Personal Achievement & Success

There is a prevalent philosophy I see practiced a lot that is just plain false. It’s the idea that great success is achieved through luck or chance. No truly great and enduring success just “happens”. Enduring success is the result of purposeful, planned action, done consistently.

Our society is obsessed with getting things immediately and with no effort. It’s everywhere: “Get instant credit NOW!”, “Cooked and ready to eat in 5 minutes!”, “Get rich FAST!”, “Lose 3 inches from your waist OVER NIGHT!”, “Miracle acne cure removes scars and blemishes in 24 HOURS!’ Hogwash!

There is a fundamental element of human nature that yearns for something for nothing or for “the easy, fast way”. It is perhaps the first hurdle to achieving any great success. I have practiced this in my own life…if I just “hope” hard enough great things will happen.

At the heart of it all I get seduced by the thought of “having” verses the act of “becoming”. Just “having” stuff doesn’t mean much. It seems like it will at first, but it never does. On the other hand, the act of “becoming”, while difficult, brings the most satisfaction.

I can illustrate this with the desire I have to be more free. I want more time freedom, more financial freedom, more freedom to fully chose what I will do with my day, etc. I just want it now! But here is the trick. What if I was just given unlimited wealth over night? Without the strength of character I would need to handle that freedom, I would destroy myself. Without the knowledge to do something meaningful with such wealth, it would make me miserable. This is proven time and again with people that win the lottery, or receive a huge inheritance. Why is it a year or two later that they are right back in the same mess they were before? Because they never developed the knowledge and character needed to become the type of person that could handle that type of success.

So if just “having” stuff immediately destroys and makes miserable, what is the best way? Shift your focus from “having” to “becoming”. Become the type of person that can handle unlimited wealth, and you will HAVE unlimited wealth. Simple concept perhaps, but difficult to do.

Society doesn’t focus much on “becoming”. The focus is on “having”. Things evolve that way because its easier to be lazy and appeal to that part of our nature. I don’t know how many people would be seduced by this marketing message: “Lose 30 pounds in 12 months by eating right, exercising and working your rear off !” Or, “Earn unlimited wealth through years of planning, working, and learning wisdom through applied effort and delivering value”.

The result is a lot of people waiting around for “their ship to come in”. With all these messages about “fast and easy” it’s just got to be a matter of time right? WRONG. Here is the “secret”. It’s a matter of EFFORT.

UUUGGGG effort!? Yuck! Or is it? Look at it like this. There are two classes of miserable: “those that receive stuff with out earning it and destroying themselves (miserable), and those that make no effort, and therefore make no progress, also miserable. So if getting something for nothing leads to misery and doing nothing leads to misery, what is left? Work! Plan! Become!

For the remainder of this post I will focus on the concept of “becoming” and some ideas on “how” to “become”.

When I say “become” I am speaking of the process of becoming the best you. The joy comes in the process of becoming and not arriving or having. This is a little bit abstract, so let me provide an example of what I mean. I attended graduate school at Idaho State University to obtain the training and degree to get a job as a licensed mental health counselor. When I first began my focus was all about the degree and what that would get me. My thoughts were centered on “just getting through” the next 2 years. I just wanted the degree. My first semester was tough, particularly with that attitude.

The second semester something happened that changed my attitude. As part of the program I was doing an internship at the state of Idaho department of child protection. I was to work with children that had suffered severe neglect and abuse. I was assigned to work with a young, 10 year old boy I will call “Steven”. He spoke to no one. He didn’t look any one in the eye. He was completely withdrawn.

My first thought was, “great, I get to spend several hours each week baby sitting a completely mute kid”. Then I spent some time reading his file. He had suffered horrible abuse. Anger grew in me as I came to understand all that he had suffered. Following the anger an immense admiration for Steven began to swell inside. He had amazing strength and a very calm, but determined demeanor. I completely forgot about graduate school, degrees, internships, I became consumed with a desire to help some how.

