We build our “Great Wall” from laying one brick at a time. Therefore, keep going, little by little, we will get there.
You made New Year’s resolutions. You could not keep them to the end of the year.
You made goals and milestones for your work. You did not carry on to complete them.
You have dreams and ambitions. You haven’t started your actions to pursue them…
These sound familiar, right?
What did happen there? What stories did you tell yourself? Did you realize you were tell yourself something when you stoped action as you planed?
May be you heard that you were telling yourself that today I felt tired, I need a break; or you were telling yourself that this is so hard, why not enjoy my life instead…; or you were telling yourself that why should I work that hard when someone else can cheat and get away with it…; or you were telling yourself that I have my dream, but I can do something about it on another day….and another day never comes.
If you do not catch the small talks you have with yourself. You may be drafting, wondering and wasting your time and your life.
What is your life purpose?
Socrates said that an unexamined life not worth living.
Take a pause, reflect what you have been doing and what you have been telling yourself. Take meditation, evaluate your life.
Only when you begin listen to yourself, examine if your stories are in alignment with your life purpose, you then can redirect your energy and your focus to where you want to go.
Get your stories right. Go with your stories.
When we have something good, we easily want to save it for later. Sometimes, later never arrives.
Actually this is a perfect signal that we need to use this good stuff – it may be a good idea, a good read, a good conversation… whatever it is, you need to act on it.
Only then you are doing your best, you are living your best life freely. You do not hold back from anything. You are stretching, growing and making a difference.
You do not need reservation. If you have anything good, use it, live it.
Live your best life now.
WE-FIVE 