Okay. So last week's blog posting resonated with you, and now you desire to make the lifestyle change that will help you get to where you want to be in life. The problem is, however, that you've already attempted this a couple of times and just weren't successful in your attempt to change. Sure, you did okay for a week or two but as soon as something didn't work out perfectly, you were back in the throws of doing the same things you told yourself you would never do again. So how do you make a commitment to change your lifestyle and follow through with it? While the answer isn't easy, it is very simple. There are three things that you must do to be able to increase your chances of creating the new you without looking up six months from now and kicking yourself for being the same person you were when the year started.
I. Start small
This is often the biggest mistake I see a lot of people make initially. They are all excited about this new lifestyle that they are going to live and are pumped up on "dreamer's inertia" that they commit themselves to things that individuals who have been living a ideal lifestyle for years couldn't commit to, much less a novice who is fighting years and years of bad habits. You see this when people commit to going to the gym seven days a week for two hours or only having lettuce and water for lunch each day. The problem with these decisions is that they are often not sustainable and ask too much of someone too quickly to be successful. In relation to the exercising goal, when you ask yourself to make such a high level commitment, you increase your chances of hurting yourself (something that would totally hinder your ability to continue) or you downplay the significance of missing a day because you committed to so many. When you don't feel bad for missing one day, you have a tendency to rationalize missing two, and then the next thing you know, you haven't been to the gym in three weeks. By starting small, you allow your body the chance to build up its discipline slowly over time. For example, instead of saying you will go every day, why not just commit to making it three days a week for 30 minutes? That's a GREAT start if you haven't been going to the gym at all before. In relation to a new diet, why not just start by cutting out sodas, fried foods, or breads? You can start there and then work your way up as your body gets used to it and your mind slowly becomes more disciplined over time. Once you've seen some results from these changes, this often is the impetus you need to continue your lifestyle change and eliminate/change something else that will lead to a better overall you.
II. Don't set yourself up for failure
This is one that I think hurts the majority of people when they start out. You have to know yourself and how much will power you truly have. If you know that your will power is not strong, you CANNOT put yourself in situations in which you are tempted to do something that takes away from your commitments. Tiger Woods was an admitted sex addict. It wouldn't been very wise for him to put himself in a situation with any single, "willing" ladies for any length of time, as he was working through his recovery to get better. Once he reached a point of strength, then perhaps that was a different story, but until then, he had to be careful with where he was and whom he was with at all times. You can compare this to your daily activities to commit to your change. If you know that when you drink a fair amount of alcohol, you have a tendency to eat bad, you need to make sure that you either A. begin to incorporate drinking less into your lifestyle change or B. make sure there is no bad food around when you are drinking excessively (maybe by only drinking at your house where there are healthy things for you to munch on). If you know that it is hard for you to resist McDonald's french fries, going there with a friend for lunch, claiming that you are only going to get a "salad" may not be the best idea. Staying at the office or choosing another place that wouldn't be so tempting would probably be the better choice. The important thing to remember, however, is that this should generally only be temporary as you work to increase your self-discipline "muscle" to be able to withstand these temptations over time. With time, someone can put a cheeseburger and fries right under your nose and you would be able to look at your body and remember where you came from and abstain with NO problem. Until you get there, however, it would be wise to stay as far away as possible.
III. Track your success
This is probably one of the most important things for you to do. The famous saying goes, "What gets measured, gets done." To make sure you are consistently receiving the positive reinforcement you need to be successful in the long run, you need to track your "wins" and celebrate them each time. If you committed to the gym for three days, track how many days you go and how many consecutive weeks you made it to feel a sense of accomplishment. If you said you weren't going to eat fried foods any more, track how long you have gone without eating any. Next, you can couple this with whatever attached goal you may have had (saving money, losing weight, etc.) and identify the improvements that have taken place in that area of your life. Don't get discouraged if you don't see results too quickly. This is what often deters people, and they slowly begin backsliding to the person they were before. Life is a marathon and, as all great marathoners know, if you begin life at a sprint's pace, you may get to the 1st mile marker much faster, but you're not going to have the energy to finish the race. Make your journey a marathon by slowly committing to incremental improvements and watch the change in you occur, as you don't let up on them for anything.
Aristotle wrote "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." By following the three tenets of a lifestyle change outlined above, you are creating the "little" habits that can be a big difference to change your life forever. And while no one said that it would be easy to accomplish, the question is, if there are people in the world who are considered excellent and great at what they do, then WHY NOT you as well?
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech (Graduate in May! - Whoop Whoop!). You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Overcoming your "Little" Vices – Why and How to do it (Part I of II)
In my last two postings for the month of January for 2015, I wanted to focus on something that I have personally struggled with for a number of years: "little"vices. Those things in our lives that we know we shouldn't do, but because we have made it such a bad habit over the years, and we consider them small as compared to the other vices, it is somewhat difficult to stop. Since we're not victim to some of the larger vices in life - doing drugs, breaking the law, or cheating others - we feel that these small things are not that big of a deal. It's that double cheeseburger that we get for lunch two or three times or week, that over indulgence in alcoholic beverages that we tend to partake in on the weekends (and sometimes during the week), or that tendency to "veg-out" in front of the couch and watch mindless hours of "The Real Housewives of Wherever" when we get home from work. There are just those things in our lives that we internally KNOW we should not do, but we consistently somehow justify it because we feel like we've "earned" it to some degree with the difficulty of our work day/week. We somehow convince ourselves that it's not THAT bad, even though we do also admit to ourselves that it's not that good either. In this two part series, I'll first share with you the reasons that you should definitely remove these "little" vices from your life if you want to maximize the success you can experience and not put yourself it at risk of serious demise later. The reasons are simple:
I.Your life will be so much better without them
While this is something that seems clear, it is not a truth that most people would accept. We've heard the statement "moderation in all things," and some people take this literally by allowing negative things to creep into their lives and feel it is okay because it's in "moderation." Many people attribute the statement of "moderation in all things" to Aristotle, but the problem is that Aristotle gives no exact guidelines to what moderation exactly is. Therefore, someone's estimation that moderation for them is once a month could be once a week to someone else or once a day to another person. The key is to identify those things that you consistently say to yourself you shouldn't be doing. You know what they are. Whether it's feeling sick after eating a large fat laden burger with fries, waking up at 1pm the following day from a night of drinking with a tremendous hangover or wasting two hours "spaced out" in front of your TV watching your favorite show, you know what's holding you back from achieving the life goals that you have in place. And while you think that if you take these things from your life, then you will be a "fuddy-duddy" or eventually go crazy because you don't ever "let off some steam," the reality of this is that this just isn't true. This is what you have convinced yourself to allow you to continually do those things which you know are not helping you achieve your goals in any way. You have to fight against this natural rationalization of the mind to continue to do those things that increase the dosage of dopamine to your brain to "make you feel good" (in my best Halle Berry impression from Monster's Ball). You have to believe that if you are able to give up, or at least greatly reduce, your indulgence in some of these things, you will be amazed at how much more momentum this will create in your life to achieve your other goals.
