I read a Linkedin post from Ursula Burgess the other day. I am quite sure I’ll never listen to the tune that inspired her thoughts. But her ponderings on opportunities, complacency and resilience got me thinking.
It is way too easy to stay busy yet get nowhere. Activity is fabulous at masquerading as productivity and progress. Opportunities get lost in the flood of information and other attention-grabbing stimuli, both internal and external.
Complacency
Knowing that there will likely be another opportunity tomorrow can cause complacency today. Once the pattern sets in, days become weeks, then months, then years, even decades. Goals, hopes, and dreams go unfulfilled.
It seems to me the key word in the last paragraph is “pattern.” Complacency is a passive pattern. It has the same effect as having a victim mentality in time management – the important stuff doesn’t get done. “Being intentional” is starting to feel a little like an overused cliché to me. But it is at the heart of establishing a pattern that breaks a cycle of complacency. While it should help in the effort to attain goals, intentionality starts with little things.
Little Things to Build Patterns
Here are just a few ideas for little daily actions that can help to build patterns that forge an intentional mindset and make a significant difference over time. They work because they feed both mind and heart. They work because they not only create opportunity, they make it easier to act on opportunities.
• Do a little more than you think you can do
• Do a little more than you have to do
• Do something for someone with zero expectation of return
• Commit to 1% improvement (thank you James Clear)
• Help someone who can do nothing for you
• Learn something or remind yourself of something you already know
• Stop and think for a minute to remember your Why
• Find awe
• Say thanks
• Start a list of the things and people you are grateful for and add to it daily
Goals
Goals are useful for setting direction, but should never define us. They are a means to an end, not the other way around. As Jim Rohn said, “Choose a goal for what it makes of you.” Defining yourself by your goals limits you and may set you up for failure. You may not achieve your goal for reasons beyond your control. Or you may decide to change your goals along the way. Do either make you a failure? You are more than what you achieve. You are the product of the effort it took to get there, what you learned, and the relationships you built along the way.
“Success doesn’t lie in the achievement of a goal, although that’s what the world considers success; it lies on the journey toward the goal. We’re successful as long as we’re working towards something we want to bring about in our lives. That’s when the human being is at his or her best.”
– Earl Nightingale
Being myopically goal-oriented may be damaging. In sports, winning is a goal. In business, profit is a goal. Coaches and CEOs that focus only on those goals without regard to the work required to reach them may succeed for a while, but it is rarely sustainable. Sooner or later, they crash and burn. Coaches that help their teams focus on playing the game well build legacies of winning. Business leaders who build cultures that stress fundamentals and taking care of people are more likely to be profitable over time. The lesson? A goal, whether it is winning, profit, or any other worthy objective, is a natural byproduct of doing the things necessary to attain them.
Context
Values, processes, systems & habits are the key. They help to set and attain meaningful goals. They set the table for progress with daily, intentional actions and it all adds up. It becomes who you are, and you continue to grow. Some days you’ll fall down. It happens. That’s where resiliency comes in. My definition of resiliency: The ability to bounce instead of splatting when you fall. The deeper the pattern of intentional action, the quicker you’ll bounce back up.
If you have any items you would add to the list of little things that help build your intentional mindset, please share!