Tag: Improvement

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How Will You Improve?

Before you begin, set up a check-in or two

When you bring absolute focus to a project, it’s easy to let it consume you.

Next time though, don’t. Before your next project, give yourself a “check-in,” or a moment for you to look at what you’ve done. Ask yourself some questions like:

  • What is the goal of the project?
  • How is this making me better at _____?
  • How can I test myself before the next “check-in?”

This exercise is designed to help you figure out both alignment and your improvement.

Don’t end up the same person you were a year ago.

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False “Leveling” = Fear

Leveling

Discuss -> Do

Leveling up, or “improving” is addictive. We fall in love with the concept. We apply it everywhere.

Stop it.

The problem isn’t with improvement, per se. Getting better is a good thing. The problem is trying to do this when something is already in motion when you decide the “level up” and carry it out after the decision.

That isn’t leveling up; it’s fear.

Some examples:

  • When someone asks for a pizza, and you go get hamburgers “because the place was better.”
  • Your boss emails you for a one-page report, and you give five because you “over deliver.”
  • You decide someone else is too busy, so you change the request they asked you to do to “respect their time.”

The discussion is important. Cultivating a culture where these initial ideas can get pushback is fantastic. However, no matter what the culture is, once the both parties decided and accepted, it’s time to do.

Don’t blind yourself with fear.

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Filtering

Pick one

  • Take in a lot, make tiny mistakes, and improve our heuristics for filtering. This is uncomfortable.
  • Take in very little, get risk-averse, and don’t develop systems. This is comfortable.

The former option makes sure you can tear little holes in any ideological bubble. The latter leaves you trapped.

Experience is a choice until it isn’t. Life comes at you fast, and events like layoffs and death often leave us to remember the risks we didn’t take, instead of the comfort we had when we didn’t.

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Getting Bad At Being Good – My Late Problem

[bctt tweet=”So, instead of getting better at bad, I am getting bad at good.”]

Being late is rude, but I do it often.

For something that I do not do consciously, it has consequences, and it hurts people.

One thing I have recognized about being late is that it’s a chain of events unless deliberate.

Lets take a look at a morning where I start late.

After settling in for sleep (something I cherish), I wake up. I slept through the alarm on my phone . After looking at my phone with some disappointment, I browse through the “critical apps” (Facebook, Twitter,UGH!). I just recognize that I didn’t start my say on the right foot, and as soon as I get out of bed, I start to do some late math.

Late math, a term I am creating just for this blog, is the math you do when you need to start adding and subtracting habits to make up the time you missed. In project management, they call the things you can’t remove tasks on the critical path. Late Math is getting to the critical path on the fly.

[bctt tweet=”Late math is the math you do when you need to start adding and subtracting habits “]

For example,in the morning, I always make my bed. After that, my journaling and breakfast can get thrown out, they are nice to have but not critical. Showering and getting dressed are pretty critical – if I am going anywhere, I better be dressed, smelling good, and ready.

[bctt tweet=” My life has improved leaps and bounds since I started doing coaching”]

Which leads to another late ethic – if I am late, I better be ready. No need being unkempt while being late. Would you rather be 5 minutes late and be disheveled or 15 minutes and look professional? Ten minutes on your appearance is worth every second.

These two ethics around being late highlight my experience, and I although I can manage, It is something that I want to get a hold of. So, instead of getting better at bad, I am getting bad at good.

 

Solutions

  • Setting my clocks early/ differently – I always hit the snooze button on audio alarms – if I even hear them. I found out about alarms that use light, and even those aren’t effective because I use a sleep mask to enhance  my sleep. So, I am getting a vibrating alarm clock (Just ordered a fitbit) and track how it helps.
  • Making events in my calendar – I let my calendar lapse, I hardly ever update it. When I do, it helps, especially with alarms, and if I can find a way to get that connected to a fitbit – lookout :p)
  • Hiring an expert – Coaching always helps. My life has improved leaps and bounds since I started doing coaching for my emotional well-being(therapy) and artist being (Thanks Mark!).
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I SUCK! Helps You Get Better

I Love to give people books! Enter Now For Free Books

 

I don’t like looking at my stand up comedy videos. Instead of reminding me of what I did in that moment that night, it reminds me of where I was with stand up in 2012. It isn’t that I hate stand up comedy, I still do it often and every so often I receive compliments. The video is one place in time and within I see my flaws. Some things that pop out to me quickly are that I have a hat on, my volume control is bad, I’m stuck in place not performing.After I get over cringing at what I see, I remind myself that this means I am getting better. In order to join the realms of the professional, you have to learn how to keep your critical eye on. If you don’t you won’t find the flaws that can make you a great and you risk getting stuck and staying the same.

