Tag: july

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Lessons Learned – July 2018

Reread and Proceed

Every month is a month to experiment, aligned with a theme. With each theme, I want to turn those experiments into action, so at the end of the month, I write, publicly, some of the successes and failures I have, and lessons I want to take moving forward.

The goal – something actionable that we can take home and use today.

  • Reread
    • Successes: Three books reread, themes, story, redone posts helped my critique.
    • Failures: Goal of one per week missed
    • Lesson: With things in flux, reorganize goals so that you don’t overshoot them, context matters.
    • Moving forward: Add “risk tolerance” to month spreadsheet so I can contextualize outside factors. Add “reread time” to each month.
  • Proceed
    • Successes: Video production, reading out, team dynamics, LinkedIn Videos
    • Failures: Writing (nothing came out)
    • Lesson: I need to dedicate time to embrace the suck of writing
    • Moving forward: Trying a writing day to get that “shitty first draft” done and proceeding from there.
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Ignition + Vision = If You Complete the Mission – Lessons from July 2016

Starting small delivers big value

This month began as a mystery to me. “Starting small” is a general term. I mean different things to different people. This month, I engaged with that generality and got some interesting conclusions.

First, however, is what I knew coming into the month:

When preparing those ideas, I realized there were several aspects of “small” that which we have to deal.  Things, like the small chunks of time that happen between meetings, the little mistakes that we ignore, and a little context all affect us.

These things change us in ways we don’t imagine, both for better and for worse.   Taking the time to think about and prepare for these events don’t just make us feel better, but make us smarter for doing so.

We aren’t alone, nor are we robots. We get in our way. We don’t know everything.

But, through working on what we do, and taking things one day at a time, we can do great things.  All it takes is patience, and the ability to breathe. 

From there, much is possible. Two minutes is enough to start. 

Books Read

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Let’s Get it Going – Starting Small – July 2016

What is the next step?

Do you get that feeling? 

That feeling where the task, project, or dream you have feels like it’s too big?

You feel overwhelmed.

You begin to plan on getting your task done; you find that it’s bigger and bigger.

Instead of this idea you have bettering your life, you look at it as a burden.

At that point, you put it away. After a few days, months, or years you pick it up and do it again.

We all go through it. 

There is a small phrase that can short-circuit this script.

It gets you out of your head and gets something into the world.

That phrase is “start small,” and it’s the theme for this month.

This month’s theme ties into  execution

At the end of last year, I wrote a post that resulted in my picking four themes for 2016. They are the guiding light (strategic)  for my ideas. Each month on this blog, I break things down into the practical (tactical). This year I want to tie them together, so each month, I have to write the reason they connect.

Over two months we discussed communicating and saying no. Those are foundations to put in place. Now it is time to get a little more reckless and start stuff.

Reread candidate

What To Do When It’s Your Turn by Seth Godin– This book is fantastic in getting someone from “zero to one.”  My hope is that we’re all doing that this month.

Assumptions

  • The more experiments are, the better.
  • Our emotions stop us from starting more than anything else.
  • A lot of experiments are free; our mind tricks us into thinking otherwise.

 

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Learn From My Failures In July – Outro – Closing The Loop

At the beginning of 2015,  I recognized that blindly calling for self-improvement didn’t give me the direction I looked for.I made a decision to give every month a theme. or July, I decided on the concept of closing the loop. I recognized that I often have a problem with closing out things. When added to my love of taking on projects and being involved, I recognized I needed a change.

Wins:

  • Withdrawal – I have started to cut away ideas, projects, and activities that interfere with my current mission of improvement. This has given me some more focus for the things I have in front of me.
    • Lesson –  The power of no is serious, and use it often.
  • Closing – I worked on closing some of the goals that Iprepared for at the start of the year. I also got rid of a few that didn’treflect on what I wanted to do.
    • Lesson – What I did then isn’t what I want now. I am proud that I adapted.

 

Losses:

  • Investigation – I didn’t investigate why I did what I did for clues. Self inspection is a heavy-duty task.
    • Lesson – This is a heavy-duty topic, there is a lot more to this than meets the eye
  • Maintenance – I gave in a lot and didn’t keep the things I loved to do afloat dutifully. This is the first time I recognized how my brain can really talk me out of doing things on a massive level. The white boards in my apartment help, but I think I need to use more tools.
    • Lesson – The brain is tricky, don’t rely on it.
  • Systems – I relied on my mind far too much. Even when I got rid of things, there was no systematic way to go about it. I lost insights that could make getting rid of things easier.
    • Lesson – Don’t just give up things – focus on why you did it and record it for later.
  • Joke Book – Didn’t finish, let it lapse, and fed into the excuse brain.
    • Lesson – Even if and maybe especially if I don’t think it is fun I need to have more alarms.

Important Posts:

Books:

  • Good to Great
  • Great On The Job
  • The Go Giver
  • The Upside of Stress
  • Waking Up
  • Becoming Richard Pryor
  • The Samurai Code
  • Peace Is Every Step

Habits:

At the beginning of the month I settled upon this theme of withdraw and advance.  By the end of this month, I recognized that most of the”battles” that I engage should rely on withdrawing. I haven’t got out of all the things I want to withdraw from, but I am on the path of simplifying. It has provided me with a lot more energy to invest in the things that I care about, and as a result, I am able to do more with what I am given. When I revisit this in the future, memorializing my results is very helpful, and like last month, give me a baseline on which to work from.

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