Are you stuck thinking there is only one way to get to where you want to go?

Seeing things in such a manner is very limiting.  It boxes you in.  It closes off your options.  It can be very self-defeating.

Life is rarely this black and white.  Normally, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of possible ways to arrive at your desired destination.

You will significantly increase your chances of success if you relax a little and open your mind to a wider array of possibilities.

The Trouble with Such a Narrow Perspective

Seeing only one way to accomplish a goal, solve a problem or arrive at a mutually acceptable agreement is called tunnel vision.  You get locked up seeing things from a very narrow perspective and fail to recognize that with just a little creative deviation or compromise that you can get 95% or more of what you want.

Tunnel vision blinds you to the possibilities and keeps you banging your head against the wall.  This is usually painful and counterproductive.

Those that are the most successful in life see and are willing to accept many different paths to getting what they want.

They know better than to keep trying over and over the same solution that isn’t working.  Don’t you think it is strange that we do this?  We believe what we are doing should work, but the fact that it isn’t somehow doesn’t deter us from repeating the same behavior again and again.  This is tunnel vision.    This is what happens when you have a very narrow perspective. 

You’ve seen this in others.  You’ve seen whole businesses that fail to recognize a change in the market and keep doing what they’ve always done until they go bankrupt.  You’ve seen married couples that keep acting the same way towards each other until they wind up in divorce court.  You’ve seen individuals that continue behaving in a certain way while wondering the whole time why “bad things” always seem to happen to them.

When you have blinders on, you fail to entertain more promising ways to getting what you want.  This is the trouble with such a narrow perspective.

Opening Your Eyes to Other Ways

Let me say this plainly, if what you are doing is not working, then CHANGE what you are doing.  I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but I think for many of us, me included, it needs to be said more often.  At times, it needs to be yelled from the rooftops. 

STOP doing the things you are doing that aren’t working!

You are wasting your time if you keep repeating the same actions over and over that are failing to produce the results you want.

Instead, make a change, an adjustment or a revision to what you’ve been doing.  Ask someone for a new alternative way of looking at, thinking about or understanding the issue you face.  Get radical.  Take a risk.  Make yourself uncomfortable.  My point is that you need to see that there is more than one way.  You need to do something different to get different results.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

~ Albert Einstein

Intentionally and mindfully embrace the idea that there is more than one way to live, accomplish a goal or solve a pesky problem.  Get serious about looking for new ideas or ways to achieve what you want.

Challenge yourself with alternative points of view.  Ask yourself, “Which is more important to me, being right or getting what I want?”  For successful people, the answer is definitely getting what they want.

They understand that sometimes life is serendipitous.  The path to what you want isn’t always a straight line.  Sometimes you just can’t force things to happen.  You have to follow life where it is going and believe it or not, you might just wind up where you wanted to be anyway.

Getting What You Want

So, where is it in your life that you are not getting the results you most desire?  Is it at work or at home?  Is it in a relationship?  Does it have to do with money?  Whatever “it” is for you, think about your actions in this area of your life. 

Have you been trying the same approach repeatedly and expecting different results?  It takes a mature person to admit this.  If this is you, then I challenge you to embrace the idea that there is more than one way to get what you want.  Expand your thinking in this area, try a new strategy and see if you get a little closer to your desires.

Photo: Copyright PhotoXpress.com

Are You FULL of it?!!

The ancient Greeks had a term called “zoe”, which was a term used to describe both temporal and eternal life.  I like to think of it as “life at its fullest.” 

So, what does it take to experience life at its fullest?  I did some thinking, and came up with the ideas in this article.

They may not fully define a Super-Charged Life, but they will help you to start to paint the picture for yourself.  I will provide some initial thoughts; I will ask you, the reader, to add to my list at the end with your comments.

“Two men looked out the same prison bars: one saw mud, and the other stars”
~ Frederick Langbridge

Focus

Living life in the fullest, to me, means that my Focus is in the right place.  Every day, in every circumstance, I have the power to choose what I will focus on.  Will I focus on my limitations, my failures, my fears?  Will I focus on what I do not have, what I have not yet accomplished, on my weakness?  Or will I choose to focus on what is going well in my life?

“Some men see things as they are, and say, ‘Why?’  I dream of things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?’ “  ~ George Bernard Shaw

One great tool that Anthony Robbins designed to help guide powerful focus is a set of what he calls power questions.  I’ll share them with you now.  These are taken from his book called Awaken the Giant Within. 

He has a set of morning questions that he frequently asks himself, to get his focus on the right things:

• What am I happy about in my life now?
• What am I excited about in my life now?
• What am I proud about in my life now?
• What am I grateful about in my life now?
• What am I enjoying most in my life right now?
• What am I committed to in my life right now?
• Who do I love?  Who loves me?

