Category Archives: Purpose and Service

Posts relating to the Third Resolution: “To overcome the restraining forces of unbridled aspiration and ambition, I resolve to dedicate my talents and resources to noble purposes and to provide service to others.”

Seven Habits Review: Day 0. Introduction.

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

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I have written before about how many people confuse The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People with being a business book. It isn’t, never was. What it is, is a book about living effectively as an individual and as part of any relationship. It is not about fame or success, per se, but about living a principled life, which in turn can lead to those things – if they are what you want. But let’s be frank – most of us don’t want them or don’t see them as important as being a good person doing good work for the people they care about, while enjoying life – which this book promotes in spades.

I recall once attending a meeting of personal development teachers preparing to deliver the Seven Habits material to schools with the overall aim of teaching ‘leadership’, and I opined that what we would be teaching was  self-leadership, and this was even more important because while everyone has the potential to be ‘a success’ and a ‘boss’ the vast majority of young people would be the staff, the workers, the led – and they should be trained to be the best they could be at those things, too. Leaders – self-leaders – make great followers.

The Seven Habits are (and I quote) A principle-centred, character-based, inside-out approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness.

Let’s break that down a bit.

Principle-Centred. We like to think we can control events, but while we can control what we do, principles (sciences, incontrovertible truths, systems) decide the results. I’ll get deeper into that in future articles but for now I’ll explain that it means that instead of letting fame, wealth, family, church, peers, friends, pleasure, friends, enemies or work dictate how we think and behave, we let principles lead our decisions and resulting actions.

Character-Based. Our personality is what we show other people deliberately, but our character is what we really are. Personality tends to make us follow fashions and popular thought and ‘the latest thing’ so that we can fit in and benefit from that fitting in. Character, on the other hand, requires sacrifice, work and effort. But it lasts well beyond fashion, fame and money.

Inside-Out Approach. There is a tendency for folks to wait for their external world to change so that it suits them, instead of either changing it for the better themselves by changing their approach towards the changes needed. In 2020 we see protest after protest of people demanding other people change to suit their agenda – then they go home and wait for it to happen instead of engaging those in power in an effort to persuade and influence the change they want. The Inside-Out Approach is about looking into yourself and deciding what you need to change in yourself and how you need to change your approach, in order to achieve what you seek. Waiting for ‘them’ to change is ineffective.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness. Effectiveness is not ‘just ‘success. Effectiveness is getting the results you want in such a way as to get them consistently – not once, but as long as they are needed. And it is not just about ‘you’ – it’s about effectiveness with and through other people, too. I have often said ‘Everything we do, we do with, for or because of other people – everything.’ So relationships are important enough to pursue with diligence. Including those we have with ourselves.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, then, are about taking responsibility for making things happen for the benefit of all those you love or serve, including yourself, while acting with good character and respecting the realities of the world.

Over the next 17 days (long story*) I intend to expand upon Stephen Covey’s work with a view to encouraging any reader to take up their own study of The Seven Habits so that they can benefit, as I have, from a better self-understanding and an improved recognition of what is going on around them, how they can respond to the challenges of the modern world – and do so without offending or being offended.

A word of warning, though – as you understand the lessons Covey taught you will start to recognise how many people are trying to tell you how to live. Covey’s main lesson is that you have that choice and it need not be imposed upon you. Reading the book will make you aware of how the world is trying to condition you – not necessarily out of malice but out of a desire to make you agree with ‘them’. After reading it, you may still agree with ‘them’. But it will be a conscious rather than popular agreement.

In the end, a major tenet of this book is this.

You can live your life or your life can be lived for you.

I hope you enjoy the work to follow.

 

(* Michael Heppell, personal development coach, has proposed a 17 day project for his Facebook Group and this is mine. That wasn’t as long a story as I thought.)

What the 7 Habits Did For Me.

01 Monday Jun 2020

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I came to the Seven Habits later than I’d have liked, but since they weren’t published until 1989 and I was already 37 years old that’s not really surprising. I discovered the book in 1995 after I’d read Stephen Covey’s time management epic First Things First and realised that I enjoyed his writing style and presentation as much as I did the content.

In retrospect the book changed me in many positive ways, ways I wish to put on record and ways that I would encourage others to explore, if not adopt. I won’t look at the Habits themselves, as that would lengthen this article too much. I’ll just focus on their effect.

