Tag: Habits

Happy High Road

Would you like to know if the fact that will not only set you free, it will help you to work with anyone, anywhere, at any time, feel great, and get great things done? Impossible you say? Read this blog, and if you still don’t believe it’s possible, write me in the comments section, and I’ll call you, and we can talk for half an hour.

So, what’s the fact? If you can be happy and feel great, the majority of the time those feelings will transfer to the other person and be found in their responses. I hear a question already, about all the people out there who are so negative. Many times, that negativity and wish for dominance that others have for you, has nothing to do with you. The truth is often they don’t even know you.

Folks who display immediate negativity and desire to dominate others are those who have been hurt by other people. The neat thing is (and here is where the real secret lies,) they cannot dominate you any more than you can dominate them. For them to do so, you would first have to give them permission. You do that by starting off acting like they do.

The trick is to find your balance, your happiness, your drive for the path you want to walk in life. And then when negativity shows up in the forms of other people, be nice to the people, and don’t let the negativity in.

Easier said than done? Try this. Keep your positive attitude and your happiness. Then when you have to say something less than absolutely positive to anyone always start off with telling them three good things about themselves or three good things that they are doing. And then you can tell them something less than positive just do so in a positive way. Afterword’s, tell them one more thing very positive about themselves. It is often very hard to be mad at someone the when they’re telling you good things about yourself.

We all have some days that are better than others. However, you do get to choose. If you choose a happy high road, imagine all the others that you could bring with you.

Time Woes

Have you ever noticed how fast time moves?

Time moves forward one second at a time in a relentless fashion. Seconds become minutes, then hours become days, and months become years, and finally, here I am in November wondering whatever happened to the Fourth of July. I am shocked that time never takes a timeout. What is that all about.

There’s something that we have to learn, and many do not learn this until it’s too late. The thought is ignored even though the warning signs, statements, and cute kitsch are found everywhere. The simple truth, each second, minute, hour, day, or year can never be retaken.

This leads us to another simple truth. Time leaves us whether we use that are not. You can’t save it up for an emergency or that planned future vacation. And no one else can control your reaction to time. You use it on something important to you, or you lose it. All of this is up to you.

Take a couple minutes and write down everything that’s important to you. Then put priorities to the list. Ask yourself, are you sitting in a room for days looking at how messy it is and how unkempt? Or are you taking 10 minutes to put pick everything up, throw the trash away, and put everything else back where it belongs? So how much time are you really going to spend in a dirty room, 10 minutes or days?

Please don’t think I’m preaching. Actually, I believe I’m talking to myself.

Complacency

Complacency is something that will sneak up on all of us.

People love habits. They like the feeling of accomplishment. They love knowing that things are done. And they like the ease of living that good habits will give the people who use them wisely. More often than not many of us will also fail at long-running good habits.

If you don’t believe me, please take a poll about six weeks after New Year’s day. How many people you talk to set up goals for the new year, and within six weeks, have already failed at them? Did they not care? Did they not believe? Did they not try? The truth is they did care, they did believe in they did try.

In teaching new forklift drivers, safety and control are taught and preached for hours both in the classroom and during driver training on the forklift. You would think that most accidents would happen within a few weeks after the training, while the new drivers are still what behind the ears. Not so.

Most accidents for new drivers of forklifts, according to the statistics, happened about three months after training. Why? Complacency. Brand-new drivers are very cautious. They stick to every safety rule. And, they keep the speeds very low. About the three-month mark, new forklift drivers become complacent. They start to get a little sloppy in their safety, speed increases a little and the next thing you know, they bump into something. Sometimes they bump into someone.

Are they bad people? Do these accident-prone drivers not care? No. They did so well for three months driving the forklift that they started to let their guard down. Often, they don’t even recognize it.

These drivers were taught well. Were watched to ensure good habits were being formed. And, did a good job. Complacency just sneaks up on them.

The trick is if you like the results a habit gives you, pay attention and keep it up. Don’t  become complacent.

Yes, I Probably Should

Many people claim that they don’t like or want habits because they just do things when they’re needed. The truth of the matter is people don’t do things when they’re needed. They wait till everything is piled up, and it’s hard to walk across the floor, and you can’t see the sink anymore. Then the idea comes to mind, “I ought to clean this up.”

Usually, as we finish cleaning something up, it dawns on us that the time and work wasn’t too bad. And, as good as the place looks we should do this on a regular basis. And yes, I probably should.

When they’re up and fully running, habits are wonderful. Trying to get a habit up and running is tough. Times don’t work out, things get in the way, and believe it or not sometimes I just get tired.

I have to tell you I do not believe in bribery. I have been known, though, to initiate positive behavior modification. Positive behavior modification is a lot better than bribery. I modify behavior to meet a needed objective by having an incentive which is highly desired and only given after the modification conditions are fully met.

I want the dishes done every night and the kitchen cleaned before we watch TV. However, there are good shows on early in the evening, and I don’t want to miss any of them. Okay, how do I make this work?

I can clean the kitchen as I cook dinner, rinse and stack the dinner dishes into the dishwasher, and if full start it. If I get creative, I could spend about three or four minutes after each meal I eat, to rinse the dishes and stack them in the dishwasher. I could also pick up the kitchen as I cook whatever meal I’m eating. And that would also save time.

Please comment and tell me what other chores plague you, what you think a significant incentive would be to complete them, and how you would make them a habit.

Time to Get Up

Today’s an exciting day. The weather is cool, the sun is out, and for a new day in a new week, life is pretty good.

I am embarking on a new idea. One, I hope will help many people. The project is called Reveille. Reveille is the bugle call you hear early in the morning when it’s time to get up, get started, and go out to win a new day.