The first several times we met he didn’t say anything or even look at me. Although he wasn’t saying words he would communicate through his body language and alert manner. The idea came to me to get out of the counselor’s office and just take walks. So we would walk and I would tell him how I admired him for who he was. I would reinforce every positive thing he did. This went on for weeks.

Then one day…I came in to the office and looked me in the eye and asked to go on a walk. He opened up and it was like flood gates opened. He talked about everything. His frustrations, his fears, anger first…then he spoke of things that he liked, and what he hoped for. Everyone in the department was amazed that he would say anything, let alone be so open.

We became good friends and we stayed in touch long after the internship was over. Somewhere in the middle of this experience I completely forgot about the degree. Some thing changed inside me and I became a bit more caring and my focus shifted from “getting a degree” to genuinely helping other people. As I look back now on that experience, the person I was becoming is what brought the satisfaction. The day I graduated and received my degree was okay, but it was nothing really in comparison to the process of becoming better.

It is experiences like that, that has me getting up at 3:00 AM every day to write and post in this blog. The process of sharing ideas and experiences that can help others is what brings me satisfaction. I really don’t know what I will ever “get” or “have” in the material world for this, but I enjoy the process. Every article I write has me thinking about you, and how I can help some how.

So how do you shift from thinking about “having” to “becoming”? The first step is recognizing that happiness comes from the process of becoming the best you, you can be. Any rewards or accolades are just “by products” of the person you have become. This mind set is THE KEY. It is this mind set that allows for the next step.

Next step is to identify who you are and what you want to become. At first glance it would appear that this would be the easiest thing to do.  Who doesn’t know what they want to become?  This question is shadowed by a more dominant question: “What do I want to have”?  As a result the more important question is pushed out of the way.  Everywhere you turn you are told what you want: “Flatter abs”, “More hair”, “Less hair”, “More money”, “Bigger house” “Better performance”, etc, etc.  The secret is this: You don’t learn what you are to become by focusing on yourself!   You learn who you are and what you want to become by focusing on service to others.  Only in the act of getting outside yourself can you begin see who you really are.  It is easy to get started on this step really.  Go do something for someone.  Do the dishes, pick up some trash, fix a meal, make a visit.  As you provide this service, you will begin to see with more clarity.

This step takes some time.  We are so conditioned to think about “receiving” that thinking about “giving” can be difficult at first.  Give without thoughts of what you will receive in return.

Next, write down the thoughts and feelings that come to you as you serve.  Don’t get hung up on this step.  Don’t concentrate on writing as if you are crafting your own autobiography.   Just transfer thoughts to paper.  Get a note book, start on the first page and put the date at the top.  Start writing.

Ask yourself questions and then write the answers.  I will concentrate on the answer to a single question until I have exhausted any thoughts or feelings that come into my mind. Following are the questions to ask/answer:

1. “Why am I here?”

2. “Where am I going?”

3. “Who am I?”

Take a single question and focus on it first.  Ask the questions in the sequence I have written them.  Stop writing after you have written every thought and answer that comes into your mind.   Go back and read what you wrote the day before.  Refine your answer the next day.  Ponder the question as you provide acts of service during the day.  Then write down the thoughts that come to you. Be prepared to receive thoughts or impressions about actions you should take.  Write those down, and DO the things you feel impressed to do.

At the end of 7th day of this process, review the final answer you have written.  If you followed through on this process, step by step, have full confidence in the final answer.  If the answer feels “hallow”, evaluate the “service” step.  Make sure that you took time to serve, AND that you took note of the thoughts that came to you as you served.

I have seen this process work with great success, for myself and others.  Continue this process.  New questions will arise.  Write these down and then follow the same process on each question.  As you serve and act upon the thoughts that come into your mind, you are “becoming”.

The final answer to “Who am I” will outline what you are becoming.  It will provide the direction you are to follow.   I have outlined these steps in an easy to read document.  Click here to get the file.  Print it and go to work.  Come back and post your comments on who you are becoming.