In reading The Seven Habits (and Covey’s other works):

  • I discovered that people allow themselves to be influenced, even created by their surroundings, and that I could decide that my surroundings would not affect me. We are all Pavlov’s Dogs, if we allow that to happen.
  • I discovered that the best way to achieve anything is to put myself forward rather than rely on things to happen in a way that suits me.
  • I realised that now and then it is better to just say nothing rather than express an opinion that will upset someone else, especially when there was no perceivable positive outcome to such expression.
  • I discovered that what was being presented to me by others is frequently coloured, flowered with opinion rather than objectivity, and designed to tell me what they want me to think, rather than what is actually unbiased and true. It made me question everything rather than just accept. Professionally, it made me a better investigator.
  • I noticed just how much time and effort is wasted on ‘things done the way they’ve always been done’ and without proper, considered thought. It made me challenge demands on my time – some I won, some I lost, but all taught me new ways to approach people whose demands challenged me.
  • I stopped challenging processes until I truly understood their objective, thus recognising what worked and what didn’t, so that I could influence effective change.
  • I started to think about my future and started developing and executing a plan that made my desired outcomes come into being.
  • I found that reading the book, with its considered prose, well-argued observations and incredible wisdom, made me more intelligent. It made me want to seek more knowledge, higher-level qualifications and challenging opportunities.
  • I decided that I wanted to teach this to others, and so I sought out the experiences, training and opportunities to do so. I even funded its availability in my local comprehensive.
  • I recognised that I have made many, many mistakes, but that they do not define me.
  • And many mooooorrrreeeee.

In conclusion, reading that book arguably made me a more productive employee, parent, husband and trainer. Yes, I still make mistakes but it is usually despite my knowledge rather than because of it. The principles apply – it’s my failure to apply the principles (on occasion) that influenced my personal errors. And given Covey’s confession that even he had trouble with them, I can live with it.

The book has sold 40 million copies, has just been re-issued as a 30th anniversary edition, and still surprises me with my recognition of bits of information that tweak my knowledge of the material and how it applies to my life.

I really, emphatically and enthusiastically recommend it. If nothing else, reading it led to some truly impactive self-discovery and personal growth. The hardback costs less than 10 pints and has a longer-term effect.

Or you can choose beer. Make the better choice.

This isn’t worki…… WOW!

07 Tuesday Apr 2020

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I had an experience this morning. I can’t say I haven’t had one like it before but it was the first for a wee while.

Jack Canfield wrote a book about 15 years ago called The Success Principles. It is good. This year he (finally!) brought out a workbook as a parallel. I like workbooks, they make me think. The trouble is that over the years I find them hard to complete because I’ve had the same thoughts over and over again.

There was a set of exercises about finding your Life Purpose. Done it before. One question was ‘define your Joy’. Ick. It was to finish the sentence “I feel joy when ……….” I don’t do joy. I define joy as being almost ecstasy, which means 5 minutes after the miracle of birth I’m all “What’s next?”

Then a few more exercises and finally one I’ve actually done before but ….. well, “Meh!” anyway, in the interests of science I went ahead, anyway. The questions were pretty much ‘Describe 2 characteristics you possess’, ‘Name 2 things you like to do’ and ‘What would your perfect world be like?’

Now, I cannot for the life of me recall what happened in terms of the order of thinking, but I came up with “I use my integrity, intellect and productivity to create, master and promote an inspiring philosophy so that all can live congruent, organised and purposeful lives.”

Pretentious? Moi?

I know I cheated – 3 words instead of 2 – but I realised as I drafted, edited and finalised it that (apart from the mastery part!) I am wholly focused on doing exactly that. Now, you may not be reading this (at all) and thinking, “Yeah, that’s Dave,” but that is what Dave does and that is what Dave aspires to.

It’s not a goal statement. That’s the next bit. But now everything I do and all the goals I seek will reflect more accurately, and more consistently, that Purpose. I’ve written four books, two specifically on my philosophy and productivity, and I have two more on the go. I teach people Advanced Driving and enjoy the requirement that I master it myself. And above all, in a sense, I aspire to mastering myself, too. There is a need for discipline, character, competence and service implied within that sentence, too. Three Resolutions compliant, so it is.