II. They ARE holding you back
While we often think the these little vices aren't truly impeding our rise to success, the truth is that this is just not the case. Often in life, everything that we do falls into two categories: they either help or hinder us from reaching our goals in life. When we have these little vices that are time-stealers, money-wasters, or motivation-killers in our lives, there is no way that these things are not detracting from what our ultimate goals of success are. We have to be honest with ourselves and identify those things that we consistently do that we know take away from our resources to focus on our lifetime goals and then we must do away with those things. It can be something as simple as hitting the club every weekend to hang out with your boys/girls. There is nothing wrong with that, but if you're spending exorbitant amounts of money (I'm definitely guilty of this) each weekend while doing so, you have to begin looking at how this affects your ability to fully fund your retirement or entrepreneurial fund for the future. If you are serious about securing your financial future, at some point, you have to make the decision of which one is more important to you in the long run.
III. It can eventually lead to your demise
The scariest thing about "little" vices that many people have in their lives is that they don't always remain small. When we have a habit that has been in our lives for some time, it has the tendency to grow and grow until it is harder and harder to control. You may not think your over-indulgence in alcohol two or three times per week is that big of deal, but if you continue this pattern over 15-20 years, you'll be surprised at how much more often this will become with time. You could go from 2-3 times per week to 4-5 to eventually every day, which will accelerate the damage you are doing to your body, which could eventually lead to some liver disease or other bodily function malfunction. You can also look at the analogy of those individuals who lived lives of grandeur and magnificence to only have it come crashing down on them as their "little" vices took over. You could look at Oscar Pistorius' 'small" anger issues that were hinted at years before the fatal incident with his girlfriend that may have been prevented had he worked to get these under control earlier. You can look at the fall of Tiger Woods who infidelity issues toppled him from one of the most admired men in the world to someone who became the butt of jokes at everyone's kitchen table. I'm sure neither of them thought there issues were "that" big at the time in relation to their perspective, but had either of them took their issues seriously and worked to improve them, they may have been able to prevent the tragedies that changed both of their lives forever.
Nobody is perfect. We all have those things that we do from time to time that we know we shouldn't. The key, however, to overcoming these things is not to convince yourself that they are "not that big of a deal" and continue to partake in them, but to create a plan and strategy that will help you consistently work to do away with these things in your life, so you can achieve everything of which you are capable. They say the greatest trick the devil every pulled on the world is to convince them that he didn't exist. You have to admit your devils do exist first before you can do anything about them, and next week, I'll give you the tips how. In the meantime and in between time (I always loved that saying), be honest with yourself and get to admitting...
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech (Graduate in May! - Whoop Whoop!). You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
I.Your life will be so much better without them
While this is something that seems clear, it is not a truth that most people would accept. We've heard the statement "moderation in all things," and some people take this literally by allowing negative things to creep into their lives and feel it is okay because it's in "moderation." Many people attribute the statement of "moderation in all things" to Aristotle, but the problem is that Aristotle gives no exact guidelines to what moderation exactly is. Therefore, someone's estimation that moderation for them is once a month could be once a week to someone else or once a day to another person. The key is to identify those things that you consistently say to yourself you shouldn't be doing. You know what they are. Whether it's feeling sick after eating a large fat laden burger with fries, waking up at 1pm the following day from a night of drinking with a tremendous hangover or wasting two hours "spaced out" in front of your TV watching your favorite show, you know what's holding you back from achieving the life goals that you have in place. And while you think that if you take these things from your life, then you will be a "fuddy-duddy" or eventually go crazy because you don't ever "let off some steam," the reality of this is that this just isn't true. This is what you have convinced yourself to allow you to continually do those things which you know are not helping you achieve your goals in any way. You have to fight against this natural rationalization of the mind to continue to do those things that increase the dosage of dopamine to your brain to "make you feel good" (in my best Halle Berry impression from Monster's Ball). You have to believe that if you are able to give up, or at least greatly reduce, your indulgence in some of these things, you will be amazed at how much more momentum this will create in your life to achieve your other goals.
II. They ARE holding you back
While we often think the these little vices aren't truly impeding our rise to success, the truth is that this is just not the case. Often in life, everything that we do falls into two categories: they either help or hinder us from reaching our goals in life. When we have these little vices that are time-stealers, money-wasters, or motivation-killers in our lives, there is no way that these things are not detracting from what our ultimate goals of success are. We have to be honest with ourselves and identify those things that we consistently do that we know take away from our resources to focus on our lifetime goals and then we must do away with those things. It can be something as simple as hitting the club every weekend to hang out with your boys/girls. There is nothing wrong with that, but if you're spending exorbitant amounts of money (I'm definitely guilty of this) each weekend while doing so, you have to begin looking at how this affects your ability to fully fund your retirement or entrepreneurial fund for the future. If you are serious about securing your financial future, at some point, you have to make the decision of which one is more important to you in the long run.
III. It can eventually lead to your demise
The scariest thing about "little" vices that many people have in their lives is that they don't always remain small. When we have a habit that has been in our lives for some time, it has the tendency to grow and grow until it is harder and harder to control. You may not think your over-indulgence in alcohol two or three times per week is that big of deal, but if you continue this pattern over 15-20 years, you'll be surprised at how much more often this will become with time. You could go from 2-3 times per week to 4-5 to eventually every day, which will accelerate the damage you are doing to your body, which could eventually lead to some liver disease or other bodily function malfunction. You can also look at the analogy of those individuals who lived lives of grandeur and magnificence to only have it come crashing down on them as their "little" vices took over. You could look at Oscar Pistorius' 'small" anger issues that were hinted at years before the fatal incident with his girlfriend that may have been prevented had he worked to get these under control earlier. You can look at the fall of Tiger Woods who infidelity issues toppled him from one of the most admired men in the world to someone who became the butt of jokes at everyone's kitchen table. I'm sure neither of them thought there issues were "that" big at the time in relation to their perspective, but had either of them took their issues seriously and worked to improve them, they may have been able to prevent the tragedies that changed both of their lives forever.