Problems are a part of life. In a certain way they are a blessing as they help us grow. However, problems can take on a life of their own if we allow it. The idea for this post occurred to me yesterday as I was helping a friend with some personal challenges. She was devastated and had been reduced to a sort of isolated misery.

She had cut herself off from friends and associations. It took some time and some talking to identify the root cause. In the end the cause was a single personal flaw that she had blown into something really big. And in the process she had reduced herself to something really small.

This got me thinking about the role of perspective. In the case of my friend, she had placed the problem in the center of her world. She had nurtured it and empowered it. Fed it and placed it in a frame. Then put it up on a pedestal where she could see it often. It actually became the center of her world.

The problem became a mountain. She had become a small “spec” in the shadow of this monstrous mass. I suggested that perhaps she had things switched around. What if she was the mountain and the “spec” was the problem? She was hesitant to look at the problem in this way at first. After all she had worked really hard at nurturing the problem.

Once she put herself in the “mountain” role, and the problem in the “spec” role, her whole demeanor changed. From her new vantage point, the problem didn’t seem that formidable. In fact it seemed small and weak. I suggested that she cut off it’s food supply

Her experience isn’t foreign to me. I recently had an experience where I had done the same thing. I own some properties in Detroit, MI. I received word that the child of one the tenants had been hospitalized for ingesting paint chips. Since the home is really old, there was lead in the paint chips. The child had ingested enough to be lead poisoned.

The problem had so many levels of concern that I quickly became overcome by it. I fed it in every way. My concern for the child, and his health. My concerns regarding the property and the steps necessary to make is safer. My concerns for the expense of possible legal ramifications. All the concerns were valid for sure. However, I allowed these to consume me. If the problem was a small fire, I had built it into an inferno.

For about a week or so, I was intolerable to be around. I bounced between states of extreme grumpiness and lethargy. My fears about what could happen ballooned into something huge. And, I felt small, and powerless in it’s wake. Even as I write this my pulse is quickening, and my blood pressure increasing. I really fed this thing.

Thank goodness for my wonderful wife, Tracy. She helped me step outside the problem and see it in it’s proper perspective. I began my descent from the ledge by considering the following question. “What is the worst thing that could happen?”

The first step to putting a problem in it’s proper perspective is to look at the “worst case scenario”. This gets the problem “out on the table”. It helps you look at the “reality” of the situation. Look at every angle. Get ridiculous. Get absurd. A little bit of humor at this stage can also help put things in perspective.

Get the problem out of your own head. In a state of duress or stain, you can perseverate on the problem. Your mind will play tricks on you. This is where you begin to build the problem into a mountain. The problem gets bigger, and you get smaller.

The best way to get the problem “out of your own head” is to discuss it with someone else. This can be difficult as pride often sets in here. Perhaps you feel shame, or fear about what others will think, so you keep the problem to yourself.

Resist the urge to isolate yourself. Discussing the problem with someone else will “shine a light” on the issue. You will also be surprised by the different points of view that you could not see.

If you get stuck at this stage, and you just can’t share the problem with someone else yet. Write everything down in a journal. This is a very effective way to begin to get the problem “out side your own head”. The act of writing is very “cathartic”.

Writing involves other senses and engages different parts of your mind. If you can’t find someone to talk to, talk to yourself by writing it down. I even pretend that the problem is not mine. I write as if I am advising someone else. As if the problem was theirs and I am just providing options and advise.

Meditation and prayer are excellent ways to get outside of your own head. If you don’t pray, try it. The act of discussing the problem out loud (find a place to be alone) will allow you see the problem differently.

Look at all the facts. Emotions can quickly “rule the day”. Fact finding helps to place the problem in the “objective” realm.

For example, in the lead poisoning case the worst case scenario was that the child could pass away. We could also be sued and lose “everything”. In the fact finding stage we found that the lead poisoning was relatively mild. We also discovered that the lead poisoning was “cumulative” over a period of time. They had only lived in the home for 30 days.

We found that the child was autistic and had been hospitalized previously for lead poisoning. The parents were aware of the dangers of lead poisoning and had not taken precautions.