And the best thing of all is – and don’t take this personally – that whether or not people read, accept and implement the counsel that I advocate is not important. Their interest is outside my control. What is within my control is whether my daily activities reflect that sentence. Anything else is a bonus.

The AHA! that came with the realisation that this reflected what I was already doing, allied to having finally been able to put it into as short a sentence as that, boggled my mind. It may not boggle yours, but is there a similar sentence that accurately reflects your purpose and personal aspiration to live by some personal philosophy that you know makes perfect sense but you aren’t quite up to speed in terms of congruent performance?

Go on, I DOUBLE dare you.

Purpose

New job title – what’s that about?

31 Tuesday Mar 2020

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You may not care 😊, or you may be intrigued about the new the job title I’ve used on my profile  – Mission Controller.

What is a Mission Controller? In NASA terminology it is a person sat in Mission Control at Cape Canaveral who sits at a computer screen monitoring information, interpreting its meaning and transmitting the data and conclusions up the chain of command to whoever needs it, including the astronauts themselves, if necessary. What a Mission Controller does not do is decide what the Mission is. Nor does the Mission Controller (necessarily) tell the operative what to do. That is for the operative themselves to decide. The Operator takes the given information and, using training, experience and set protocols, does whatever is needed to continue the Mission.

That is the perspective I have used when choosing my new ‘title’. As Mission Controller I will not:

  • Tell people what their Mission should be.
  • Tell them how to carry it out (unless a set, principled protocol already exists).

Those two elements are strictly within a client’s remit.

We tend, to varying degrees, to have a way of life dictated for us by others.  Everything we do, we do for, because of or with other people. That’s the interdependent reality. But how we deal with that is usually systematic rather than self-directed. Society demands that we deal with people in a certain fashion, but how we deal with ourselves should be entirely our own principled choice. We should decide as much as we can, for ourselves, what we are for.

My new purpose as Mission Controller will be to help people identify their sense of personal mission. It is to help them discover and commit to a vision that they will discover and design for themselves,  after which my purpose will be to provide advice and the occasional protocol for them to complete their mission. Unfortunately, geography and logistical difficulties will mean that I will not be able to monitor their commitment to your mission. That will be entirely down to their own self-discipline.

The mission they select, should they wish to complete it*, will have two specific elements – firstly, what they want to achieve (the Vision), and secondly, how they are going to achieve it (the Practices). I will not set out either of them for people.

I will provide advice on finding out what their mission is, learning how to achieve it, how to teach others about it (if they wish) and the potential pitfalls that may cause them to lose their way.

And once we have finished, success will be entirely down to them.

Good luck

An easy way to Leave a Legacy.

16 Monday Mar 2020

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First of all a quick correction. Last week I implied that Ernest Hemingway was the source of a quote leading me to write that I’m not all used up yet, so I refuse to die. It was in fact George Bernard Shaw’s quote I was vandalising. Doh!

He said, “This is the true joy in life, being recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake; Life is no brief candle to me, it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for a moment. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

That seems to be a great mantra for life, particularly now as the better of us watch as the lesser of us hoard toilet rolls, pasta and hand-sanitiser – the latter reflecting an unwillingness to routinely wash hands, if my experience of seeing empty sanitiser shelves by full soap shelves is anything to go by.

Life is one chance to leave a lasting legacy. For some it need only mean raising healthy, good children so as to pass on the family line. For others it means making sure they are remembered for doing something memorable and lasting – which can be done with good or bad intent. Some of us will never know what we did that lasted in the memory.

There is an old tenet that suggests that we all remember a teacher that meant something to us in terms of how they made us better. And for most of us who had such a teacher we never got to tell them.

I was lucky. A couple of months ago a new school was opened and elder statesmen from the old buildings assembled, along with ex-pupils. Sat in front of me was the maths teacher and deputy Head who took me, with his teaching method, from a 50% maths examinee to an A grade at O Level (the old GCSEs). I can’t even remember specifically what else he did or said – I know there was something that made me change my attitude slightly but it was really subtle. But at the end of the proceedings that night I was able to tell him, “You know everyone had that one teacher -well, you were mine.”

He had no idea who I was, but that’s the beauty of teaching – so many unremembered souls that can be affected by what you do.

Anyway, here’s today’s suggestion. You may not be a teacher in the formal sense, but everything you do is seen by someone. Everything you say is heard.

