Constant Reflection Provides Pinpoint Accuracy

The last 8 weeks have been some of the most stressful, tiring, scary, happy and rewarding weeks of my life.  Our son, Tyson, was born 8 weeks ago to this day and brought with him a new found respect for sleep.  The birth was intense, the sight of a human being that was molded by our very own DNA, amazing, and the shock of having a new born baby, exhausting.

I’ve been out of commission, at least in regards to posting to this blog, but have been blessed with many great bloggers and friends who have helped keep the content flowing by submitting their own great work.  But now it’s time to get back in the driver’s seat of Motivate Thyself and share some of the new findings being a new dad has brought about.

The Hamster Wheel Effect

I’ve always been an extremely driven person, but ever since Tyson was born I’ve felt the flames of forward motion grow hotter by the day.  The desire to provide more freedom and flexibility for my growing family have brought about larger visions of success and monetary gain.  Let’s face it, simplicity and frugality are great, but a super tight budget can be a real pain in the A$$!  There’s nothing like the new found pressure of higher health insurance costs, diapers galore and a little thing I like to call the hungry baby shriek of death!

The problem is, I can easily find myself running on all cylinders, but not getting very far.  Or even worse, getting really far and then realizing I went the wrong direction.  If you’re anything like me, you shoot first and ask questions later.  I see what I think is a good opportunity and I go for it.  Part of my drive comes from the constant feeling like there are thousands of others going for the same thing and every second I wait to act is one second further from the desired destination; a prize that someone else may obtain at any minute.

Then I find myself feeling like I’m running in place.  Do you ever feel like you’re running on a big hamster wheel, breaking  a sweat, but not getting anywhere?  Or maybe a treadmill.  You run to maintain your location, but not make any real progress.  You feel if you stop you will fall way back, out of the running for your goals.

The fact is, this is mostly true.  There ARE thousands of people out there fighting for the same piece of cheese and if we stop pushing ahead we will most certainly loose ground.  But there are some key ingredients here that I want to share; things that I’ve noticed over the last 8 weeks.

Learn From Your Past, Don’t Dwell On It

Hind site is definitely 20/20 so it’s easy for us to become back seat drivers to our pasts.  We set out on a new journey for some form of positive future, yet as the months go by we look back, seeing every mistake we made along the way.  “If I had just done this instead of that I’d be this much further along.”  Or, “Why did I go in that direction?  This way would have brought about much greater success!”

The problem with this kind of thinking is that we not only distract ourselves from making better decisions in the future, but we weigh ourselves down with negativity.  There’s nothing worse then trying to climb a mountain with a backpack full of unnecessary junk.  The lighter our load, the more capable and clear minded we become.  So never look at your past mistakes with a ‘What if?’ mindset.  Instead, learn everything you can from it, assuring you don’t make the same mistakes further along in your journey, then move on.

Think about it like this…

A professional sports team will spend just as much time watching old recordings of their past games as they will planing for future ones.  But the coach doesn’t sit there and say, “You guys stink!  See here, you did this and that and look what happened!  We lost the game because of you!!”  No, they will pick apart the actions of each player and determine what was done right and what was done wrong.  Then they figure out a better future action for that player if that specific scenario comes up in future games.

You can do this with more than your own past.

You don’t have to wait for your own mistakes to learn the best way to accomplish a goal.  Just like a sports team will study other team’s games, you can learn from the mistakes (and accomplishments) others have made by studying their actions and the results that follow.

The bottom line is, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.’  But when you fail to execute, figure out what went wrong, make note of this, and move on.

Constant Reflection Provides Pinpoint Accuracy

Earlier in this post I mentioned the problem of making up a lot of ground and then realizing your heading was misguided.  The best way to avoid this potentially devastating mistake is to periodically reflect on your current situation and remind yourself of the desired destination.  Try and re-envision the sight, sound, smell and feel of this goal.  Just like hounds need to refresh their scent to keep from losing the lock on their pursuee, so too do we need a constant reminder of exactly what we’re working so hard to accomplish.  Lose the scent and risk completely missing the mark.

Why do we so often run in place?

I don’t know about you, but for me it’s a combination of impatience and fear.

• Impatience: I want to reach my goal so badly that I see a ‘quick stop and reassessment of the situation’ as just one more thing to slow me down.  Little do I know that the greatest danger to my speed at which I reach my goal is inaccuracy, not lack of brute force motion.  A running back in an American Football game may see the time ticking down to zero, but knows from experience that it’s constant reassessment and redirection that will give them the greatest opportunity to score, not a blind sprint to the end-zone.
• Fear: Picture yourself in a sail boat race.  Neck and neck with the leader, you and your team put forth all your effort to not lose ground and lose the race.  Along the way you hit some debris which puts a hole in the side of your boat.  You’re taking on water.  You split up your team, having half maintain the sails and steering while the other half is to bail out the water.  You’ve successfully prevented your vessel from sinking, but with a split up team you have slowed way down.  Deep down you know that you need to just stop and focus the full force of your team into plugging the hole and then put that same force back into pushing ahead, but you’re afraid of losing more ground.

It’s this fear of momentarily stopping to reassess the situation that can keep us sailing with a sinking ship.  It’s this fear that often keeps us from taking much needed vacations or even just a long weekend of reflection.  But just like the sailboat will regain its ground and then some, once repaired, we will almost always come back from our necessary reflection times with a renewed vigor and a sharper vision of the future.

Final Thoughts

Coming up on my 1 year blogging anniversary, I’ve been able to witness many failures and a few exciting accomplishments.  Often filled with 2 steps forward and 2 steps back, I’ve struggled much of the time.  Yet I’ve learned so much and have made up much ground.  Not in spite of my mistakes, but because of them.  I’ve taken what I’ve learned, reassessed and pushed ahead with greater accuracy and better technique.  I’m still making mistakes left and right, but I’m learning from each one.

So I guess the best way to sum up my thoughts would be to say, “Embrace your imperfections, learn from your mistakes and always keep your eyes focused on the positive possibilities of a brighter future.”  We’re all going to screw up along the way, but few make the most of these faults and use them to their future advantage.

Eric