We also looked at what it would mean to lose “everything”. Tracy and I had lived on “peanuts” in grad school. Literally….peanuts. That was one of the happiest times of our marriage. “Stuff” doesn’t make you happy. We would still have each other, and our family. This also reinforced the commitment we have to each other.

Take a break. Get outside. Go for a walk. Take a drive. Listen to pleasant music. Play the guitar. Do whatever you do to most effectively step away from the problem for a short time. This is not avoiding. This is allowing your conscious mind to take a break. Your subconscious mind will continue to work the problem. All the prior steps will be feeding your subconscious mind the information necessary to begin formulating solutions.

Finally, take action. Outline one thing you can do right now to get started, and then do it. If you can outline 3, 5 or 10 things, write these down, pick one and get going. Action has a way of clearing the fog. It also shifts the perspective as it puts you in a position of power…it makes you bigger and the problem smaller. The more you do, the “bigger you get” and the smaller the problem becomes.

You are “bigger” than you realize. There is no problem that is bigger than you. By taking the previous steps you will begin to see the problem from the proper perspective.

Click here to download a file that you can print. This will help you systematically walk through the process more easily.

The journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step.  Getting started on any new task is most of the battle.  It feels as if there is some unseen force holding me back, and the longer I wait to get going, the stronger the force becomes.  It’s almost as if I can feel a type of gravitational pull that seems to strengthen as I hesitate.  On the other hand, by jumping into the task, even in the most simple or haphazard way seems to weaken the unseen force. Action begets action.  Just moving, any type of movement gets the ball rolling, and soon the momentum begins to build.

Getting started is the fundamental building block of all achievement.  With out taking some sort of action, nothing happens…ever.  No amount of thought alone will make much of a difference until you actually DO something.  I have thought for years about starting a business of my own and strangely no business  magically appeared.  In fact no amount of dreaming about it, reading about it or watching others start businesses has actually made a difference.  This applies to any thing.  Losing weight, beginning a relationship, finding a job, mowing the lawn, writing an essay, running a race.  Believe me I am qualified to write on this topic as I have practiced the “art of waiting” on nearly all of these areas only to find that the task can always “out wait” me .

After years of observing and practicing different strategies for how to get started on difficult tasks, I have discovered the secret… Just take action!  Any type of action, but get moving.  This is the “secret” to achieving the greatest of all achievements.  Ask anyone, go right on ahead and pick a person that has achieved something and ask them, “Hey how did you lose that weight?” (but not your mother-in-law .  I bet  you find that they actually had to DO something for the weight to come off.  Now I know this is a “no-brainer” and I am being a bit facetious to make a point.  Nothing, no achievement great or small is ever realized without taking action.  While it is a simple concept to just “take action” it is not necessary easy.  There are 1000 things that can get in the way.  Questions such as, “Where should I start?”, “What is the right way to do this?”, “What if I fail?” OR doubts such as, “But I don’t know enough about this.”, “I don’t have enough time.”, “I don’t have enough money”.  The distractions are endless.  But there is something truly magical about just taking action, as it wipes away, in a single stroke, a 100 points of resistance.

About four years ago, and after years of thinking about it, I decided to begin exercising.  I had put on some pounds, and while it wasn’t a great deal of extra weight it was 10 or 15 pounds more than I wanted.  Now I had devised all sorts of reasons to not begin.  I didn’t have the right shoes.  I didn’t have time. I didn’t have enough energy.  I didn’t have the right socks.  I have flat feet and anyone knows that flat feet create problems, etc etc (waaa, waaa, waaa, whine, whine whine, moan, wait, grumble, wait some more…) and finally I just put on a pair of shoes, opened the front door to my house, and started walking.  And as I walked some thing miraculous began to happen…I started to feel pretty good.  The fresh air on my face, some new sights, the blood started to flow, my legs and back warmed  up and soon it felt wonderful.  By the time I had walked a couple of miles I was really feeling good.  The next day, the same time, I did it again, and then again…and again.  Now I run with my wife nearly every morning at 5:00 AM.  It is the most natural thing in the world.  It doesn’t really matter now what the weather is, or if I feel tired.  We just do it.  Along the way I lost about 12 pounds (I don’t care if I never find them again ;-)  We live in a Utah, with some pretty cold and snowy winters and we just get up, put on our running clothes, open the front door and go.  There are benefits that go way beyond physical health as we use that time to talk, get caught up on things, make plans etc, that is a topic for another day.  It all started by just getting up, opening the front door and walking.  I didn’t even have exercise shoes, I just used the shoes I had.  After all they seemed to work ok for the walking I did during the day at work, so why not?

