I write down my high level goals every day. I have spoken about them before and as I wrote them yesterday morning, I though to elaborate further. I should clarify before I really get into what I'm speaking about. These are my overall purpose-based goals. They are non-specific. They are my "constancy of purpose". My "why". hopefully, my explanation of how I use these tools day to day will be of use to you.
Help People
I have gone through in another post how i got to this goal. I have not gone into how I do this daily. It isn't really anything special, in my opinion, yet I try to exemplify this goal the most.
As humans we have near exponential potential for "x". Every person has more potential than they can possibly realize and yet, few of us realize just how powerful we can be. My favorite way of helping others is to push or pull their perspective in different directions.
By nature, I have a creative mind. Combined with my technical aptitudes, I find myself rather overwhelmed with ideas of all sorts. I don't have unlimited time, so most of these don't go anywhere. And we've all seen the thing telling us ideas don't mean a thing without action, it is true. Let's consider what action is and is not.
Action is writing your ideas down. Action is grabbing a tool designed to see if you might be able to make something of your idea. Action is having a brainstorm partner to build out both of your creative capability. Action is not letting your ideas pass through you and fade into nothing. Action is not dismissing your ideas before you have developed them. Action is not taking time to nurture your creativity.
I mentioned I love shifting the perspective of others. Perspective change is how we grow. My crazy ideas are one of the tools I use to help people grow. I have a post about making a storage system better. The crazy idea there was "what if we cut it right away?". nobody had considered this and it unlocked so many new possibilities. A presentation I recently attended during the ASQ WCQI Conference in San Diego presented a mechanism for creative growth. Define the rules of the system on one side of a table. Now pick one of those rules and ask the most ridiculous and out of the box questions about it. This is how you will get to breakthroughs.
When you effectively change a perspective in someone's brain, you see the lights come on, you see their creativity grow. I don't have many other better experiences. The best part is, once you plant those creative seeds, they grow and spread. So help people.
Build valuable relationships
We've all heard the tired trope "it's not what you know, it's who you know. I dislike this trope. Though I find it useful. You have to know something, and you have to know someone. Also, if you seek to help people in a similar way i do so, you absolutely need to know people.
Knowing isn't all there is to it. A great friend of mine, one I found through networking no less, provided me an excellent point about networking. Good networking is the act of constantly adding value to a relationship. Whether this is conversation, idea sharing, or directly helping someone with a problem. What I define as a valuable relationship, is based on my desire to add value to that person. How can I help them? Encouragement? Ideas? A new perspective? (that word again!)
Building these relationships is work too. With the right purpose, the work is not taxing. Consider this idea. I do my best to be seen with a smile at all times. No matter what. Why? It is possible your smile and happy greeting could completely change the trajectory of someone's day. I mentioned potential before. This is one of those potentials we all have. and one good day instead of a bad one can change lives. Is this the result every time? Certainly not. You never know, and if you can make the difference once. Isn't it worth it?
Healthy body and mind
I struggle with this the most. Eating right, a good activity level. Balancing time for self care with family needs. Actually, the act of writing this down every day is useful at least a little bit. It provides the reminder to do something. As I pontificate about, possibly too much, "start. somewhere." is applicable here too.
Sometimes, you start again each week. Or, you start over each week. So what. You are still in it. My oldest son is not motivated at school, one of my constant reminders to him is "you only fail when you quit". So even if you feel like it is stupid, and you keep not meeting a metric, if you are still moving you are winning. I like to think every outcome has value. Sometimes the value of the outcome is knowing what you can do and what you can't. Self knowledge is valuable, do not dismiss it.
Keeping a healthy body can be complicated these days. Time can feel like your worst enemy. My observation is we are our worst enemies where time is concerned. Where I have been successful at getting into an activity regime has been entirely about habit changes. I know, the hardest thing to do. It is worth it and you can do it. Atomic Habits is a great read if you want to help yourself more effectively.
fun fact, when you have a healthier body, your brain starts to come around. I have struggled with some depression in my life. When I am in a good exercise regime, it is easier to deal with the mental stuff. I mentioned self care above. Make time for it. Yes, make time for it. These stupid screens are amazing time black holes. And we have the ability to put them down, we need to do it. I say this having killed at least two hours last night doing nothing on a screen before bed. I am NOT trying to be a saint here.
So what?
I fail at these too. sometimes daily. The point is to keep going. don't stop. Even those baby steps are important. I mentioned these are broad and high-level. I maintain a long list of "to-dos" related to each of these goals. Slowly...so slowly in some cases...I finish the to-dos. I refuse to stop though. Which brings me to my final point.
I have seen too many organizations where they lack purpose, leadership, and understanding of where to even start to fix these problems. My professional "help people" goal is directly ties to this. The entire reason I decided to spend time networking, volunteering, meeting people, and spending the time to flesh out improvement systems is to fix as many companies as I can.
I hope you find at least some f these points useful. If you'd like to explore your Start. Somewhere. schedule a free consultation. Or call me. Find me on socials. I would love to hear about your problems and work with you on fixing them.