No one likes to sleep in more than I do. And yet, all those things that I want to do cannot be accomplished with the covers over my head. I need to get up, clean up, drink up the coffee, and get out there where I can accomplish those items I need to do.

With your permission, as this week unfolds I will tell you more about Reveille, and more about how will be structured to meet your needs. For now, thank you for joining me in this wonderful announcement, and please come back to this blog to learn more as Reveille unfolds.

I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. If it’s is beautiful where you are, go out and seize the day!

 

New Way

We change with the times

We have talked about the fact that nothing lasts forever. Even the glass bottle that we drink from and the glass vase that holds our flowers is actually in a liquid form very slowly, forever changing. And so we have a choice. As everything changes around us do we accept the fact and change with it? Or, do we put a stick in the sand and say, “Here I stand.”

We see this all the time. Because of this, some people are labeled as old fogies. Other people are just dismissed out of hand as not knowing because it was not of their generation. The truth is, it depends. It is actually up to you. Do you keep with the old times? Do you learn and grow and go with the new times? I vote for the latter. I am too young of the mind to start living in yesteryear and begin believing there are no worthwhile changes.

We see others, and sometimes ourselves, occasionally get stuck in the past. Does that mean we are forever doomed to live the life of what happened at the high school football game? Counting the rivets on a B-52 in North Dakota? The pain of a hangover a day after the frat party? The patrol that went sideways? Or whatever else is burdensome on our mind? I really don’t think we have to do that.

We have a choice. For me, I choose to remember the past, learn and live in the now, and celebrate the possibilities of the future.  We remember in order not fall into the same traps or repeat mistakes. Now is where I live. If I am not happy with now, I learned so that I can change it. I also learn to prepare my path into the future.

Right now I should not be living in the past nor in the future. Right now, I should live, except, and enjoy where and what I am now. I do this knowing that like glass, I am not a solid. Rather, I am something that is continually learning, growing, and reshaping my destiny.

Tomorrow Is a New Dawn

Tomorrow is a new dawn. The start of a new day and the possibilities that day brings for all the great things in life. Just imagine what tomorrow might bring.

We get so used to the idea of the new Dawn because during our lives we have seen it happen so often. We get accustomed to the fact that there will be a new day in the morning. The new chance for a beautiful sunrise, dew on the grass, and beauty all around us in the air and on the ground.

Sometimes we just cannot see the beauty and wonder of it all, because we get a little jaded by its regularity. Yet it’s the most wonderful thing you can think of. Whoever put this whole plan into motion took great care. The cycles work well sunrise and sunsets, seasons and years.

In our day to day hustle of work, kids to school, bills to pay, and important things to do, we sometimes forget to stop and look. If you have the sun rising and purple on the mountain and crops in the fields, forests before you and the beauty of the shoreline again with its ebb and flow of the tides with the crashing of the waves to the shore, it is something to behold.

In the neatest thing, we each see something a little bit different within the new morning. It is as though each morning was crafted especially for each and every one of us.

Interesting things are coming up in the next week, and I will be very excited to tell you about it on Monday. Please remember without change, better things never happen.

Hope to be in touch with you again Monday.

We are once again at the end of a week with no idea where the first days went.  This seems to be a ritual with me.  I am not sure why.  I live near the Air Force Academy, and I guess the cadets up there must be rubbing off on me.

At the Academy, the cadets look at a week as a day.  Monday is the new morning, Wednesday is lunchtime and Friday is the end of the day.  For young people who have a lot to do and little free time to waste, I guess this makes sense.

I may have to run my projects by the week and, like the Academy, cadets look at each week as a day.  It might make the week more interesting.  It would help to organize and expedite a project. And it would make each section of the week more memorable.

 

Just a thought.  Thanks for listening.

Succeed or Settle

Welcome back!

I left yesterday with the cliffhanger. You can do anything that you want to; and, to do so you have to do whatever it takes to succeed.

Life is rarely handed to us on a silver platter. What makes our life so precious to us are the things we work and sacrifice for to make our lives better for our families and us. Anything just handed to us no matter how nice, unexpected, or needed, does not hold the same value to us as those things we scrimped, saved, or strived for.

So, the question becomes, who is the future you, and what are you willing to put into making it happen? If you haven’t done so yet, now, before others get up and speak for you, write down what you would want to say about yourself and the things you’ve done during your life and those things you want to do.

I know you feel you are doing a lot of writing this week. It is important. Think about a cartoon of a kid who shoots an arrow into the side of the building, and then runs out and draws the target around where the arrow had landed and thinks he has succeeded. Did he succeed? Or did he settle?

Do you want to succeed? Or do you want to settle? This is a decision you have to make, and I cannot tell you what is right or wrong for you.

 

 

Hidden Factories???

Up until now, we’ve talked about systems and habits at home. Most workplaces also have systems in habits. Some of those systems and habits probably work well. Some could always work better with a little improvement.

There is always the formal workplace and the informal workplace. Both are important to the business. One is the direct channel that management uses to set up processes and requirements and to maintain the actions needed for the business to be sustained. The other is the method by which the workers take what management dictates and makes it happen.

As I said, one does not work well without the other. Smart management and smart workers know this. The really smart companies don’t set up new systems and requirements until the management and workers have sat down together and gone over them.

On the other hand, sometimes management sends down new processes that it expects to have implemented within two weeks. The workers who actually do the work day in and day out look at the new processes, find the places where it does not work well, and simply substitutes whatever they feel it takes to complete what they think should be accomplished. When this happens, no one is happy.

Changes always work best with good, logical explanations and positive agreement before implementation.  Without this step, your new systems have just turned into hidden factories.

What is a hidden factory?  Join us Monday for our next blog, and I will tell you all about it.