You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.
Mike Murdock
Tag: Change
Giftedness is not what you do or how hard you work.
It is who you are.
You think differently.
You experience life intensely.
You care about injustice.
You seek meaning.
You appreciate and strive for the exquisite.
You are painfully sensitive.
You are extremely complex.
You cherish integrity.
Your truth-telling has gotten you in trouble.
Should 98% of the population find you odd, seek the company of those who love you just the way you are.
You are not broken.
You do not need to be fixed.
You are utterly fascinating.
Trust yourself!
Dr. Linda Kreger Silverman
I got this classic story from a friend, it’s great and makes us see cracks and flaws in a different way.
A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One pot had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.”
The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I planted flower seeds on your side of the path. Every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”
Moral:
Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.
I know we are in the middle of December but with holidays coming up there are not that many workdays left of 2007. Which means I take a shoot at what I intend to do next year, and how.
Chris Garrett posted about The 80/20 Rule of Effort. It is about summing up 2007 and looking forward into 2008. Chris writes:
One conclusion I have to draw from this year that I will take into the next is how I have squandered my time.
Squander (waste; spend thoughtlessly; throw away) is a harsh word but I am guilty of the same with some of my time. It could have been used better and that is where the 80-20-rule comes in. The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule) states that, for many phenomena, 80% of the effects comes from 20% of the efforts. In other words, find the 20% of your work that really makes a difference and cut down on the other 80%.
Benjamin On WOWNDADI posts 10 Tips To Gain You a Better 08. That is a great list and I will comment on some of them.
1. Set good goals.
This is important and so is to follow up on them, are we heading in the right direction and in the desired speed?
2. Quit stuff.
This is where 80-20 can help us, we can quit more than we think and spend that time on our core issues instead.
6. Commit to learning something new.
I believe in life long learning so this is a must for me.
And what do I intend to focus on during 2008?
I recently finished a course and became a professional coach. Coaching is my baby for next year and where most of my efforts will be focused.
I will set off time for my blogging efforts with the intention to post regularly at my three main blogs. The fourth one, doodling, is for fun and requires no set schedule.
On a more personal level I intend to enjoy life, be in the here and now.
Even though I have worked with computers for 35+ years I still prefer to manage my own tasks using pen and paper. I have a paper calendar, not any high tech solution and when it comes to my to-do-lists I am writing lists – by hand. At work I use the calendar in Outlook for reminders, I wear no watch, but the paper calendar is my backbone since it covers all my bookings.
Today I came across a post at Success from the Nest titled How I Gained an Hour a Day by Ditching My Productivity Tools. I like this one, it goes in line with my own way of working. The post ends like this:
I never thought I’d be a productivity minimalist, but it works for me. Just by simplifying how I track my work I’ve saved on average an hour a day.
Through a link in the article above I arrived at “To Do” Gone Wild. This is a long but interesting post. I am not keen on the full solution but I intend to pick pieces from there. One simple but nifty trick is this one:
On the left hand side of each day’s entry pages, I have two lists, one beginning at the top and one working its way from the bottom up. The top list is for work tasks, the bottom is for personal.
I like that one, keeping work and private things apart in an easy way but still having all within the same view.
I found more interesting things to read at “Masterful Living Newsletter”. This post is about the importance of having periods of rest, to recharge and get ready for the next step in life. In “Butterflies First Live In Cocoons” Christen Murphy Resmo starts like this:
We all must have restful periods of incubation and calm. You’re meant to enjoy this time to relax and quietly grow, or simply catch your breath a while. Inactivity helps you gather energy so that you can take yourself to a whole new level in life. You’ll need these stores of energy so that, in the right time and place, you’ll be able to take off and fly high.
I agree that it is very important to take time outs, to rest a while and recharge.
The other day I found this interesting note on the internet:
In the time of the great explorers Columbus, Magellan, and Drake many areas of the earth’s surface, especially the oceans, were uncharted. Most of the people still believed that the earth was flat. Legend among seaman held that sea monsters and other creatures lived in these uncharted regions. As a result, the map makers of this era commonly place the words “beyond this point there be dragons” on uncharted areas.
That is the way we feel when we get outside our personal comfort zones, beyond this point there will be dragons. But if we want to grow outside our current comfort zone then we have to challenge these dragons now and then.
The Medici Effect is a book about creativity and innovation written by Frans Johansson. The name alludes to The Medici family that helped to spur the beginning of the Italian Renaissance.
The Medici Effect is about what happens at intersections, crossroads between different and often unrelated knowledge areas. Frans Johansson argues that innovations occur when people see beyond their expertise and approach situations actively, with an eye toward putting available materials together in new combinations. The book contains examples from different areas plus tips around how to achieve the intersectional effects.
Update on January 16, 2008.
Brian Clark at Copyblogger got inspired by this book and wrote The Content Crossroads: Supernatural Success at the Intersection of Ideas.
The monk who sold his Ferrari is written by Robin Sharma. I stumbled upon this book in my favourite online bookstore, got curious and ordered it. Picked it up on Saturday and have finished the book this weekend. I love it!
To enjoy the book I think you need to have a desire to grow, on a mental and spiritual level. A wish to change your life to something better. The book is a mix of wisdom of the East and success principles of the West. You get dejavu feelings now and then when familiar principles and quotes turn up but the great thing about the book is that it is all connected.
The story evolves around a mystical fable from the Sages of Sivana. The fable includes a magnificent garden, a lighthouse, a sumo wrestler, a pink wire cable, a golden stopwatch, fragrant roses and a path of diamonds.