Another example of this principle was finishing our basement.  When we purchased the home we live in now, the home came with an unfinished basement.  I used to walk down here (my office is in the basement now) and look around.  I would think about it a lot.  Really good thoughts too, about how nice it would be to have a number of additional rooms, a family room, a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, and office, storage.  We even went to some home shows and we looked at all types of designs, and materials.  Yet the basement remained a cool box with concrete walls and the slight smell of sawdust from the recent construction of the upper levels.  After about 8 months of thinking about it I decided that I would do something on the basement EVERY DAY.  Even if I only had 20 minutes.  If all I could do was organize a few things, or move some 2×4s into position for framing later, that is what I would do.  Some evenings It would amount to a small accomplishment.  However, after about a month I had framed the entire basement.  Then I started drilling holes and pulling wire, installing outlets and light fixtures.  Before long we were installing insulation, and then hanging sheet rock.  Exactly 12 months from the day I started I laid the carpet and the basement was completed.  It was a marvel to see how even small amounts of work, accomplished on a consistent, daily basis, resulted in an entire basement being completed.

Of all the hurdles I encounter in getting started on something, the biggest is the following thought, “I just don’t feel motivated to do it”.  Here is another secret (cupping my hands and whispering in your ear): You probably never will at first!! Just do it anyway.  Once you are in motion, THEN the motivation comes.  Getting going requires a type of “priming the pump”.  It’s just one of those natural laws of the universe.  Imagine walking into a cold room, strolling over to the wood burning stove and declaring in an earnest voice, “stove, I will feed you some wood and fire as soon as you give me some heat”.  It ain’t gonna happen.

There is absolutely nothing you can’t accomplish if you take consistent action and never quit.  See that is the biggest secret of all!  You don’t have to be the smartest, or the strongest person, you just have to take small consistent actions every single day.  Most people just aren’t consistent, they get tired and impatient and they quit.  So the prize goes to the person that doesn’t quit.  You have everything in your favor.

Take action!  No matter how small, and commit to do it daily.  I have created a simple worksheet to get you started (see I have taken the first step for you )  Just click on one of the following links, down load the document and get started: TEXT, PDF.  Post a comment now and declare what you will start today, or come back after you are on your way and share your story.  “Prime the pump” of your success…and DO it!

How much time do you spend thinking about what could be, or what you wish things could be like? Do you find yourself dreaming about how you would like your life to be…until you just get fed up and frustrated that things aren’t turning out the way you would like? It could be your current job situation. Your feeling of helplessness as you take orders from others and spend most of your time doing the bidding of someone else. Or maybe its that sinking feeling that your life is slipping away quickly, without the realization of certain experiences or achievements that you have always sought in your mind…but never do anything about. How do you get out of the rut? I have the key: TAKE ACTION!

I don’t mean mindless action, although in many ways that would be immeasurably more effective than mindless inactivity. The best action is purposeful action. That means having some sort of plan or goals. What always tripped me up on goals was the fear that my feelings about a particular goal or plan would change, and I didn’t want to be “locked in” to something. So I would do nothing, that way I could be assured that it wouldn’t change. Now I just get it on paper and in front of me every day. If something changes, no problem, I just write it down and cross out any earlier goals that no longer apply. At least this provided SOME sort of direction. After that something very cool happens, you start to feel good about yourself and what you are accomplishing. You look forward to reviewing your goals and seeing your progress. Activity, breeds activity. Inactivity breeds, inactivity.