So say good things and do good things and be a good example.

Someone is watching. Including your kids.

Put the extra ten packs of toilet rolls back on the shelf.

Leadership, schmeadership.

10 Tuesday Mar 2020

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In 2013 I was honoured to be approached – I was going to say headhunted but perhaps that’s a bit self-indulgent – to provide a service to schools via a homelessness charity whereby I would train teenagers in (essentially) the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. It was a Win-Win-Win for trainers, the charity and the schools involved and it was through them I enjoyed teaching a hall of 106 13-year-olds in one go.

I no longer fear crowds.

Anyhow, despite the headhuntedness, there was a selection process in which prospective trainers would give a lesson (tick), be interviewed (tick) and socialise with other people (tick). But the source of this article was the result of a round-table exercise the applicants underwent, where we discussed how we would focus on teaching the children leadership. So me being em, I took a tangential view.

I said (and I paraphrase) “It’s laudable that we teach children how to lead themselves and other people, but what about the less able kids who may never be in charge of anything? Why don’t we also teach them how to be great followers?”

I got the gig.

Leadership has become a buzzword for hierarchical management. One LinkedIn correspondent said it all when he described how administration became management became ‘leadership’ – all while teaching exactly the same ‘stuff’. It was only a slight exaggeration. Today I read about ‘leadership in a remote environment’ as an opportunistic (?) take on the magic word, but it essentially meant ‘how do we manage the production of what we produce, remotely?’ Management.

But there are books on another, related subject – Followership. They are rare and, oddly, can be very expensive.

But that’s missing a trick because once you strip away the layers of leadership, everyone else is a Follower to varying degrees. And that subject doesn’t get the level of attention it deserves.

In my training of the 106 kids from a relatively poor area of Wales, some of them expressed what ‘we professionals’ might mis-interpret as a lack of ambition. They wanted to be mechanics, taxi-drivers, and the like. Albeit their ambisions may change up a gear as they aged, instead of planting in them some long-distant dream, I just said this.

“Whatever you want to be and do, just be or do the best that you can while you’re doing it. Work hard for your bosses and enjoy what you do.” Followership, in a nutshell.

Of course, when new employees are trained they are often given the pep talk and the warning chat. I think it would be better if they were educated about what they were doing in the context of those they served, with imagination used to identify stakeholders outside the organisation as well as within. We’ve all heard the story about the bricklayer ‘building the cathedral’, but how often is that translated into the average workplace?

Incidentally, why is the Labour Party having a dig at the expression ‘low-skilled worker’? What is wrong with having a low level of skill if what you are doing has a noble purpose and provides value to others beyond your activity? A streetsweeper is ‘low-skilled’ but imagine if he wasn’t there doing his best for us? A low-skilled care worker changing your Nan’s bed – valuable and noble work. Noble service does not necessarily require high pay. And high-paid people are not necessarily providing noble service.

It’s about time we showed as much appreciation those who follow rather than just those who lead – because without followers, what would the leaders actually be for?

 

For more on the subject of Followership, I write about that very subject in my book, The Three Resolutions, available at Amazon now.

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Serve – but don’t be selfish.

05 Thursday Mar 2020

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“The smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention.” Duguet.

Having done time management to death for a wee while, I am reverting to promotion of the effective tenets of The Three Resolutions as I have reviewed, amended, added to and then re-published the book of the same name, available in paperback or Kindle.

The Three Resolutions propose that there are three commitments an individual can make in an effort to live a principled life. Those three commitments build upon each other, and while some may say they are common sense my response would be that ‘common sense is not common practice’, which is not me being clever, it was Stephen Covey who said it to me first.

Others may look at the subject matter and contents page and say, “I’m doing that already.” I know. Lots of people on LinkedIn are ‘doing’ a lot of that stuff. But I bet they aren’t doing it all, any more than I am. Yes, folks, I hereby acknowledge the imperfection in my dedication to applied common sense.

Ultimately, and without going through the whole Three Resolutions process, the end objective of the The Three Resolutions commitment is service to others, hence my quote. If i was to ask you the names of people who dedicate themselves to the service of others I am positive you would identify many a celebrity or other ‘name’ who clearly do serve in a charitable fashion.