Nobody is perfect. We all have those things that we do from time to time that we know we shouldn't. The key, however, to overcoming these things is not to convince yourself that they are "not that big of a deal" and continue to partake in them, but to create a plan and strategy that will help you consistently work to do away with these things in your life, so you can achieve everything of which you are capable. They say the greatest trick the devil every pulled on the world is to convince them that he didn't exist. You have to admit your devils do exist first before you can do anything about them, and next week, I'll give you the tips how. In the meantime and in between time (I always loved that saying), be honest with yourself and get to admitting...
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech (Graduate in May! - Whoop Whoop!). You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
Saturday, January 17, 2015
The Power of LIFE Planning
Toward the end of last year, I pulled out my 10-year plan that I created when I first moved to Atlanta 5 years ago. Out of the 36 things that I had listed, I was pleasantly surprised, that I had achieved everything that I had listed within 5 years with the exception of 5 things (one of which is to graduate with my MBA - which I will do in five months). I looked at the other for things that I had not achieved (learning to speak Spanish fluently, learning to do various Spanish dances, learning to play golf and tennis well, and having a certain amount in liquid assets), and I realized that the first three were not realistic based on the lack of time I had in relation to obtaining my MBA (something I didn't realize when I made them) and I could've done the fourth if I wasn't educated on all the vehicles that would be a much better use of my savings than immediate liquidity. What I also realized is that many of the 6-10 year goals that I had established for myself were no longer goals, as the way I viewed life had changed to a certain extent. However, this didn't make me think that PLANNING for that part of my life was a waste of time. As a matter of fact, the reason I think I was able to be so successful in hitting most of the goals that I set for myself was based on the fact that I actually had some type of plan in mind, rather than allowing life to come as it so pleased. The benefits of life planning are numerous and, if you're not doing it, you need to start TODAY because no one ever accomplished ANYTHING by procrastinating. The benefits of life planning are simple:
IT WILL GENERALLY PREVENT YOU FROM WASTING TIME
Hopefully, most of us have a plan for the day for what we want to achieve at work. When you have this, there is a little likelihood that you will waste your entire day at the office aimlessly walking around and doing nothing. (For those of you who don't make plans for every day at work, this is something you're going to probably want to start doing). For example, you know you have 10 things that you want to accomplish at work that day, and each of them takes a certain amount of time. Therefore, you are prepared to attack the day with a certain consistency and fervor to make sure you are not wasting any time, so you can leave work feeling accomplished and stress-free. This is the same thing for your life. When you have a general idea in mind of what you want to accomplish overall in life and have consistent plans around how you can achieve those things, the chances of you waking up on a Saturday morning and watching football and drinking all day should decrease greatly, unless you are trying to break some record for football watching and alcohol drinking. I often hear people who don't plan out life say something like, "I'm just going to sit at home in my pajamas all day and be lazy." When you are a planner, thoughts such as this don't even cross your mind. We only have so many precious minutes on this planet, why waste them sitting in your pajamas/boxer vegging out and watching a Big Bang marathon? When you have a plan in place for your life, you should have a sense of urgency and commitment to make the most of each day to make sure you are hitting those goals. Sitting at home doing nothing is not an option.
IT GIVES YOU "GUIDEPOST" ON HOW TO MAKE IMPORTANT DECISIONS
Individuals without a plan will generally allow life to happen TO them, rather than FOR them. This happens when people are put in situations in which they may have to make a difficult decision in life, such as marrying someone, moving to a new location, or making some major financial expenditure. When you don't have a plan in mind, you can drive yourself crazy going through all the pros and cons of the decision. There are so many variables that one has to take into consideration that trying to come up with the best decision can seem impossible because it is so hard to predict the future. When one has a general plan in mind of what she/he wants to accomplish in life, most decisions can be made based on one simple question: Do this increase or decrease the chances of you hitting this goal in life? If it increases it, the answer is clear. If you feel like it decreases it, the answer could be equally clear, but sometimes it can also be based on what percentage this could decrease it. For example, if you desire to get your Master's Degree and tour Europe for a year after college and someone ask you to marry him/her during your senior year, unless they are planning to come to Europe with you, this would greatly decrease your chance of achieving this goal. If they did plan on touring Europe with you, then this could be a possibility (albeit a poor one - read my July 12th, 2014 post on this about Master's Degree vs. Marriage). If you want to have a certain amount in your savings account, but someone wants you to spend a large portion of that taking a trip with them to Vegas for their birthday, you have to make the call of which one is more important to you in relation to YOUR life goals, not your friend's.
IF YOU DON'T PLAN TO BE SOMEWHERE, YOU GENERALLY END UP NOWHERE
This truth is one that many people don't consider when they're younger, as they feel their entire lives are ahead of them, and who wants to plan for everything. The problem with this is that if you don't have a sense of what you desire to accomplish in life, you will not have that "guidepost" to make good decisions. And when you don't have those guideposts to make congruent decisions that are consistently moving your toward one specific goal, you'll end up making decisions that can keep you stagnant in your specific place or move you backwards from where you want to be in life. When you don't have a plan, you may just do things on whims and desires. This can often lead to a little fun, but it more than often leads you to be in a position that isn't adding any specific value to your life and overall hurting your ability to successful. I think back to a lot of people who I know in life who never truly put together a plan. Many of them are doing the same things they were doing 10 years ago with nothing having changed in their lives, with the exception of having kids and maybe being married or divorced. Because they didn't create a road map of steps that would put them on a specific path to achieve certain goals, they lived a fruitless existence of waking, going throughout the day, and then going back to sleep - something that one could argue isn't living at all.
Planning. It can be extremely boring and tedious at times, but it absolutely paramount if you want to achieve almost anything in life. Whether it's a strategy to break a new account in your territory, beating a basketball team at a recreational league, or getting that young lady that you've always liked to go out with you on a date, having a plan is always better than "just winging it" in any situation. Therefore, if there is clearly value in planning for all of these different situations, then why wouldn't you do it for the most important thing you will ever have control over - your life?
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech (Graduate in May! - Whoop Whoop!). You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
IT WILL GENERALLY PREVENT YOU FROM WASTING TIME
Hopefully, most of us have a plan for the day for what we want to achieve at work. When you have this, there is a little likelihood that you will waste your entire day at the office aimlessly walking around and doing nothing. (For those of you who don't make plans for every day at work, this is something you're going to probably want to start doing). For example, you know you have 10 things that you want to accomplish at work that day, and each of them takes a certain amount of time. Therefore, you are prepared to attack the day with a certain consistency and fervor to make sure you are not wasting any time, so you can leave work feeling accomplished and stress-free. This is the same thing for your life. When you have a general idea in mind of what you want to accomplish overall in life and have consistent plans around how you can achieve those things, the chances of you waking up on a Saturday morning and watching football and drinking all day should decrease greatly, unless you are trying to break some record for football watching and alcohol drinking. I often hear people who don't plan out life say something like, "I'm just going to sit at home in my pajamas all day and be lazy." When you are a planner, thoughts such as this don't even cross your mind. We only have so many precious minutes on this planet, why waste them sitting in your pajamas/boxer vegging out and watching a Big Bang marathon? When you have a plan in place for your life, you should have a sense of urgency and commitment to make the most of each day to make sure you are hitting those goals. Sitting at home doing nothing is not an option.
