Tag: action

Categories
Blog Post

Don’t Forget to Breathe

You always have time.

When you watch an action movie, the hero always does one thing before going into that room filled with bad guys.

We see it help with their success, yet it is so easy to neglect. 

What is it?

Breathe!

Whenever something bad happens to someone I know, the first thing I do is tell them to breathe.

There are always questions, depending on the level of anger. All of the questions they ask eventually lead to “What does breathing do for the situation?”

Breathing doesn’t do anything “tactical.” It, alone, won’t save your life.

Breathing won’t:

  • Put money in your bank account.
  • Get your significant other to call you back.
  • Stop your boss from firing you.

It’s about your strategy moving forward. Strategy informs tactics, tactics inform emotion.  Breathing gives you the opportunity to improve the strategic mindset by doing several things all with one action.

Breathing helps:

  • Slow down the situation.
  • Take control from the reptilian brain (fight or flight).
  • Increase empathy for the other side.

By breathing, our hero makes the right call. Help yourself make the right call by taking a second to breathe.

Categories
Blog Post

So, Let’s Get Started – I’m Giving You Permission

Permission

Go out and do it, I’m Giving You Permission

I am giving you permission. That thing that you are pushing off? That person you want to contact? Waiting for the right time?  I give you permission to do it.

We hold ourselves back

As I think about the things I did this year, one of the meta things that got my life moving this year was taking off expecting to do things myself, and  not having to wait until the perfect time to do something.

That was the change that got me out of the world of amateurs and beginning a journey as a pro.

 

Inspiration is for amateurs

I finally got to my video blog when I decided enough was enough. I did my podcast (coming soon) by just recording. I write these blogs now on a set schedule.

So, if you go down this path, it’s going to challenge you. It’s easy to sit back and wait to get told what to do, in fact, most of the people around us wait. I challenge you though, to get up and just start.

That podcast – There is your phone, start recording

That web series – same thing, that phone.

That script – Celtx is calling.

That book – you got a text file

I still deal with it

Its funny, even for things that are mine, I still struggle with the idea of permission. I made some formatting changes to this blog, added picture, and restarted a few things. I had to tell myself that it was ok, even though I am the boss.

This isn’t easy, but most creative projects are there for the taking.Get going, and get going immediately

Leave the complexity for later. Just start.

Note: You don’t have to put it out to the world, but put is somewhere where you see it, and you remind yourself that it grows with you.

Categories
Blog Post

Don’t Apologize Too Much

When I was younger, I would apologize a lot.

Like most, I assumed that more meant better, so if I said sorry long enough, I would address the issue. I got to wipe my hands clean and we get to move on.

When I started working for and working with people, I began to understand just how wrong this was.  Just saying sorry is inadequate, and after a certain point, is just offensive. Sorry isn’t a magic word that lets you off the hook.

What makes people feel better is knowing that you both understand what bothered them and your assurance that it will change. A sorry doesn’t do that.

What does, however, is a task that takes more work than a sorry, and that’s a plan that goes with it.

Laying out what you think, along with adding detail is a way to show people you care. Not only because it takes time, but it forces you to think over the mistake.

Some questions to ask:

  • What am I apologizing for?
  • Why did it happen?
  • How can we (include the other person, an offense is a two-way street) make sure this doesn’t happen again?

Once you have this down, think of a way to carry out this going forward.

This is much harder than just saying sorry because you see why the other person gets offended. We hate to think of ourselves as wrong, and this exercise puts us in that uncomfortable place. Even so, learning about the other person, and figuring out how we went wrong, help us grow just as much as the other person.

We don’t get to decide if people feel hurt. But, we do decide how we make them, and ourselves, feel better. We all make mistakes, but learning through them separates the people who grow and those who stay stagnant.

 

Categories
Blog Post

Manage to Action Cycle

So, you are sitting in your room and its time to get the day started.

It’s time to decide, one that is going to make your day.

You begin by asking yourself this question:

“Do I go to the library or stay here.”

You’ve already lost at that point.

Now, this sounds odd but stay with me on this.

What you just did was create a false choice. By closing off all the possibilities down to two things – you’ve started the path of relying on willpower to make a move. Instead of propelling progress, you’ve opened up a door for your fear and doubt to walk in. This is a battle I lose often, and I am betting you’ve too.

The real choice is that you have full reign on your day. Nothing is off the table.

I often work best when I manage the opportunities I have and then make myself have none when its time for action.

  • Manage – Take a block of time, and come up with all the possibilities. List them all out on a notepad, draw them up on a whiteboard, have a brain storming meeting (if you are in a group) whatever floats your boat. Then is the part where you put everything in the middle of the table – no idea is too strange.  Then you spend time chopping them down, slotting, and organizing where you want to go.   There are a ton of methods on how to do this.
  • Action – Then, just action. Follow a plan and give yourself no quarter. Just start blasting all of it away as fast as you can. Fear and doubt have no places to hide when the only thing in front of you is just the action.

This is a cycle. Sometimes the work needs to stop because the plan needs to change.  Sometimes you need just to stop planning and get to the action. All this is on the task at hand. But, the key is you have to choose to do one or the other. Trying to do both on the fly makes things complicated, and it can end up with you wondering where your day went.

 

Categories
Blog Post

Computer Screen

I sit and stare at my computer screen.

*click.click.click*

Nothing comes out. No well of inspiration, no big post, no reflective musing – nothing that is worth putting on the page.

Then I head for the feedback loop of Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Yahoo, and back again.

So, inside, I scream. Each moment filled with anticipation and anxiety.

Then I do or don’t. Its simple.

Things don’t get done unless I do them.

And voilà, a post appears.

 

Categories
Blog Post

Crash Course

Sometimes you crash land.

You find yourself in a place where nothing is familiar. It maybe hard to breathe. It may be hard to think.

Your mind can become your enemy or your friend during this process.

We would all like to think we would become an action hero – running through the situation guns blazing – but that just isn’t accurate.

You have to train yourself to get to that point. No one runs the marathon the first time through – you build your endurance through controlled tests in the dark.

Working in the dark is a blessing because it allows no pressure failure. You build your risk levels, you train yourself to see how much you can stomach. Small leaps of faith to build bridges to success.

So, it is quite simple – to become the action hero – just get used to darkness. The light will shine on you eventually.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started