But when I talk of service to others I am not focused solely on people who get great public acknowledgment (and publicity) for their efforts. I also mean the old lady in the charity shop: the man on a motorbike delivering blood: the lollipop man or woman interrupting their day to keep children safe: the administrator whose accurate records and good memory detects a murder (did happen): and many more unsung providers of service to others.

I’m often amused how someone at the top of their game being paid many thousands of pounds gets a medal for their service to their profession when the lower ranks who work harder, physically, get diddly squat. Their service is just as, if not arguably more, valuable than the knight’s.

The principle, for me, is this – service provided, whether for payment or for free, is service. There are no levels of superiority of service. However, there are services provided purely out of self-interest that I do NOT consider to be service at all. There is no harm in application of a ‘What’s In It For Me’ approach, because the answer could merely be ‘It’s the right thing to do and in keeping with my values system’, but when the question is asked and answered wholly in a ‘if there’s not enough in it for me I’m not interested’ manner – service it ain’t.

Going above and beyond the call, is service. Being paid for and doing a good, professional job, is service. Anything done completely out of self-interest, is not.

That is selfishness.

It’s just occasionally annoying how selfish people get rewarded, but they never said life is fair.

To paraphrase Mother Teresa, “Life is sometimes unrewarding: serve anyway.”

What will you do today, to serve?

 

For more on the subject, buy m’book on Kindle or hardcopy through the above links.

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What’s the Point?

18 Tuesday Feb 2020

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That was close. This morning I was driving my car to the tip for my umpteenth delivery of packaging from a house re-do, listening to Jack Canfield’s ‘The Success Principles’ (good book) and bemoaning the fact that ‘No-one is reading my posts’, when what was saying struck a chord. He spoke of the obstacles to our success, the benefits of feedback, and what we should do about both.

And it hit home. I was concerned about lack of readers on this blog, and the feedback from an earlier post suggested I wasn’t reaping the benefits for which I fervently hoped, which was leading me to think it wasn’t really worth the effort. Which was an act that was monumentally stupid of me. (It’s a repeating theme, apparently.)

Jack’s chat made me review my paradigm of the situation. My conclusion was that the number of readers was important but it wasn’t the sole benefit of writing a daily blog. (Yesterday I was just plain busy, BTW.)

I am a communicator, a writer, a trainer. I realised that this blog wasn’t ‘just’ there to be read by others. It has another benefit.

It’s practice.

It’s a daily opportunity to think about things, to cogitate, to consider, and to discuss. It’s my 5-times-weekly chance to craft my thinking and writing skills. It’s a time for improved learning on how to express ideas in such a way as to educate, entertain and empower. It’s mission-focused, values-driven and service-oriented.

It’s congruence in action.

I’ve written before about looking for the alternative value that makes a dichotomy easier to resolve (see this post), but on this occasion it was the alternative value that found me. The value that I was focused on was a ‘moving away from’ value – egotism. People didn’t love me so I wouldn’t waste further time on the matter. The value that poked my conscience was a ‘moving towards’ value, and this was Integrity – people don’t have to love me for my stuff to be important enough to put into print.

What is stopping you from achieving something you need or want to complete?

Is that something really true or are you just making an excuse? If the latter I won’t judge you because I feel like that a lot of the time. But occasionally a thought just peeks its head into my mind, or I consciously read my Mission or Values Statements and recognise my need to get it done. Which creates a reinvigorated ‘want’ to get it done.

Whichever works in the moment.

The heading asks, “What’s the Point?”

Don’t ask that question as if you’ve already decided there isn’t one.

Look a bit harder, it’s there.

Martin Luther King? Meh.

11 Tuesday Feb 2020

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This afternoon I will be giving a talk to members of an organisation celebrating the Third Age, with no idea of the numbers – although 104 13-year-olds is my record.

If you recall, last Thursday I proposed and encouraged the concept of Third-Person Teaching to readers, and this ‘giving talks’ is the result of my adherence to the idea. Many moons ago I was offered the opportunity to teach self-development material to my peers, and the one experience that I lacked was public speaking. I knew the material but I’d not really been heavily involved in speaking to large audiences and I knew that I wold be expected to do exactly that if I entered the world of training. I knew the stuff – I just hadn’t preached it afore.

My first port of call was a local Speakers Club, which welcomed me and over the next few months developed me. But it was Day 1 that amazed me.