IT GIVES YOU "GUIDEPOST" ON HOW TO MAKE IMPORTANT DECISIONS
Individuals without a plan will generally allow life to happen TO them, rather than FOR them. This happens when people are put in situations in which they may have to make a difficult decision in life, such as marrying someone, moving to a new location, or making some major financial expenditure. When you don't have a plan in mind, you can drive yourself crazy going through all the pros and cons of the decision. There are so many variables that one has to take into consideration that trying to come up with the best decision can seem impossible because it is so hard to predict the future. When one has a general plan in mind of what she/he wants to accomplish in life, most decisions can be made based on one simple question: Do this increase or decrease the chances of you hitting this goal in life? If it increases it, the answer is clear. If you feel like it decreases it, the answer could be equally clear, but sometimes it can also be based on what percentage this could decrease it. For example, if you desire to get your Master's Degree and tour Europe for a year after college and someone ask you to marry him/her during your senior year, unless they are planning to come to Europe with you, this would greatly decrease your chance of achieving this goal. If they did plan on touring Europe with you, then this could be a possibility (albeit a poor one - read my July 12th, 2014 post on this about Master's Degree vs. Marriage). If you want to have a certain amount in your savings account, but someone wants you to spend a large portion of that taking a trip with them to Vegas for their birthday, you have to make the call of which one is more important to you in relation to YOUR life goals, not your friend's.
IF YOU DON'T PLAN TO BE SOMEWHERE, YOU GENERALLY END UP NOWHERE
This truth is one that many people don't consider when they're younger, as they feel their entire lives are ahead of them, and who wants to plan for everything. The problem with this is that if you don't have a sense of what you desire to accomplish in life, you will not have that "guidepost" to make good decisions. And when you don't have those guideposts to make congruent decisions that are consistently moving your toward one specific goal, you'll end up making decisions that can keep you stagnant in your specific place or move you backwards from where you want to be in life. When you don't have a plan, you may just do things on whims and desires. This can often lead to a little fun, but it more than often leads you to be in a position that isn't adding any specific value to your life and overall hurting your ability to successful. I think back to a lot of people who I know in life who never truly put together a plan. Many of them are doing the same things they were doing 10 years ago with nothing having changed in their lives, with the exception of having kids and maybe being married or divorced. Because they didn't create a road map of steps that would put them on a specific path to achieve certain goals, they lived a fruitless existence of waking, going throughout the day, and then going back to sleep - something that one could argue isn't living at all.
Planning. It can be extremely boring and tedious at times, but it absolutely paramount if you want to achieve almost anything in life. Whether it's a strategy to break a new account in your territory, beating a basketball team at a recreational league, or getting that young lady that you've always liked to go out with you on a date, having a plan is always better than "just winging it" in any situation. Therefore, if there is clearly value in planning for all of these different situations, then why wouldn't you do it for the most important thing you will ever have control over - your life?
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech (Graduate in May! - Whoop Whoop!). You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Three measurements of success – How to increase your chances of becoming the better you in 2015
So most of us are in week one of our New Year's Resolutions. How is everyone doing so far? Hopefully, no one has relapsed already, as that would made me wish I wrote this article last week to help you out. While New Year's resolutions can be very tricky for a number of reasons, I've discovered there are generally three things that you can begin to track that will help you understand how to increase your chances of being successful in creating a new YOU for 2015. I'm sure many of you want to be an entirely different person this year, while some of you just want to make little tweaks to become a little more successful than last year. Whatever your desire, there are three things that you can track and measure that will help you know how well youare doing on this path and what you need to do to ensure that you see greater success than you may have in the past. These three things are simply:
HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR TIME
This is a big one for me, as I have often struggled with the balance of trying to work very hard and play very hard as the same time. I have lived a pretty fun life of parties and trips whenever I wanted and it has been great. The only problem with this, however, is that while these parties and trips have been fun and have given me many stories that I will never forget (and I do mean MANY), how have they helped me get closer to my ultimate goals? When you are looking at what you are going to do differently in 2015, you must begin to track and analyze how you spend your time each day, week, and month. Are you spending most of your time sleeping in until 11am or noon on a Saturday/ Sunday because you were out the previous night until 3am or are you waking up at 5am to begin working on your plan for success and doing the necessary research to get there? Instead of spending your Sunday afternoon making sure you run those 3 miles or hitting the gym like you said you would, are you catching the 1pm playoff game and drinking with your buddies - not only taking away your time to exercise but also adding more calories to your diet from the probable bad food and drink that you are going to consume at that time - a double whammy. If you are at work, and you find yourself surfing Tinder or ESPN.com instead of what you have been paid to do, then you truly have to think about what is more important to you. Tinder is a very "interesting" app, but it isn't going to help you get that bonus that you want at the end of the year. While it may help you achieve some OTHER goals, that should be left for a different time of your day to focus on.
WITH WHOM YOU SPEND YOUR TIME
This is one that has been hard for me as well, but I had to come to some realization at this point in my life. It is said that your net worth will be close to the people you hang out with the majority of the time, and while I can't say that my current group of friends don't do well for themselves, the aspirations that I have put me at a much higher level of income than any of us currently see. For that reason, I have to make sure that I am incorporating new individuals into my life who have achieved some of the things that I want to achieve and can give me advice and encouragement on the things that are important to me. You are going to have friends who are going to discourage you from making the lifestyle changes that you desire and most of them are not doing so because they don't want to see you successful. They just may not have the same view on how to approach things as you do and that's okay. You just have to make sure that you don't allow these individuals to influence you to the point in which you are backsliding into the old YOU at any point. Therefore, you have to work to identify new individuals who are where you want to be in life and can give you the encouragement and help to get there, while limiting your time to some degree with those individuals who make it more difficult for you to be the better person that you aspire. If you have a friend who only wants to drink all the time, and you have decided to give it up, hanging with this person for an entire weekend may be too hard when you originally make this decision, so you have to temper your time with him/her in some way. If you have a friend who only wants to eat fatty fast foods all the time, going to lunch with her/him every day during the work week probably isn't the best decision. You have to decrease these interactions for some time until you are strong enough in your new lifestyle (a habit generally takes a month to take hold) that you can resist the temptation to go back to your old way of living.