Another thing that can hang you up is how you go about writing down a goal. Should you type it, write it down on lined paper, how about a spreadsheet? Why complicate it? Just grab the nearest piece of paper, and the nearest writing implement and start writing. Freestyle-like. Seriously do it now. Grab something, start writing, or typing. Now, just make the piece of paper where you wrote down the goal visible to you everyday. I put it by my socks. That just happens to be a place I look every day. I take the time to review the goals and determine what items I need to consider for that day. For example, one of my goals is to exercise at least 5 days a week. That is a habit now, as I automatically roll out of bed when the alarm goes off at 5:15 AM and before I am lucid enough to do anything else about it I am dressed in my running clothes and headed out the door. It is a habit now so it requires very little conscious thought. It all began with a goal. Another goal I set this year was to quit eating fries, and to stop drinking any type of soda pop. At first I had to remind myself of these goals every day. I started that goal in January of 2007, and now I can’t even stand the taste of soda pop. It makes me sick to drink it. The results have been excellent. I lost 8 pounds in 2 months, and I am down to my goal weight. So now it is your turn, chose a few items, write them down, put them in a place where you will see them on a daily basis and the just DO IT.

The act of DOING is the best motivation there is. Don’t think about it, just get up and do it! You will be amazed at the results.

A friend of my youth likes to boast of a stunt he liked to pull shortly after he got his driver’s license in Idaho. He liked to drive “Old Blue” (a 60’s something Ford van) to some long stretch of country road, get it headed up the center line, put it in cruise control, and walk to a back seat and lay down. Think of it as “playing chicken” with fate. Gratefully he never died, or harmed anyone else. I don’t have to dedicate much in the way of words to the stupidity of such Idaho shenanigans.

It is self evidently foolish to walk away from the steering wheel of a speeding car on cruise control, and expect to eat hard foods again. And yet this is the very stunt that many individuals pull with the course of their lives. Somewhere along the way we get the car started and headed down the road, and then turn the steering wheel over to other forces. Social conditioning, culture, habits, religion, etc. I know this stunt well as I have taken the same “maverick” approach to the course of my own life at times . Over the last several years something “clicked” inside of me and I stopped to take notice of the scenery of my life as it rushed by. I looked back at the path I had taken, and I looked forward to see the path I was on and I realized that I was on cruise control.

I don’t mean to imply that it was a direction-less path. Excellent parents and caring teachers, and a very solid religious foundation all contributed to a general path. What was missing was a deliberateness to my course. A personal plan based on specific goals. These are all common concepts, yet very few people actually set goals, or apply any type of deliberate planning to the course of their lives.

Social and cultural conditioning lead most of us to “snap” into pre-configured paths. Not that the paths in and of themselves are bad, but snapping into these paths unconsciously leads to less productive lives at best, and into slavery at worst. Enslaved with debt, or lack of control over the course of your time or your interests or your service. The chains that enslave you might be a mindless 9 to 5 job, or a destructive relationship. Perhaps it is depression, or lack of ambition, a lack of hope or faith. If YOU have not defined the path for your life, some one else has! If you don’t have deliberate plans and goals for your life, you are literally living someone else’s plan. You are fulfilling the goals of those that HAVE built deliberate plans and goals. You are a slave to someone else’s program.

I believe that every person on this planet has unique talents and abilities. There is great abundance and potential in every individual. In order to light the flame of passion within, you must identify your purpose. This purpose needs to be specific and individual to you. Without this purpose, and the flame of desire this stokes within, you may not find sufficient motivation or energy to break free from old patterns.

If you sense that something is missing in your life, or that you lack conviction, or energy, you might be a slave. Sadly most of us don’t even realize that we are a slave. After years of living on cruise control, we just accept that as the only reality. We give up dreaming, and hoping. When those thoughts or dreams come we just push them aside and get back to the business of being dutiful slaves.

There is another way. Live on PURPOSE.