He also has a set of evening power questions that help him realign his focus for sleep and for the next day:

• What have I given today?
• What did I learn today?
• How has today added to the quality of my life, or how can I use today as an Investment in my future?

The list of questions can go on and on, but I think you get the idea: the right set of questions can give us the answers that help us live life to the fullest.

“Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.”
~ E.E. Cummings

Understanding

A second quality that helps me live a FULL life is Understanding.  For me, there needs to be accurate Understanding of God, of myself, and of others. 

“I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.”
~Voltaire

I have to have an understanding that there is Something beyond me, and that alone life is not nearly as full as when I am working in unison with the Power that created the universe.  It is the same power that many an alcoholic has found when s/he comes into a group and admits, for the first time, that s/he cannot live life on their own. 

The AA Big Book, which is the handbook for Alcoholics Anonymous, talks about this understanding as being the same as the person who turns the light switch on in the room.  They cannot see electricity, but they understand its effects, and they are willing to trust its effects for their benefit.

“I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.”  ~ Billie Jean King, Considered to be one of the greatest female tennis players in history

Accurate self understanding is the essence of true humility, and it affords us the opportunity to live life to the fullest.  When I have been too proud to admit my weaknesses and character faults, it has made life pretty miserable for my wife, my kids, my friends, and people in general.  When I have been too fearful to acknowledge my strengths, my talents, my good characteristics, I have deprived myself and others of a unique gift: me!  There is no other me! 

This is why taking inventory of our strengths, our values, our weaknesses, our goals is so important.  It’s like looking in the mirror in the morning to get ready for work, then walking outside with ketchup smears on our face and our hair uncombed.  We need to be self aware to live life to the fullest.

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”
~ Kahlil Gibran

Finally, we need to have the courage and emotional intelligence to be able to listen to and understand others.  As Steven Covey writes in his bestseller book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood”.  If I have an understanding of God and myself, I will have the security to listen without defensiveness to the other person’s point of view.

On the flip side of this, having an accurate understanding of myself means that I have the courage to assert myself, to stand up for my own thoughts, positions, ideas, feelings.  To understand others does not mean I give myself up in the process.  In seeking a win-win understanding with another person, I stick to what I believe, but I seek to reach an agreement that we can both live with.

Love

The third element of living a FULL life, for me, is to have the courage to Love.

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.”
~ Mother Teresa

Apart from love, life is pretty flat.  In loving, I am fulfilling the heart of God.  Mother Teresa worked her entire lifetime among the dying poor of Calcutta, India.  When she gave a speech here in the West, she remarked that it is harder to fill the hunger for love than it is to fill physical hunger.  She noted that there is a famine of love in the West.

I am speaking for those of us who are readers here in the United States and Canada (I cannot speak for those in other parts of the world).  Is it not easy to get insulated, working at our jobs, going home, watching television, getting up, doing the same thing over and over again?  We forget that there are neighbors, friends, and relatives who are starving on the inside for a kind word, a smile and an act of service.

One of my favorite passages on love is found in the Bible: I Corinthians 13: 1-13.  If you aspire to love others, please read and reflect on the model of love found in this passage.

The interesting thing about love is that the Law of Indirect Effort comes into play here.  The trick is that you must love without expecting in return.  When you truly love, you are filled up on the inside of your soul.

As with everything else, forming the Habit of Love is not difficult, but it will take practice.  You may have to learn to forgive injuries, take responsibility for your part in what went wrong in a relationship.  My favorite prayer for learning to love comes from St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, 
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; 
to be understood as to understand; 
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive; 
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; 
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

~ St. Francis of Assisi

Long Term Perspective and Lingering

Finally, I am going to cheat and include two L’s in the last part of the acrostic that I have used to describe a FULL life: and that will be Long Term Perspective coupled with Lingering.  What?!!  Let me explain.

Living with a Long Term Perspective is what separates achievers from the average.  Anything worth doing will require time and effort.  Think about saving for retirement.  When a person is thinking only about the short-term gratification of spending all they have for the moment, they lose sight of the miracle of compound interest.

When a person has to have their own way in a marriage relationship, or when they cheat on their partner, they are giving up their Long Term Perspective.

When a doctor goes to medical school, she is living with the End in mind.  Sure she is in school for 8+ years, amassing a lot of educational debt in school loans and time missed from other activities, but she is understanding that the prize is worth the price.

On the other hand, if a person only lives in the Future, they miss out on the gift that is called the Present.