HOW YOU SPEND YOUR MONEY
The last part is very important, as most people's goal is to become financially wealthy at some point in life. As it has always been said, it's not about how much money you make, it's about how much you keep, and the first and second measurements are directly related to this. How you spend your time and the people with whom you spend your time will greatly affect how much money you are able to save and put away to help achieve your hopes and goals. A little known fact is that Gene Simmons (one of the founders of KISS), funded the majority of the bands start-up cash on his own because he was able to work and save tens of thousands of dollars by working jobs that didn't pay much more than $5/hr due to his frugality and refusal to waste his money on frivolous things. Had he not done this, and instead spent his money on excessive alcohol and women, the great band that is world renowned today may had never existed. Therefore, always make decisions based on financially what is going to make more sense for you. For example, if you had a choice between two females to hang out with (not a bad predicament by the way) - one who always wants to drink and eat out and NEVER offers to pay for anything, and the other who is good with perhaps getting a reasonable meal somewhere or just watching a economical movie off of Netflix, you should probably go with the second. Chances are the first female is probably doing this with you and two or three others guys as well, so she really isn't quality material as it is. Always make decisions based on what is going to make the most sense for your net worth in the long run. Not easy at all the time I know, but often the most economical decisions EASILY turn out to be the best ones.
If you may have already relapsed on your New Year's resolutions, don't despair, no one says that you have to wait until the beginning of the year to create a new you. Besides, you didn't already have these great tips that I just shared, so you had a reason things didn't work out. If you are able to consistently measure and control these three things, your chances of success are 100 fold. My famous saying is Know Better, Do Better, so now that you know, you can start over right now and DOMINATE the rest of 2015. Happy dominating...
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech (Graduate in May! - Whoop Whoop!). You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR TIME
This is a big one for me, as I have often struggled with the balance of trying to work very hard and play very hard as the same time. I have lived a pretty fun life of parties and trips whenever I wanted and it has been great. The only problem with this, however, is that while these parties and trips have been fun and have given me many stories that I will never forget (and I do mean MANY), how have they helped me get closer to my ultimate goals? When you are looking at what you are going to do differently in 2015, you must begin to track and analyze how you spend your time each day, week, and month. Are you spending most of your time sleeping in until 11am or noon on a Saturday/ Sunday because you were out the previous night until 3am or are you waking up at 5am to begin working on your plan for success and doing the necessary research to get there? Instead of spending your Sunday afternoon making sure you run those 3 miles or hitting the gym like you said you would, are you catching the 1pm playoff game and drinking with your buddies - not only taking away your time to exercise but also adding more calories to your diet from the probable bad food and drink that you are going to consume at that time - a double whammy. If you are at work, and you find yourself surfing Tinder or ESPN.com instead of what you have been paid to do, then you truly have to think about what is more important to you. Tinder is a very "interesting" app, but it isn't going to help you get that bonus that you want at the end of the year. While it may help you achieve some OTHER goals, that should be left for a different time of your day to focus on.
WITH WHOM YOU SPEND YOUR TIME
This is one that has been hard for me as well, but I had to come to some realization at this point in my life. It is said that your net worth will be close to the people you hang out with the majority of the time, and while I can't say that my current group of friends don't do well for themselves, the aspirations that I have put me at a much higher level of income than any of us currently see. For that reason, I have to make sure that I am incorporating new individuals into my life who have achieved some of the things that I want to achieve and can give me advice and encouragement on the things that are important to me. You are going to have friends who are going to discourage you from making the lifestyle changes that you desire and most of them are not doing so because they don't want to see you successful. They just may not have the same view on how to approach things as you do and that's okay. You just have to make sure that you don't allow these individuals to influence you to the point in which you are backsliding into the old YOU at any point. Therefore, you have to work to identify new individuals who are where you want to be in life and can give you the encouragement and help to get there, while limiting your time to some degree with those individuals who make it more difficult for you to be the better person that you aspire. If you have a friend who only wants to drink all the time, and you have decided to give it up, hanging with this person for an entire weekend may be too hard when you originally make this decision, so you have to temper your time with him/her in some way. If you have a friend who only wants to eat fatty fast foods all the time, going to lunch with her/him every day during the work week probably isn't the best decision. You have to decrease these interactions for some time until you are strong enough in your new lifestyle (a habit generally takes a month to take hold) that you can resist the temptation to go back to your old way of living.
HOW YOU SPEND YOUR MONEY
The last part is very important, as most people's goal is to become financially wealthy at some point in life. As it has always been said, it's not about how much money you make, it's about how much you keep, and the first and second measurements are directly related to this. How you spend your time and the people with whom you spend your time will greatly affect how much money you are able to save and put away to help achieve your hopes and goals. A little known fact is that Gene Simmons (one of the founders of KISS), funded the majority of the bands start-up cash on his own because he was able to work and save tens of thousands of dollars by working jobs that didn't pay much more than $5/hr due to his frugality and refusal to waste his money on frivolous things. Had he not done this, and instead spent his money on excessive alcohol and women, the great band that is world renowned today may had never existed. Therefore, always make decisions based on financially what is going to make more sense for you. For example, if you had a choice between two females to hang out with (not a bad predicament by the way) - one who always wants to drink and eat out and NEVER offers to pay for anything, and the other who is good with perhaps getting a reasonable meal somewhere or just watching a economical movie off of Netflix, you should probably go with the second. Chances are the first female is probably doing this with you and two or three others guys as well, so she really isn't quality material as it is. Always make decisions based on what is going to make the most sense for your net worth in the long run. Not easy at all the time I know, but often the most economical decisions EASILY turn out to be the best ones.
If you may have already relapsed on your New Year's resolutions, don't despair, no one says that you have to wait until the beginning of the year to create a new you. Besides, you didn't already have these great tips that I just shared, so you had a reason things didn't work out. If you are able to consistently measure and control these three things, your chances of success are 100 fold. My famous saying is Know Better, Do Better, so now that you know, you can start over right now and DOMINATE the rest of 2015. Happy dominating...
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech (Graduate in May! - Whoop Whoop!). You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Mistakes - How They Can Be Your Friend
I'm always pretty reflective about things, but especially more so at the end of the year, as I'm sure most of us are. Since I've taken an hiatus from writing this blog for the last two months, I've focused my time on other areas in my life that I thought would yield more of a return on my investment, as I didn't see the lift that perhaps I desired from writing this blog (by lift I mean, I didn't feel like enough people were reading it). What I learned from this two month hiatus, however, is that this decision was a mistake, as I've missed putting my thoughts on paper more than anything else. It doesn't matter if anyone reads this or not, I get the chance to learn and grow when I write this every other week and I've truly missed this over the past two months. And while I would like to say that I should've realized this from the beginning, that just wasn't the case. This led me to think back on 2014 in general and to recall how many other mistakes I made throughout the year. There were many of them that turned out to still work out in my favor, while others put me in a predicament in which I had to scramble to find a solution. What I can say about all of them, however, is that I'm much smarter now as a result of making them than I was before. Overall, I would say that while mistakes are tough to admit to at times and generally make us feel that we are less adequate as an individual than we would like to admit, they can help us in a number of ways.