Finding your flaws suck. We all want success all the time. When I see my own flaws, I get this pit of my stomach feeling, the one where you clutch your arm in embarrassment and wonder if anyone is looking at you. I want it to go away in that moment, and never come back. It is easy to take this moment and start it as an excuse to beat yourself up (you don’t do anyone any favors with this approach). The better option is to start the note taking process. Learn the flaws you see, because each one is a chance to get better. Even just self identifying them, is a step up in the right direction. You are getting good enough to see what you can’t do, and the next step is simply working to get to it.

When you are happy, you risk plateauing. The good thing about plateauing is that it doesn’t feel bad to do it. If you are good enough to get past the lay person, well, you mind can throw a party “congratulations, you can stop.” You know some parlour tricks and get attention. If you don’t want to master the skill, this is as good a place as any to stop, however, if you plan on being a master at anything, this is when you panic. If you aren’t taking a critical eye to your skills, it is a good chance they will start to erode. If I loved my stand up comedy videos, no way would I have taken the time to learn volume control, making expressions, and stage movement. I would still be standing there, telling jokes, being the same comedian I was in 2012.

Getting better is painful, and its going to suck to look at old video, writing, or any other performance. This is a good thing. By staying the same, and simply enjoying what you have done, you cannot become a professional. Your flaws aren’t a bad thing, they are a road map to your future success or your voice. Plateauing takes away your critical eye and it leads you to being stuck. For some things, this is fine (I am not aiming to become a professional musician, so I’m satisfied knowing where the keys are and a few tunes) but when you aim for greatness, it is a recipe for disaster. So if you’re scared that you suck, rest assured, you’re on the road to getting better.

 

I Love to give people books! Enter Now For Free Books

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Its About The Story

Story is very important to me.

I should define that story is not history. History is a line of facts, story is a narrative. Humans love narrative and computers love facts. As attached as we are to our cellphones, we are still human.

If you know your story well, and you can tell it with passion and warmth, I get excited.  If you do it within an ear shot, I perk up. I being to think how you have your life together.

To be able to wring out what you do and have done in a time proper way lets me know how focused you are and how dedicated you are to whatever mission you have. It is a sign of strength, and I envy it.

The base of my envy comes from my lack of ability to do it.  It’s all a jumbled mess.

When someone asks me – what do I do, I start to panic. I repeat it back as if the extra few seconds would allow me to untangle it all. What do I do? Can I phone a friend? Maybe there is something in my pocket that magically has the story for me.  Unfortunately, nothings ever there and I remember that yes, the story is a jumbled mess.

 

That thought kept coming back at me when I looked at the front page of my website.The jumbled mess effects other parts of my life.

Questions such as:

What do I want?

Who do I want to become?

What have I done to get me there?

When I saw the front page of my website now it answered none of those questions. Even worse, I don’t show what I can give to people. There is no value add. My writing, my comedy, my leadership training, my decision-making, and my curiosity are no where on display.  It is all kind of bland. It made me realize how important my story is. It is missing copy that extends that into something that makes sense.

I need to tell a story. Luckily for me, and my horrible story, is that there is still time for me to put it together.

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Sleep Isn’t Evil

They’re not many fans of sleep, and they are all to ready to let you know it. It’s a conversation that gets thrown around so much, I get guilty about how much I sleep.

People take sleep deprivation as a badge of honor.

I walked around my office Friday, and the same sleep conversation come up.

“How many hours did you sleep?”

“4”

“That’s good – I get 3 1/2 – I heard the Managing Director gets 2”

Sleep has become a myth. Needing it has become a tool of the week. Sleep deprivation is only for the true hackers in my beloved corp.

When I was growing up, it was something I watched in my household.

My father was the best example. He slept routine began with the blaring of late night TV piped into his home office. He would listen, not watch, The Tonight Show(his choice was Leno as opposed to Letterman) and begin to wind down as Conan started. He would then go up stairs to his bedroom, and lay down about 1 AM. His alarm would then start to blare at 4:30 as he got ready to drive into work. Even on the weekends, he isn’t much for catching up, as he is down around 2 AM and up at 7 AM. He counts six hours of sleep as a reprieve.  I think he told me I slept too much once, not in a mean way, but “Adam, why do you sleep so much?”

My mom, the same way, as well as my brothers and sister. Even my roommate now looks at me strange. He isn’t as nice as my father – “How do you sleep so much, what are you lazy?”

 

 

I sleep 7 1/2 hours per night on average. I woke up this morning thinking how strange it is that getting 8 hours of sleep that our bodies need is frowned upon. A little research let me know that I wasn’t lazy or crazy for wanting my beauty sleep .

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The Road

Today – an evening edition due to a general lack of get-up-and-go. Ha.

Many things are on my mind, but one thing that stands out is my new found want to be better at everything. I want to improve, even in the realms that may not seem to fit in my life as of now.

I think I can build those things into my next great step. The goal is to see greatness by 30 – not become greatness, but see it.

There is some time for me to build up to getting there, so I better use it wisely.

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