There is a habit found in the research on positive psychology that is shown to increase happiness when practiced consistently.  It’s called Savoring (which, for purposes of this article, I am calling Lingering).  I would say that it’s closely linked to Gratitude. 

With savoring, you may want to have a picture album, or you can use your Flickr account, to remember in detail your happiest and most meaningful memories.  Or, during the day, you may just want to take time to notice the beauty of a sunset, the wonder of your pets, the curiosity of a child.  By Living in the Moment, while having the understanding of a Long Term Perspective, you are truly living life to the fullest.

Are You FULL of Life?

In conclusion, I have shared with you my thoughts on living a FULL life:

F – Do you have the proper Focus?

U – Do you have an Understanding of God, yourself, and others?

L – Do you have a commitment to Love?

L – And, finally, are you living with Long Term Perspective while being committed to Lingering in the Present?

I welcome your thoughts and comments as to what constitutes a FULL life for you!

Stephen Borgman’s mission is to help others reach their full potential. He grew up in Brazil, South America, to parents whose legacy of serving and helping others he hopes to carry on. His blog, Personal Success Factors, is dedicated to helping your reach your next level of excellence.

Photo by ViaMoi

Changing our attitude and beliefs toward an area of life that is an obstacle to our success will change our behavior and therefore change the outcome.  Continually doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different end result is crazy.

Are there areas in your life where you have hit a glass ceiling?  Does it seem like you keep trying and trying, but fail to make any progress past a certain point?  Are you frustrated that you cannot get ahead in an area of your life?  Read on!

How can we change our thoughts to overcome obstacles?

Changing how we think about certain situations in life is often difficult, but essential.  Otherwise, we end up continually fighting the same problem repeatedly without ever making any progress.

As an example, we seem to get into the same arguments over and over again with our spouses.  We feel stuck in dead-end jobs.  We continue bad habits even though we know they aren’t good for us.  Why?  Because we persist in looking at the problem from the same angle.  We cling to inaccurate or incorrect thinking without really reevaluating our position.

It often seems that changing our point of view is almost impossible.  How can we change the way we think about these things so we can overcome these obstacles?  I ran across an illustration that I think will help.

Imagine that you are holding a glass of dirty water in your hand.  It’s full of all kinds of particles, sand and dirt.

If you were to pour fresh, clean water into that glass continually and just let it overflow, eventually all the dirty water would be gone.

All you would have left would be the pure, clean water.  And you wouldn’t have to really do anything to get rid of the dirty water except allow the new, clean water to flow.

~ Joel Osteen

Overcoming obstacles is easy once we understand

You might want to reread the quote above.  Isn’t it amazing?  It basically says that we can overcome the biggest and most difficult obstacles in our lives very easily.  All we have to do is allow the pure, clean water to flow into the place where our impure thoughts exist.

We just need to continually pour the right thinking into our minds so that it eventually forces the inaccurate thoughts out.  In other words, we can retrain our thoughts by simply repeatedly and frequently filling our minds with the right thoughts.

We can essentially brainwash ourselves to behave in anyway we want.  It just takes good input, an open mind, and time. 

Start to retrain your thoughts for success

Give this a try.  Choose an area of your life where you seem stuck.  It could be your marriage, your finances, your career, or your relationship with your children.  It can be any area of your life.  Just pick an area where you want to experience more success.

Once you’ve chosen the area, then start locating the fresh, clean water.  Find new inputs that will help you change your thinking.  Please realize that you need new inputs with a point of view that is different than what you hold now. 

You need to change your thinking and the only way to do that is to fill you mind with new thoughts.  Don’t choose inputs that simply reinforce the way you think now.  It won’t help.  Instead, find people that have already accomplished what you hope to accomplish and then find out how they did it.

Go fill your mind with their thoughts.  If you want to be a millionaire, then find someone with lots of money to talk to.  If you want to be a great spouse, then find someone that has been successfully married for 50 years.  If you want to become CEO, then find heads of companies and ask them how they did it.

How to keep pouring the right thoughts into your mind

It is likely that you will need to keep pouring the right kind of thinking into your mind for weeks, months and maybe even years before you will succeed.  How do you do this?

You can’t sit with a person 24 hours a day.  Therefore, besides just finding others who have succeeded in the area you have chosen, you also need to find other inputs.  Of course, you want to be sure that you only follow the advice of those who have already accomplished what you want to do.  This is crucial. 

Here are some ideas:

• Read books by successful people in your chosen area
• Read good blogs
• Join a group, club or association
• Locate free videos on YouTube on the subject
• Listen to talk radio shows
• Find a friend with the same interest to trade ideas
• Do all of the above and more!