IT MAKES LIFE MORE INTERESTING
One of the last blogs I wrote in October was about the value of taking risks. Whenever you take risk and try something in which either you are not familiar or is outside of your comfort zone, you are generally going to make a mistake. While mistakes can put you in some tough situations, they generally will allow you to experience things that are more interesting than what you may have experienced from doing your every day to day routine. Doing the same thing every day is pretty safe and will often prevent you from making many mistakes, but it can also lead to a life that is not very interesting. Sometimes by trying things differently, you may not turn out to do the best or right thing all the time, but at least you have a different perspective than you did before by experiencing something different and stepping outside of your comfort zone. This isn't to say that we should try to make mistakes on purpose to make for an interesting life, it is just to encourage one to not be so close-minded when thinking about different aspects of one's life to see what could possibly come of it. Sometimes things that originally look like a mistake turn out the be a blessing in disguise.
HURT COMES FROM MISTAKES - CATALYST FOR CHANGE
This one seems to be contradictory at first because why would anyone want to have hurt in their lives. The difference, however, is that some people will not ever change what they do in life unless they experience some type of pain that will be the catalyst they need to make a life change. This is why drinking, obesity, and smoking are some of the three leading causes of death in America. It's because it doesn't hurt you immediately (it actually makes you feel good), but it slowly eats away at you over time and kills you. It's only when we experience some major pain (crashing our car, high blood pressure, or lung cancer) that people finally decide it is time to make a change. While no one wants to have to experience these things in life to make a change, sometimes this may be the only way. Whenever, you make a mistake in life (no matter how big or small), think about WHY you made it in the first place and then get to the crux of what needs to change in your life that this doesn't happen again. Often , we don't spend enough time analyzing the nature of why the mistake happened and don't put enough blame on ourselves. By doing so, you can identify the changes in your behavior that you must have to prevent making the same or similar mistake in the future to improve yourself and, subsequently, your future.
YOU CAN UNEQUIVOCALLY SAY YOU KNOW RATHER THAN THINK
This last reason is focused on how, as we mature, we sometimes look back on life and have a "what-if" moment. This is related to our decision to do things that we always know are right versus trying something different that may turn out good or bad, but we won't ever know unless we go for it. Often in life, playing it safe is the best way to go, but it can create a life that, when reflected upon, is filled with moments of perpetual regret because someone didn't take a chance to try something different or do something that they weren't 100 percent sure they should do. While often, you may still be right about the decision you ended up making, at least you will never have that feeling of "I wonder what-if." I know it seems a little backwards, but there is something to be said for a woman who marries the person of her dreams because she's dated enough "losers" to know the difference between a prince and a frog versus someone who only dated the same person their entire life and doesn't truly know her prince is really a frog in comparison to what else is out there. This is not to suggest that everyone should immediately divorce their spouse if they haven't had the chance to live a full life, but it is to say that you have to think through decisions holistically and explore the long term ramifications of making decisions when you try to be too conservative all the time. You don't know what you are missing if you've never had a chance to experience it. Mistakes sometimes give you the chance to do that.
Overall, I'm not saying that we should all go out and do the dumbest thing we can think of to see what we can learn from it. That would be ridiculous. What I am saying, however, is that whenever you do make a mistake, don't sulk about it and beat yourself down. Analyze it, understand why you made it, what you learned from it, and how you are going to be a better person as a result of it. And while I can't promise you that all mistakes will turn out good in the long run, your ability to consistently analyze and improve who you are as a human being will allow you to make your mistake work FOR you rather than AGAINST you.
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech (Graduate in May! - Whoop Whoop!). You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Being Arrogant Rather Than Just Confident - How it Can Make You Great.
Larry Ellison. Jack Welch. Bill Gates. Donald Trump. Steve Jobs. Michael Jordan. What do all of these men have in common? Two things: First, they are known as some of the greatest people of their generation. They are not known as people who were just good at what they did or someone who was just better than average. They are all seen as "game-changers."- individuals whose presence on our planet changed the world as we view it today. The second thing that all of these people share is that anyone who has really known them or been in a room and saw them interact with others would probably classify them as EXTREMELY arrogant. Larry Ellison is famously known by the joke "What's the difference between God and Larry Ellison? God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison." Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were infamous for the meetings in which they would flat out call a person's idea stupid and challenge them on the very basis of their ability to think. And there are numerous stories of the quality of arrogance exemplified by Welch, Trump, and Jordan. While some people would argue that arrogance is a bad trait that alienates you from others and makes people dislike you, I would disagree. I believe that true arrogance is the one thing that truly made these men great, and if you are able to embrace it, you can be as well. There are several reasons for this.
I. ARROGANCE MAKES YOU TAKE MORE RISK
Individuals who are arrogant often will walk into a room and give off a presence that most people can literally feel. They have a sense of confidence about them that most people don't have. This confidence allow them to impose their will on others and not be afraid to speak their mind in whatever situation. Arrogance is the ultimate form of confidence in the sense that you will truly not care what others think about you because you will know in your heart that you ideas are better than theirs. And while you may not win out all the time, it's this feeling that will allow you to continue to speak up and offer your opinion on important items within your business or life. Having a sense of confidence in in all situations will allow you to put your neck out there and try different things even though you are not sure you will be good at it. Because you are confident in your ability and your arrogance will not allow you to NOT try it, you step up and make an attempt at it. Therefore, arrogant people as a whole take more risk, and, ultimately, the people who are willing to take more risks are the ones who have more successes in life.
II. BEING ARROGANT OFTEN CREATES A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY
Arrogant people generally believe they are good or can be good at almost anything. Look at how Michael Jordan thought he could play PROFESSIONAL baseball after not having played it for 14 years. How else would you describe it, other than ultimate arrogance, for Michael Jordan to set a goal to be a professional baseball player? He didn't just want to play double AA or triple AAA. His ultimate goal was to do, in a short time, what others have worked their entire lives to do. Even though Michael didn't achieve his goal, his sense of arrogance in his ability to do so led him on a path to have the opportunity to do it. What occurs when individuals are arrogant and believe they are good, or can be good at something, is that they attack it with a fervor that allows them to consistently practice and hone the skills needed to be successful at the endeavor. For example, when individuals feel they are good at coaching and motivating people, they seek out more opportunities to do so and speak with a sense of confidence when they are speaking to others that generally makes the person receiving the advice accept it better. The arrogant person may not be better than anyone else when they start trying to coach others, but because they believe they are and seek out more opportunities to do so, they get better with time than someone who is not as confident and shies away from every opportunity to do so.
