What’ya Doing With Your 24 Hours?

On Sunday, we talked about taking the  journey of life with YOUR eyes wide open — as in, yes, absolutely, DO explore with fascination, but LIVE too, while you’re doing it.

Some might say we’re pretty opinionated about HOW we “think” others — our readers, seekers, self-improvement proponents — should take that journey. We’re not immune to some “Gawwwwd, get off my back… let me just @#$% smell the roses already” comments (heck, nor would we want to be).

So, we respond with: smell ’em, baaaaaaby, smeeell all you like, but ensure you’re not ONLY smelling the rose-colored roses ’cause that’s all you SEE (get it?)

If you are, and/or you haven’t read the last blog post, skippedy-do-da right on over to the previous blog post for some Wizard of Oz Wisdom.

If you’re actually going to one day EXPERIENCE (as in, like before you’re floating back around the ethers) what you think, imagine, and keep saying you’re going do or have, we’d venture to say there are a few things yas gotta come to grips with.

= = = = = Continued = = = = =

As we elaborated on in Sunday’s post:

FIRST MIND GRIPPER: The more you focus on pushing aside (repressing) your own feelings of fear, anger, or anxiety; the more you spend too much energy trying to shield yourself from (ignore) anything “outside of you” that is controversial, negative, or emotionally/mentally shocking, the more likely you’ll be constantly hanging out in Munchkinland.

Like Dorothy, you have to admit you feel bad (scared) before you can feel better (at ease). And you have to be okay with facing those feelings head-on, whether it takes the form of flying monkeys, or witches, or just plain old raw emotions.

NOTE: if you ALREADY commented on the last post, high-five to you for your contributions. If you have some insight or just want to share your experience with our “the struggle is worth it” philosophy, scroll to the end of Sunday’s post and write away.

Okay, so now that you KNOW, without question, that life is a series of complimentary opposites put in place for you to experience contrast (again, if you don’t, read Sunday’s post)…

You can trot along NOT always:

* Playing it Safe;
* Having Unrealistic Expectations;
* Feeling Sorry for Yourself;
* Quitting Too Soon;
* Pretending You’re Fine When You’re Not;
* etc, etc.

Now, here’s the coolest part about owning up to (i.e., admitting it’s gonna happen) the struggles of your life:

You don’t waste your days majoring in minor crap!

In another words, when you’re NOT fretting about how to be (or appear) perfect, living up to some label you’ve mentally tattooed to yourself, or worrying about trivial stuff, you have more energy (and time) to FOCUS on what you DO wanna experience.

But, stop the presses for a second!

It sure the hell doesn’t mean that, like Dorothy, you won’t be surprised with an “apple-throwing tree” every now and then — i.e., just because you’ve found this new approach to focus on what you want, it doesn’t mean this power will magically put a force field around you that protects you from ALL of  life’s hurdles and pot holes.

It seems counter-intuitive, we know, to take the “I’ll-just-let-life-come-to-me” approach while FOCUSING on items in your day that you think and/or feel will give you fulfillment, joy, and a sense of accomplishment.

Yet, truth is always stranger the fiction, when it comes to the mindset and actions super-achievers take too.

They get things done — progress through their projects, and end up where they wanted, regardless of the opposing things around them — NOT so much by focusing directly on the thing (the item, desire, goal, etc.), but on the process instead.

A funny thing happens, we’ve found, when us humans focus directly on achieving (having / experiencing) something:

We start ignoring the beauty of the journey for the destination.

We start worrying that we’ll make mistakes. We start getting nervous about failure and rejection. We start feeling guilty about success!

All that’s just too distracting.

Most people end up round-filing their desires, their wishes, and their dreams, because their fear and guilt causes them to just spin their wheels. Or worse yet, freeze into inaction.

So, at the end of the day, how can you feel good about your accomplishment from the previous 24 hours?

Every day, you either have or don’t have results to show for burning through another 24 hours of your life… How can you get things done, without feeling like you’ve wasted that time ?

SECOND MIND GRIPPER: When you focus on the process — the journey from where you are to where you want to be — of achieving any outcome, you don’t think of it as a chore. People who seemingly have the Midas touch when it comes to accomplishing stuff look at it as a game. And, by golly, it’s a game they’re gonna enjoy while playing it!

The magnitude of what you want doesn’t matter. Simply because, no matter how big or small your goal, the process of making it happen remains the same.

End-result thinking gets you attached to one goal, stifles creativity and keeps you from letting unforeseen angles become positive possibilities.

However, with task or process-oriented thinking, you can easily open up new horizons. You can let your imagination soar.

And you can accept the infinite possibilities that are available to you.

And no, that doesn’t mean focusing on the “how” — as in “How am I going to get there?” “How am I going to achieve that?” and so forth — because that stops people in their tracks too.

At least, it doesn’t mean focusing on the “how” of the big-picture “forest goal”, but it may mean looking at the step-by-step “hows” of each small-picture “tree goal” along the forest journey.

