The Deliberate Life

The Long Ride

You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
                                                                               - Anonymous

The Time Is Now

According to my watch, the time is now
The past is dead and gone
Don't try to shake it, just nod your head
Breathe in, breathe out, move on  - Jimmy Buffett

At The Core

I think everybody has to be prepared in life for failures or disappointments or frustrated dreams, or even embarrassments.  We have to be prepared to accommodate them if possible.  You have to accommodate changing times but cling to unchanging principles.  If you do have extreme change in your life that is unpleasant, what are the principles that don't change, on which you build a new life, an expanded life, a better life, a more adventurous life?  -- Jimmy Carter (as quoted in Success Built to Last - Creating a Life That Matters)

Even Nothing Means Something

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.  You see, success doesn't just suddenly occur one day in someone's life.  For that matter, neither does failure.  Each is a process.  Every day of your life is merely preparation for the next.  What you become is the result of what you do today.  In other words . . .

You Are Always Preparing for Something!!

From Today Matters by John C. Maxwell

Technorati Tags: GTD, Getting Things Done, Success

An Unnatural Act

I'm becoming more and more a fan of 'Getting Things Done' by David Allen.  You can find a lot of resources -- tools, articles and support -- online to help you keep focused and in 'the zone' when it comes to getting yourself better organized and more productive.

If you haven't found it yet, I recommend you subscribe to his free newsletter at The David Allen Company.  Here's an article from his latest newsletter entitled, GTD Karate:

For years I have woven the martial arts metaphor in and through my writing, training and coaching about getting things done. I had the good fortune to be able to study karate for several years in my twenties, and my familiarity with that field gave me a rich context of images and concepts to draw from.

I didn’t fully appreciate, however, much of what getting my black belt gave me until later in life. Over the years I began to recognize the value of various habits and standards that training had ingrained in my personal style. They affected my approach to everything. And as I delved progressively deeper into the arena of personal productivity, similarities with karate began to resonate in many new ways. My conclusion was, and still is, that work (and life) IS a martial art – not just a reflection of it.

Though there is likely an infinite list of the similiarities, the ones I find most interesting are the process replications – what’s the same in the nature of the two arts themselves. Here’s my Top Ten:

1. There are no beginner’s moves.

You begin in karate learning moves that you will practice as a third-degree black belt. A round-house kick or knife-hand block is the same, whether you are just learning it or you are a sensei. Being responsible for your internal commitments, deciding what next physical action is required on something you want to do or change, clarifying your intention and vision – those are true from beginning to end, no matter how mature you are in life or its process. There’s no elementary way to process your in-basket to zero.

2. It feels counter-intuitive and unnatural when you start.

Trying to stand and move gracefully in a karate “front stance” feels initialy like one of the more unnatural things the body has ever attempted. It’s almost as weird as writing everything down that you commit to do something about, as it occurs to you. Or spending valuable time cleaning up non-critical open loops on the front end. Weird science.

3. Once you’re used to it, it is the most natural way to move.

Once you master the basic karate stances, your natural walk takes on a gracefulness you wonder why you ever did without. Once you integrate outcome- and next-action thinking into your life, not doing it seems both awkward and backward.

4. It handles basic movement and resource allocation masterfully.

In order to be able to break bricks with your hand and manifest a pinpoint of power in an instant, you learn to move the whole body with extreme efficiency. And once you’ve mastered the five phases of workflow, you don’t complain about your volume of e-mail nor mind putting everything on hold to focus on the surprise that just showed up.

Just Say No

Congratulations, you're getting organized!  Your projects are under control.  You know your priorities and you're making tremendous strides in getting rid of the clutter in your workplace and at home.  So, how to you keep from getting back into the same situation again?  Well, of course, you keep working your system, whether its following David Allen's Getting Things Done or Steven Covey's First Things First, or some other organizing system.  You also have to get control of what you take on and that can mean using a word that many of us are uncomfortable with, especially in the workplace -- "No!"

Well, Ramona Creel at OnlineOrganizing.com can help.  Read her article, 20 Ways to Say No, to help  you to get to "No!! I just can't do that."

Quick Reads

Here are four worthwhile articles for the busy leader. . .

Learning to Accept Criticism by John Baldoni at Darwinmag.com

My Way or the Highway—Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Micromanagement from The American Management Association's Moving Ahead newsletter.

Why We Resist the Weekly Review and Plan (and What You Can Do About It) by Ricky Spears at Ricky's RAM Dump.  A nice read on personal productivity referred by Be Excellent.

Beyond Strategy, Tomorrow's Leaders Are Expected to Do It All from The American Management Association Leader's Edge newsletter.

Career Development

Here is a really nice series of articles on Career Development During the Holidays from Being Bold.  While the Holiday Season is quickly nearing its end, many of the suggestions presented in this three part series apply equally well any time of the year -- never wait for a special occasion to celebrate your achievements, set new goals, or take action.

Here are the links to each post in the series:

The Social Phase
The Reflective Phase
The New Beginnings Phase

Changing Your Habits - A Follow-Up

Here's a link to a great article by Dr. Stephanie Burns entitled, Installing a New Habit and Breaking an Old One.  It's a great piece that expands on yesterday's post, The Key to Success.  It's well worth the read for anyone desiring to change or eliminate those annoying little habits in their life. . .just in time for developing your New Year's Resolutions.

The Key to Success

In my post of December 3, I noted that I would post a series of short articles addressing the 10 key strategies outlined in The Power of Focus, by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt.  This article addresses the first strategy -- "Your Habits Will Determine Your Future".  The bottom line to this strategy -- if you really want to make a significant change in your business, career and life, you must make significant changes in your habits.  As the authors point out early in the chapter, "up to 90 percent of our normal behavior is based on habits. . .and they include the way you dress, get ready for the day, drive to the office, greet people, arrange your desk, set up appointments, work on projects, attend meetings, answer the phone and so on."  In essence we are all a creature of our habits, and where we are in our lives today is largely a result of those habits -- the good and the bad.

Habits are also very difficult to change, particularly those we've followed for years and years.  They are difficult to change for many reasons.  Changing a habit requires effort -- over a period of time.  Changing a habit -- whether is it good or bad, useful or unproductive -- takes us out of our "comfort zone".  Some may be physically addicting, such as smoking.  Others may be viewed as trivial and not worth changing, such as "forgetting someone's name sixty seconds (or less) after being introduced" -- a personal fault I'm always trying to improve on.  Some, particularly good habits may be difficult to change because they have been "the secret of our success" -- at least in the past.