III.BEING ARROGANT WILL MAKE IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO DOUBT YOURSELF
This last reason is the true difference between being merely confident and being arrogant. Confident people can all exhibit the behaviors of an arrogant person and have the same success over time, but the difference between a confident person and an arrogant person is that when things do not work out as the arrogant person thought they would, they do not EVER lose confidence in their abilities. Individuals who are just confident can lose this confidence when things don't turn out their way and events begin to spiral in a negative manner. Arrogant people will still learn from their mistakes and understand what they could've done better, but they will still feel proud of their efforts and attack their next endeavors with the same fierce confidence that they attacked everything before. How else do you think Donald Trump was able to come back better than ever after for filling bankruptcy twice? How about how Steve Jobs took over the helm of Apple after being kicked out 10 years prior? It is because of their ultimate arrogance in themselves that they never doubt themselves and continue to impose their beliefs and will on others because they ultimately believe they know best.
Arrogance. I think it has gotten a bad rap for some time now. It is one of the most secret traits of the "game changers" of our world that people often overlook. However, let me be clear: All of these individuals were arrogant because they had a reason to be. Larry Ellison worked extremely hard to develop his database development skills to create Oracle. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates put in hours upon hours of work to have the intellectual aptitude to found and run their word-changing companies. And we all know about the hard work that Michael Jordan put in day in and day out to become the greatest basketball of all time. Arrogance without the work is without merit and WILL make you a jerk. But if you are willing to put in the work, arrogance will take from just being good and successful at your job (confidence will do this) to being absolutely great.
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech. You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
I. ARROGANCE MAKES YOU TAKE MORE RISK
Individuals who are arrogant often will walk into a room and give off a presence that most people can literally feel. They have a sense of confidence about them that most people don't have. This confidence allow them to impose their will on others and not be afraid to speak their mind in whatever situation. Arrogance is the ultimate form of confidence in the sense that you will truly not care what others think about you because you will know in your heart that you ideas are better than theirs. And while you may not win out all the time, it's this feeling that will allow you to continue to speak up and offer your opinion on important items within your business or life. Having a sense of confidence in in all situations will allow you to put your neck out there and try different things even though you are not sure you will be good at it. Because you are confident in your ability and your arrogance will not allow you to NOT try it, you step up and make an attempt at it. Therefore, arrogant people as a whole take more risk, and, ultimately, the people who are willing to take more risks are the ones who have more successes in life.
II. BEING ARROGANT OFTEN CREATES A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY
Arrogant people generally believe they are good or can be good at almost anything. Look at how Michael Jordan thought he could play PROFESSIONAL baseball after not having played it for 14 years. How else would you describe it, other than ultimate arrogance, for Michael Jordan to set a goal to be a professional baseball player? He didn't just want to play double AA or triple AAA. His ultimate goal was to do, in a short time, what others have worked their entire lives to do. Even though Michael didn't achieve his goal, his sense of arrogance in his ability to do so led him on a path to have the opportunity to do it. What occurs when individuals are arrogant and believe they are good, or can be good at something, is that they attack it with a fervor that allows them to consistently practice and hone the skills needed to be successful at the endeavor. For example, when individuals feel they are good at coaching and motivating people, they seek out more opportunities to do so and speak with a sense of confidence when they are speaking to others that generally makes the person receiving the advice accept it better. The arrogant person may not be better than anyone else when they start trying to coach others, but because they believe they are and seek out more opportunities to do so, they get better with time than someone who is not as confident and shies away from every opportunity to do so.
III.BEING ARROGANT WILL MAKE IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO DOUBT YOURSELF
This last reason is the true difference between being merely confident and being arrogant. Confident people can all exhibit the behaviors of an arrogant person and have the same success over time, but the difference between a confident person and an arrogant person is that when things do not work out as the arrogant person thought they would, they do not EVER lose confidence in their abilities. Individuals who are just confident can lose this confidence when things don't turn out their way and events begin to spiral in a negative manner. Arrogant people will still learn from their mistakes and understand what they could've done better, but they will still feel proud of their efforts and attack their next endeavors with the same fierce confidence that they attacked everything before. How else do you think Donald Trump was able to come back better than ever after for filling bankruptcy twice? How about how Steve Jobs took over the helm of Apple after being kicked out 10 years prior? It is because of their ultimate arrogance in themselves that they never doubt themselves and continue to impose their beliefs and will on others because they ultimately believe they know best.
Arrogance. I think it has gotten a bad rap for some time now. It is one of the most secret traits of the "game changers" of our world that people often overlook. However, let me be clear: All of these individuals were arrogant because they had a reason to be. Larry Ellison worked extremely hard to develop his database development skills to create Oracle. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates put in hours upon hours of work to have the intellectual aptitude to found and run their word-changing companies. And we all know about the hard work that Michael Jordan put in day in and day out to become the greatest basketball of all time. Arrogance without the work is without merit and WILL make you a jerk. But if you are willing to put in the work, arrogance will take from just being good and successful at your job (confidence will do this) to being absolutely great.
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech. You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
Saturday, October 4, 2014
A New Type of Life Balance - The Five-Pointed Star of Balance
Balance. Since Gen X'ers learned many lessons from their divorced parents in the 1990s and 2000s, many people began seeing balance as more important to their overall success in life than to just make it to the corner office at work. While so many people were focused on achieving great things at their office or career, they were missing out on a lot of other things that they could possibly regret at a later stage in life. Most of these things revolved around time with their kids and family. They were focused on having more of those life events that allowed them to look back on life and feel proud of what they had accomplished in relation to raising their children and building a family structure that they could be proud of. And while this is a noble focus, there were many who woke up one day at 40 or 50 and realized that for the last 18-25 years or so, they had completely forgotten what it was like to live a life that was not completely revolved around someone else. These people would often be at a loss for what to do next with their lives and would then have to find a way to learn how to live life again as an independent person with their own goals and dreams and hopes. In this week's KMM Views, I want to explore a new type of life balance that is not focused on the original dichotomy of choice: work and family, but instead brings a more holistic approach to achieving a more well-rounded life that add three more elements to the mix. This new balance will ultimately allow one to live a more rewarding life overall and creates, what I like to call, a Five-Pointed Star of Balance.
