Monday, July 20, 2009

So much of what we read in blogs and articles seems so cliche’, so who am I to disappoint? I read this a long time ago, and I cant remember where, but here goes…..

“To Have, you have to Do, To Do, you have to Be.”

We can all sit comfortably in our lives wishing for things that others have, or longing for the experience of what others do. Seldom do we focus on the core of those two diversions and zero in on the “Being” part. Who do I have to BE to Do the things to get what those people HAVE?

I consider myself a successful person. While I don’t have everything I would truly want, and I don’t feel I am paid nearly what I am worth, I keep on doing what I do because I feel a sense of fulfillment in the effort. I have found a slight sense of emptiness now that my major goal in life has been achieved, and I now find myself looking out for something else to do to capture a more fulfilling experience. That is why I started ABLE Training Systems.

When I drive by my neighbors at the end of my street with their waterfront estates, I wonder sometimes what it would be like to wake up to an Ocean view out my window like they have. Sometimes I wonder what great feats they accomplished to earn such lovely homes and such awesome views. I wonder what they had to DO to get what they HAVE.

Often times I look at the house I spend so much time working on, just a few hundred meters down the street from the beach houses, and wonder what it would be like to live down the street. I never realized that the thoughts I was processing were holding me in place. I was focused on the Have, and the Do, but never processed the source of it all…….

BEING.

The motivations for many of life’s finer things seem almost reverse engineered. We see the thing, want it, then bust our asses to go out and get it. Then, once we have that, we set our sights on another thing, find a way to finance or achieve it, and move on from there, bulldozing our way along. Its almost as if getting something will make us what we hope to be.

Along the way, we sometimes hit obstacles, disasters, setbacks and challenges. We sometimes find ourselves failing in our efforts, and have no motivation, or inspiration to keep on fighting. We start linking the challenges or failures to our goals, and either give up or relegate our dreams to “someday”.

Enter Being. Recently I have had the opportunity to review some really inspiring audio’s on performance enhancement for my personal protection and self confidence courses.

One of which, The Maverick Mindset, by Dr. John Eliot, tells us that goals are for couch potatoes! What? YGTBSM! I almost turned the thing off….. No, I didn’t, this guy was brilliant, and I followed anxiously as he demystified goals vs. purpose for me.

When we set a goal, what do we do? We create a measurable outcome, base it on a place in time, with tangible rewards. What happens every day that we don’t achieve those goals? What if our goal was too grand to reach? What if a bunch of bad things happen on the way to our goal? What motivates us to go on? You guessed it, the goal does nothing to empower us. There is no internal link to a goal.

To get to a purpose, take your goal and keep asking “why”, until you get to something internal, something passionate and personal. Something present.

So, why is a purpose better? Because it has feeling, emotion, personal anchors inside of us. It is something we can be right now, a visualization, imagery, a neuro-associative connection without any waiting, and it empowers us to get past the challenges that stop those who just have an external “goal”. We should still have goals! However, those goal should just be temporary vistas on the journey of purpose.

When I look at the house at the end of my street and wonder what it takes to have that house, I should wonder more what kind of person I should BE, so that I can DO the things necessary to make that house one of the views from my path.

Take the time to think of what great achievers DO. Then take a moment to list all of the things that these people have as traits and link them to your personal values and beliefs…….

Such as,

I am…..generous fair humorous truthful selfless hardworking caring
compassionate empathetic etc……

I can…..present represent speak lead follow develop coach endure thrive survive pursue relentlessly

I will……. work hard listen more think before I speak ask for help offer help set a higher standard for myself
than for others do the right thing rather than do things right lead by example

follow integrity value relationshi psact “AS IF” (as if you already have achieved your purpose,
and your goals)

These things are all easy to list, and I realize they are just a drop in the bucket. Now comes the hard part. Getting them into your daily life. Internalizing them and making them your purpose.

I personally am sitting down and breaking my life into what Steven Covey refers to as “roles”. Work, home, husband, father, blah, blah.

Start looking at where these things are needed in your various roles, and how they will lead you to living your purpose. How will living your purpose help you DO the things that will bring you the things you would like to HAVE? Keep your goals, but live with purpose.

Lets see where a few months of this takes us. I will report back, hope you will chime in to share some of your plans and successes with this.