It’s been longer than I thought since I last posted on this blog, and to be frank I am not altogether sure that I had anything meaningfully different to write. That is the trouble with the principle-centred self-leadership field – finding something really new and inciteful tow communicate, or at least finding newer examples to illustrate the philosophies is hard because once you accept the basic premises of a principle-focused life, you realise that they are so simple. It’s executing on those ‘simple’ principles that is so hard.

Or, perhaps put another way, it is conscious execution on those principles that is difficult. Why is this so?

In our day to day work, we do things by habit. Routines, processes, practices and their consequences just ‘happen’ without thought. For example, in my job I take statements of evidence from witnesses, and after 30 years I can do this very, very quickly. My experience tells me what needs to be evidenced. This means I have to give less conscious effort to doing a good job. It just ‘happens’. On the other hand, those things which challenge me have to be consciously attacked if they are to happen. I have to overcome my reluctance to train, or overcome my enthusiasm to eat, for example.

This makes self-leadership a bit harder because in order to ‘feel the buzz’ of having done something principle-centred, one has to know that one has done it, and habit does not feed a sense of accomplishment. What habit can do, however, is raise the bar so that when the buzz IS finally felt, it is because something better has happened.

That drives achievers – that bar being raised so that another achievement makes them better.

When all is said and done (at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, when the rubber meets the road*), even those of us who don’t have the advantage of income, inheritance, geography and talent can still achieve, if only by being the best ‘us’ that we can possibly be. By being good at what we do, being great at ‘how’ we are, and by serving in some capacity. By executing on the Three Resolutions.

I’ll ask you this – are you good in all three dimensions, or two, or even just one? Are you the fittest and slimmest incompetent in the workplace? Are you the best worker who sits at a desk all day because your weight stops you moving about? Do you serve others well, but only when you have the energy and motivation to get out of bed?

That’s where I feel I occasionally fall short. On paper I am good at the Second and Third Resolutions but quite poor at the First. That’s why I am starting a 100-day Challenge during which I intend to improve on my productivity, health, fitness and attitude!

Why 100 days? On the 7^th of October 2017 I have committed to providing a public YB12 Keynote talk on Procrastination at the Chepstow Mind and Body Fayre, and that is (was) coincidentally 100 days away from when I committed to do it. I have 100 days to do some serious weight-losing and preparation. Let’s see how I get on, shall we?

Let’s see if I can live in accordance with the contents of my book.

 

(*A colleague used to preface most of his comments with ‘at the end of the day and after 5 days of that I admit I shouted all the others as possible alternatives!