Outside of Work Friends - Often when people begin to date someone seriously or get married, they have a tendency to make a decision to put their friends to the back burner. This often leads to this individual only spending time with the people she/he works with to try to build deeper relationships for her/his success. While this is definitely a wise thing to do, one cannot forget about the numerous people who have been there for you from day one and who know you best. Making sure that one continues to hone and develop these relationships is imperative to one's life, as these people can often give perspective about various decisions in life and consistently "check" you when they recognize something in you that someone who hasn't known you as well wouldn't recognize. They can also be a good indicator of how much you have grown as they can see the full transformation from where you were to where you are now. One can achieve this by always making time for those friends by scheduling an outing with them every other week or once a month. You have to have a scheduled time to do it, because if you don't it, it will get lost in the "shuffle" of the day. The great thing about this is that it will give you a mental break from your every day life to mentally relax and recharge as will as teach your kids a valuable lesson about the importance of true friendship and how it takes INTENTIONAL work to actually foster and maintain it.
Personal Hobbies/Interests - Having personal hobbies and interests allows an individual to continually "dream" about the different things that she/he may want to accomplish one day. As kids, one of the most exciting things of growing up was the thought of what our lives were going to be like when we reached adulthood. Often we had some type of personal interest that we focused on and wanted to build upon to achieve some level of greatness. As we become adults, many of us lose these every day hobbies and interests because of the lack of time and never continue to develop any new skill for ourselves. One of the needs of the human brain is to continually learn and grow to stay mentally sharp and prepared for new challenges. This only occurs when we intentionally work to develop a new skill that requires our ultimate attention and focus. This needs to be something that we purposely have to make time for and practice to get better. This is also great for our kids as it serves as a model to demonstrate to them that "mommy and daddy" both are willing to put in the hard work it takes to improve as something - an idea that should translate to them applying this to their academic and athletic attempts to improve.
Academic and Cultural Development - Often when one reaches a level of competence at a job or in a field, one has the tendency to allow this to be her/his threshold of knowledge, and there is no longer any intentional effort to improve in this endeavor. This can apply to one's job or just life in general. This last point on the Five-Pointed Star of Balance is about continuously working to improve one's overall knowledge about different things in the world in general. People who live the most fulfilling lives are the one's who tend to know a little about a lot of different things. For this reason, they often have a lot of different perspectives on how to approach situations in life, which many times gives them the ability to make better decisions as whole. We live in an enormous world in which the dynamics of academic and cultural interaction are forever changing. It is only by making this a priority in our lives, will we then be able to continue to grow and enrich our own lives by challenging ourselves to not just life in a bubble but to learn more and more about others and the outside world. This type of world approach will also encourage one's kids to be more world-centric as opposed to region-centric - a trait that will no doubt be a differentiator for them as we move towards a more globally-minded world.
The Five-Pointed Star of Balance. This is important for anyone who desires to live a more enriched life than just the ordinary day to day that most people live. To do so, however, takes more of an effort than the usual balance between work and family (that's the norm). One has to intentionally work to develop the other three aspects of our Five-Pointed Star to live a life of continual growth and excitement that will make the next day more enjoyable and exciting than the last. And while one may feel bad because it will take some time away from what one is able to dedicate to one's kids, it ultimately comes back to be a teacher/model to them of how to life a more well-balanced life themselves - a feat that isn't easy, but worth every amount of effort and investment it takes to achieve it.
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech. You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
Outside of Work Friends - Often when people begin to date someone seriously or get married, they have a tendency to make a decision to put their friends to the back burner. This often leads to this individual only spending time with the people she/he works with to try to build deeper relationships for her/his success. While this is definitely a wise thing to do, one cannot forget about the numerous people who have been there for you from day one and who know you best. Making sure that one continues to hone and develop these relationships is imperative to one's life, as these people can often give perspective about various decisions in life and consistently "check" you when they recognize something in you that someone who hasn't known you as well wouldn't recognize. They can also be a good indicator of how much you have grown as they can see the full transformation from where you were to where you are now. One can achieve this by always making time for those friends by scheduling an outing with them every other week or once a month. You have to have a scheduled time to do it, because if you don't it, it will get lost in the "shuffle" of the day. The great thing about this is that it will give you a mental break from your every day life to mentally relax and recharge as will as teach your kids a valuable lesson about the importance of true friendship and how it takes INTENTIONAL work to actually foster and maintain it.
Personal Hobbies/Interests - Having personal hobbies and interests allows an individual to continually "dream" about the different things that she/he may want to accomplish one day. As kids, one of the most exciting things of growing up was the thought of what our lives were going to be like when we reached adulthood. Often we had some type of personal interest that we focused on and wanted to build upon to achieve some level of greatness. As we become adults, many of us lose these every day hobbies and interests because of the lack of time and never continue to develop any new skill for ourselves. One of the needs of the human brain is to continually learn and grow to stay mentally sharp and prepared for new challenges. This only occurs when we intentionally work to develop a new skill that requires our ultimate attention and focus. This needs to be something that we purposely have to make time for and practice to get better. This is also great for our kids as it serves as a model to demonstrate to them that "mommy and daddy" both are willing to put in the hard work it takes to improve as something - an idea that should translate to them applying this to their academic and athletic attempts to improve.
Academic and Cultural Development - Often when one reaches a level of competence at a job or in a field, one has the tendency to allow this to be her/his threshold of knowledge, and there is no longer any intentional effort to improve in this endeavor. This can apply to one's job or just life in general. This last point on the Five-Pointed Star of Balance is about continuously working to improve one's overall knowledge about different things in the world in general. People who live the most fulfilling lives are the one's who tend to know a little about a lot of different things. For this reason, they often have a lot of different perspectives on how to approach situations in life, which many times gives them the ability to make better decisions as whole. We live in an enormous world in which the dynamics of academic and cultural interaction are forever changing. It is only by making this a priority in our lives, will we then be able to continue to grow and enrich our own lives by challenging ourselves to not just life in a bubble but to learn more and more about others and the outside world. This type of world approach will also encourage one's kids to be more world-centric as opposed to region-centric - a trait that will no doubt be a differentiator for them as we move towards a more globally-minded world.
The Five-Pointed Star of Balance. This is important for anyone who desires to live a more enriched life than just the ordinary day to day that most people live. To do so, however, takes more of an effort than the usual balance between work and family (that's the norm). One has to intentionally work to develop the other three aspects of our Five-Pointed Star to live a life of continual growth and excitement that will make the next day more enjoyable and exciting than the last. And while one may feel bad because it will take some time away from what one is able to dedicate to one's kids, it ultimately comes back to be a teacher/model to them of how to life a more well-balanced life themselves - a feat that isn't easy, but worth every amount of effort and investment it takes to achieve it.
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech. You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)