Obstacles will disappear once we see things clearly

The dirty water will eventually disappear if we keep pouring in the fresh, clean water.  It will take some time, but we can retrain our thoughts and overcome the obstacles that have held us back.  Follow others that have gone before you and learn to think like they do.  This is a surefire way to think your way to success!

In what areas do you need to retrain your thinking to overcome obstacles?

Other articles that might interest you:
Top Ten Tips To Overcome Obstacles to Success
Gaining Perspective Helps to Achieve Excellence in Life
Resist Change At All Costs Even If It Is For The Better

Photo by DISC0STU

The case for long-term thinking as a success factor

Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard wrote about this in his book, The Unheavenly City Revisited.  Banfield set out to discover why some people become financially independent over the course of their working lives while others do not. 

He expected to find that factors such as education, intelligence, family background, and influential contacts would be the answer to his question.  However, what Dr. Banfield discovered was that a person’s time perspective or how far they project into the future when deciding actions to take in the present largely determined their success.

The results of a failure to think long-term

It seems to me that a lot of what created the mortgage and financial crisis we are dealing with is short-sightedness.  Consumers failed to delay their purchases until they could truly afford a new home.  Bankers loaned money to unqualified buyers because they wanted to make an immediate profit.  Politicians encouraged this behavior because they wanted to give more Americans what they desired to get their vote.

Everyone involved decided to immediately gratify themselves without consideration for the long-term impact.  Apparently, none of these people looked into the future far enough to predict the outcome we are experiencing.  This failure to plan long-term is what created the crisis.

A real-life example of long-term thinking

Obviously, some people think long-term while others do not.  An example of this that stuck out to me early in my life occurred at high school graduation.  Some of those that I graduated with went on to college while others immediately began working. 

I’ll admit going to work looked pretty good.  After all, these people earned decent money, drove nice cars, and were able to move out and get a place of their own.  They immediately began enjoying a better life.

Those of us that went to college poured our meager resources into paying for tuition and books.  We didn’t have time to work as much so we earned less, plus we had to study instead of enjoying ample leisure time.  Basically, we made sacrifices believing in the promise of a better future.

I’ve never had the opportunity to poll my classmates to determine the specifics of how this worked out, but according to the Census Bureau, college graduates earn about twice as much over their working lifetimes compared to high school graduates.  This is just one example of how looking to the future when making decisions results in greater success.

The psychology of long-term thinking

Why do some people choose to consider the long-term results while others are more apt to take immediate gratification?  Well, researchers point to the need to relieve tension versus the need for goal achieving.

Apparently, those who want it now have a keen desire to relieve the tension created by doing without.  This relief of tension outweighs any future gain.  They can’t seem to delay gratification.  Of course, this impacts their decision-making across the board which typically leads to less productive results.

Those that are long-term thinkers are more about setting and achieving goals.  They have a vision for their life and are willing to give up certain things today to reach their goals tomorrow.  As seen in the example above, this usually results in greater achievement.

How to start thinking more long-term

I believe everyone can achieve greater success by exercising more long-term thinking.  Banfield found that the longer your perspective when making decisions, the greater achievement.  Therefore, we all have room to improve.  Here are some ideas for increasing your long-term thinking.

1.  Create a vision for what you want your life to look like

What do you want your life to look like 5, 10, or 20 years from now?  Where do you want to be living?  What kind of work do you want to be doing?  How do you want to be spending your time?  Who do you want to be spending your time with?  A very effective and creative way to do this is by creating a vision board.  This is especially helpful if you are a visual thinker.

2.  Write out specific goals for yourself

Goals serve as a road map for the future.  They will help to keep you on track.  However, you have to write them out and review them often for goals to work effectively.  Write out the goals you want to accomplish in the next 1-year, 5-years, and 10-years.  You should then develop plans for achieving your goals.  This is essential to get the most out of your career, finances, marriage, and leisure time.  It also helps you to expand the horizon of your thinking.

3.  List your activities and prioritize them

What is most important to you?  Make a list of all the ways you spend your time.  You might want to do this over several days to get an accurate picture of where all your time goes.  Once you have this list, go back and prioritize the activities.  Decide what current activities you can delegate or eliminate to give yourself more time to focus on achieving your goals.  The more time you devote to what is really important, the more likely you will be to succeed.

4.  Practice worst-case scenario planning

The idea is to get yourself looking down the road and anticipating various outcomes to help yourself choose more appropriate long-term courses of action.  When you face an important decision, write down a list of possible outcomes.  Include in this list every worst-case scenario that you can dream up.  Once you’ve done this, then consider ways to prevent these worst-case scenarios through actions you can take in advance.  Again, this will help you broaden your perspective and achieve greater success.