But like they say, the “hows” will get revealed to you as you go… and if they don’t, you just do some research, and then they certainly will get revealed!

Let’s take the case of a person going on a diet.

He tries all kinds of diet plans, ingests all kinds of “miracle” pills, attempts all kinds of exercise routines. He reviews books and tapes. He attends courses and workshops. But the results are nowhere in sight.

Why?

Because the fundamental issue for success with dieting is: “the habit of maintaining self-control.”

But the average dieter completely bypasses this very basic issue. Instead, he focuses directly on the result he is seeking… “losing pounds of fat soon!”

(Focusing on the wrong “how” often means coming up with the wrong game plan… and then giving up in defeat!)

So he falls easy prey to the “quick!” and “overnight!” scams. He pursues the exotic powders and the trendy diet books… all of which are useless without self-control.

As you can see, his chances of success are somewhere between nil and zero!

Don’t kid yourself!

We’ve learned the hard way that almost every life situation has parallels to this dieting example. We humans aim for a specific result. But that result remains elusive because we’ve failed to address the essential fundamentals.

It’s a much too common trap. Common because more often than not, the only way to learn about these essential fundamentals is to understand the process.

Think about it!

And once you do, let us know your thoughts by commenting below.

——————————

For some GUIDES to help you through the process in key areas of life, we’ve put these on our TO RECOMMEND LIST:

For Dieting:
http://www.lwlurl.com/snapp

For Getting Things Done & Time Management:
http://www.lwlurl.com/get-things-done

For Making a Marriage Thrive:
http://www.lwlurl.com/collins

Your Partners in the Quest For
Living a Life Without Limits,

Barry and Heather

(( Life Design Consultants,
Agents of Higher Learning &
Catalysts For Change ))

Filed under: Personal Achievement, Time Management

5 Responses to “What’ya Doing With Your 24 Hours?”

  1. Hey there Barry & Heather!

    I do read you blog quite often.
    It is very upliftiing for me,
    I really enjoy it.

    Stimulates my drrrivve, and gets
    me goin’ again.

    Keep on ‘keepin’ on.

    All the best,
    Robert.

  2. Hi Barry & Heather,
    Interesting idea about the process being more important than the outcome – I seem to agree.
    it reminds me of a conversation I had with my sister-in-law some years ago. We were talking about ambitions and I remember saying that it didn’t really matter if I achieved what, at that moment, I felt I wanted to achieve as long as I enjoyed the journey.

    As it turns out, since then, I have changed my mind many times about what I want to achieve, and I haven’t always enjoyed the journey.

    I was pondering this a week or so ago, while reading “Happy for no reaason” by Marci Schimoff. I decided that it was more important to go for a goal of being happy and be open to how that would manifest in my life. So that is where I am at the moment – trying to remember, every day, that if I aim to be happy and make small and big decisions that I think will enhance my happiness I may or may not reach the other goals that I have set, but if I am happier today, tomorrow and all the days that follow, I must be doing something right. I would rather be happy than the richest, saddest person alive!

    So I am aiming to work with the process and let the goals find me!

    Love and hugs to all from SueC

  3. It has become a very rare thing that I actually set goals. They only lead you down one path and eliminate all of the alternatives and opportunities that are offered up to us each and every day. I will admit that I do set intentions. But, it is the journey that I truly enjoy. I can only live in this moment and if in this moment, I maintain right thought and right actions then I only have a world of limitless opportunities and success. Living for some future goal will only lead to pain and dissatisfaction. While I am grateful for all that I have had and all that I may ever have, I am most grateful that I have this single moment in my life. It is a wonderful feeling to wake up every morning, set my feet on the floor and realize that I am alive and simply have today to make the most of my life. The past is ancient history, the future never arrives but I have this very moment and it is the most precious gift that I can receive.

    [Editor’s NOTE]:

    Hi Stan,

    We’re not sure there really is a fundamental difference between “goals” and “intentions”… it’s basically different verbiage for the same thing, which is a future desired outcome.

    Both can be written down or not, both can be spoken or not, and both can lead the “goal-setter” or “intention-setter” into focusing on the destination (end result) instead of the journey.

    But focusing on the journey is not the same thing as “being in the now”. While we agree that’s important in certain scenarios (such as meditating or sharing a special moment with someone), “the now” is too small for most people, and often keeps them stuck going nowhere… or walking around in circles rather than taking a path to somewhere.

    The cool part about the journey is we know that, while it’s something to enjoy and explore as we go, it’s also fun to anticipate what might be around the next corner, and it is leading somewhere eventually… we just don’t necessarily know EXACTLY where! 😉

  4. […] monkey" every now and then. Okay, enough ranting about paralysis by analysis. For more Wizard of Oz Wisdom, click here. Now, on to Nanacast… I echo everything Josh says above. In addition, he comes from a place of […]

  5. Facing All and Avoiding nothing ………………….. is to remain in tune with the Authentic self , divine self with no fears n doubts.

    with luv , joy n gratitude !

Leave a Reply