I was asked to introduce myself, and so I did. And as I sat down I remember thinking, “That was GREAT!” Admittedly, the subject I had spoken upon was my favourite – me – but their encouragement and a feeling (on my part) that my presentation had ‘flowed’ imbued within me an enthusiasm for speaking. Which was just as well because they volunteered me to talk for two minutes on ‘sycophancy’, the sods. Blew them away.

There is a theory that people fear speaking in public more than death. I recognise that speaking with no preparation and with no notice can be challenging, even though that last one’s happened to me three times and I have more than coped. But if you know your subject and how you are going to put it across – have fun doing so! If you can talk in a group of three – and we all gather around the water fountain and gossip – then you can talk to a group of a hundred. You just have to ‘not whisper’.

I encourage you, therefore, as part of your professional and personal development, to go to a local speakers’ club and see just how ‘normal’ the members are – normal, yet able to enthral an audience with both prepared and ad hoc speeches.

You may never have to make a training presentation, but I’d gamble that you all have clubs you might wish to direct, children whose weddings need your input, best man speeches to deliver – public speaking is common, and it is not hard.

But a very important consideration is this – when you have to prepare a talk, you learn. When you learn, you discover new ways of thinking, and you start to develop an open mind that sees through waffle and ‘the reality of the matter is’ and realise that some public speakers are just semi-professional liars. You also realise that although Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech was magic, his delivery was a bit OTT. He’d get marked down at Speakers Club, I’m telling you.

The only caveat I have is this.

Gestures are encouraged at Speakers Clubs. Appropriate gestures. Not this constant hand waving seen by people sitting down on panel shows. For goodness’ sake people, you’re not lecturing or acting, you’re just answering a bloody question. Hand waving is not required.

Another benefit is you stop saying, “I mean” and “Sort of” and “Kind of” and “obviously” because you start to think before you speak, instead of after. Oh, wonderful thing!

If you just learn that, people will be grateful.

Must try harder…..

05 Wednesday Feb 2020

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Why do I focus this blog on time management when I have written a better book on personal development? Good question.

In total, I have written four books. The first two were related to my profession, specifically investigation and, as a sub-genre, Tracing Wanted and Missing Persons. They were based on my training and experiences and the latter was a field in which I excelled locally, according to some of my peers. They were fairly easy to research and to write.

The third one that I wrote was on time management, you would not be surprised to read. It focused on the field of policing because no-one teaches police officers and staff how to manage their time, despite recommendations by the Home Office that they ought to. Also, easy to write, and just as valid for non-police officers (for whom I recently edited out police references, but then I changed my mind and edited it back.).

The last, which I am currently revising, is The Three Resolutions. This is a personal development ‘philosophy’ based on a single chapter in one of Stephen Covey’s works and one which I am proud of. But here’s the thing, and it’s the reason I don’t blog so much about it – until now, perhaps.

That reason is – the advice in it is the hardest with which to comply.

Personal development has its easy tricks and shortcuts, like any activity, but applying the content of The Three Resolutions is hard. It’s hard because it speaks of self-discipline. It’s hard because it requires character. It’s hard because it promotes service to others as a route to success. Even for the bloke what wrote it. Especially for the bloke what wrote it.

Sometimes I think that the standards that are the hardest to meet are – our own.

When others lay down standards they usually supplement their instructions with ‘how’ to comply. When we write our own we just assume we know how to comply.

When others set standards, they watch over us and enforce compliance. When we set our own standards, only we watch over them.

When we fail to meet others’ standards, there is a consequence. When we fail to meet our own, we rationalise that there are no consequences.

But we’re wrong. So, so wrong.

When we fail to meet our own standards we feel guilt. Conscience, which we told to tell us when we fail to act according to our own values, reminds us when we dither and procrastinate over what we agreed, with ourselves, was ‘best’.

All that said, the reasons I wrote The Three Resolutions are twofold. First, I liked the field and the best way to learn something is to teach it. But second, and maybe more important, was the desire to act in accordance with the contents.

I regularly fail, but at the same time I occasionally succeed. Those are the great days. The ones where I don’t quite make it – still great, because I try.

You can decide not to bother to be great, so all days will be mediocre but satisfying because you’ve achieved ‘average’. But I prefer to at least try.

Where are you on the ‘don’t care – trying a bit – trying hard’ continuum? Join me at this end…….

 

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