Your greatest tool for creating success

The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs…one step at a time.  ~Joe Girard

A part of long-term thinking is understanding the quote above.  It is being able to delay gratification believing that greater success is just around the corner once the hard work is done.  Long-term thinking is a form of risk management for life.  By taking the time to better prepare yourself, you increase your probability for success.  We all need to embrace this idea and use it daily to achieve all that we desire.  Long-term thinking gives us a power tool toward living life to its absolute fullest!

How has long-term thinking helped you in your life?

Photos by gutter and marc_eliot

Thinking about perspective while high in the clouds.

I started thinking about this when I was flying back from California this week.  I had a window seat and I was looking out over the vast desert and towering mountains down below.  I have always found the landscape fascinating from 35,000 feet.  I could see winding roads snaking through the brown, rugged mountains and tiny islands of civilization nestled in the green valleys.  I imagined myself lost and trying to find my way out of what sometimes appeared to be desolate, isolated surroundings.  From my vantage point in the plane, I could see that a home, community, or highway was just over the next ridge or just through a clump of trees.  However, if I was on the ground fighting for my survival, I would have never known.  I could have easily gone in the exact opposite direction and gotten even more deeply lost.

Situations in life can rob us of our perspective.

This is the way it seems in life as well.  We often get lost in our circumstances.  We get stressed, depressed, or overwhelmed by the immediate situation.  In this emotional state, we start contemplating our options.  We consider compromising our standards just to get out of the situation.  It’s weird how even one bad day can totally take the wind out of our sails and get us started in totally the wrong direction.  Yesterday we might have been gung-ho and completely committed to doing the right thing, but today someone criticized us or others are being difficult to get along with and suddenly we are ready to give up, throw in the towel and quit the fight.  We are ready to take off down an unproven and often dangerous shortcut.

The big picture helps to restore the proper perspective.

However, if we could just see over the next ridge, we would realize that we aren’t as lost as we sometimes feel.  We would know that the refuge and direction that we need aren’t far off.  We would know that good times and relief are just around the corner.  Hope and motivation would fill us because we would know exactly what to do to get to where we want to be.  We would have a renewed sense of energy because we would know that if we just hike a couple of miles in the right direction that we will reach our goal.  We would know that our hard work and dedication to excellence is going to pay off.

What to do to regain perspective and achieve excellence.

Are you feeling lost right now?  Is there a sense of desperation in your actions?  If so, then let’s use some suggestions that are helpful in a true survival situation for getting your life back on track and regaining your perspective:

1. Stop and gather your senses – Don’t panic!  You have to calm yourself down and take control of your emotions so you can formulate a sensible plan.  Get away from all the distractions and busyness for a day or at least a few hours.  In Are You Afraid of the Silence?, Cameron Schaefer states, “Noise has become for us at age 24 [or 44 ] what a night light was at age 5.”  The noise keeps us from truly reflecting and thinking about the things of meaning in our lives.  We need to take some time in quiet and solitude to sort things out. 
2. Make a plan and chart a course – Write down what you really want. I want to live a life of integrity, loyalty, commitment, wealth, and achievement.  What do you want?  Write it down.  Committing what you want to paper is important.  You have to have a plan.  It helps us develop a vision in our minds that serves as a map.  You can’t get to where you want to go, if you haven’t chosen a destination.
3. Take an inventory of what you have – In a true survival situation, you need to conserve everything that you have to deal with whatever situation might arise.  All resources become vital.  You have more to rely upon than what you are counting right now.  Think about your positive qualities and past successes.  What skills, qualities, talents, or resources helped you achieve what you have so far in life?  How can you more effectively utilize those same strengths to achieve a positive outcome in the present situation?  Count your blessings!  Be thankful for all that you have.
4. Be patient – True survivors are often those that stay put, conserve their energy, and wait to be rescued.  They do not make rash decisions without considering the possible consequences.  We need to be patient.  Help is on the way!  Have you ever had a solution to a difficult problem come to you when you were sleeping or while playing with the kids at home?  Sometimes we just need to give our minds some time to work on the problem.  The problem solving capacity of our minds often performs better when we are consciously distracted.  Give yourself some time before doing something you might regret.  The answers will come.

Excellence and achievement comes to those with proper perspective.

Use these suggestions to calm down, refocus on the big picture, and formulate a sensible plan before moving forward.  This kind of perspective can help you to avoid making a big and costly mistake.  Remember, some mistakes are irreversible and can cause irreparable damage to your reputation and relationships.  Heading in the right direction is more likely when you have followed these suggestions.

Photos by rla579 and tricky ™

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