The Right Tools & Mindset For Success
If you live in regret then the past controls you. Regrets leads to disappointment.
If you live in anxiety about the future then you have no control. Anxiety leads to discouragement.
If you live in the present and take whatever actions you are capable of today then you have control. Presence leads to power.
The past is gone.
The future is out of reach.
Now is the only time you can do something about your life.
Choose now.
You’re in the habit of being hard on yourself. I do it too.
You’re doing it in the name of self-improvement. You’ve got weight to lose, muscle to add, strategies to implement, products to launch, podcasts to produce, books to write.
You live under the shadow of what you should be doing.
It’s counterproductive.
I should be…
I shouldn’t be….
I should have…
Stop “shoulding” all over yourself. (highlight to share)
You’re not broken; you’re just not finished yet. (highlight to share that)
You’ve got areas you can improve but you’re not a hot mess just because you’re not like the heroes you follow on social media.
The problem with self-improvement is that we spend so much energy focusing only on our gaps.
When all we see are our gaps, we become an enemy of our success. (highlight to share)
Would you be friends with someone who talked to you the way you talk to yourself? My friend Jon asked me that question once, and I told him I’d hate that guy. If I hate that guy, then it makes sense why many days I hate myself. I sabotage my success by focusing only on what’s broken.
If you wouldn’t pursue a friendship with someone who talks to you like you talk to yourself, then you need to change the way you talk to yourself.
No one knows our faults more than we do. That doesn’t mean we should spend all day focusing on them.
We can’t do our best work as parents, creators, and friends starting from a place of defeat.
What if you believed you were fearfully and wonderfully made? How much better would you sleep if you believed that you had value before you made anything. You had value before you did anything.
Start each day reminding yourself that you’re not a failure unless you choose to look only at your failures.
You’re doing a lot of things right.
Today, start there.
Tomorrow, start there again.
You’re awesome. Go be more awesome.
A month ago I started to feel a sharp pain in my throat when I spoke too loudly. After a short doctor visit everything points to a vocal cord injury. He said vocal rest is required. Let the lessons begin.
It’s amazing how much you can get done without talking.
When you go on vocal rest, you get a mental workout. Your brain processes things differently.
It’s a new experience for me. I think before I communicate. It’s a fairly new concept for me.
I’m writing more than I ever have.
My desire to speak a lot but say nothing is going away.
New habits are forming.
You should try it.
My wife avoids sending me to the grocery store. I’m fantastic at buying the wrong thing. If there weren’t so many choices, I wouldn’t make so many mistakes. I feel the same way about grocery shopping as I do a new year. There are too many choices.
Here are the opposing questions fighting each other in my head today.
Schedule or No Schedule?
How can I better plan my day? Because I struggle to know where to put my time when I have no boss.
How can I be productive, but still leave time in my life for spontaneity, service and whimsy? That is a big reason I chose self-employment in the first place.
Personal or Technical?
Do I write about the realities of marriage, sharing personal and emotional support with others?
Do I write about technology tips, tools and guides that will simplify life, but totally lack emotional impact?
Local or Global?
Do I volunteer more at church? Because I want to be more connected to my local community.
Do I spend more time launching a podcast that could have a global impact?
My goal is to not hate goals.
If you’re really awesome all the time we can’t be friends. I can’t hang with that. I can’t be awesome all the time. I’m broken. We’re all broken.
My friends are very authentic. Authentic doesn’t mean you suck, it means you’re honest about your strengths and your weaknesses.
If you can’t be honest with me then we can’t be friends.
I can’t listen to Joel Osteen because he’s too perfect. He’s too happy. His life, the part he lets us see, is too shiny. That’s not reality. I don’t need him to be miserable for me to happy but I can’t follow someone who is artificially content.
I can’t follow Donald Trump for several reasons (sexism, racism and classism are a few) but the biggest is that his perception of himself is innacurate. I don’t need him to hate himself but I do need him to be honest about his weaknesses. He isn’t.
If you can be honest about your weaknesses then you’re stronger than most people
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I can listen to and have a deep respect for the pastor of my church because he talks about the fact he’s in counseling. I can relate to that.
Authenticity is being brave enough to tell the truth, especially when that truth is about your weaknesses.
I’ve never regretted being authentic.
Take permission to be authentic.
Let’s be friends, just be honest with me please.
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