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You Don’t HAVE To – You GET To.

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Three words that dismay the most productive and professional among us represent the death knell to a positive mindset. Stephen Covey mentioned them as part of his treatise on Habit One: Be Proactive, and just lately I’ve been feeling their proverbial pinch. The three words are:

“I have to.”

That expression is usually attached to an unwanted imposition or commitment, is it not? If you don’t believe me, ask yourself if, when you are looking forward to executing on any commitment, you use them – or if you use expressions like “I want to”, “I am going to”, or “I have promised that I will…”. In truth, I’d gamble that you only use the expression “I have to…” when what you are about to do is NOT something you want to do, at all.

Well, it’s certainly true in my case.

Until last night. I was reading a book called ‘Best Year Yet’ by Michael Hyatt. He was writing about how barriers present opportunities in the sense that if what we truly want is the other side of such an obstacle, we will do anything we can to go over, under, around or through it. Alternatively, if we aren’t really all that interested in what’s waiting ‘over there’, then there is no way on Earth that we will even try.

Now, I’m not sure if what occurred to me is what he meant, but my brain went, “You don’t have to – you get to.” My brain dropped its mic as it said that. Boom!

And my mind raced.

I get to hold my wife’s hand. I get to ride a road bike because and so that I am fit and active. I get to write because the information technology exists to make that possible. I get to drive a fast car because I earned and inherited money from loving parents that enable it. I get to drive well because people with charitable intent provided the training I needed, and as a result I get to pass on what I learned from them.

I also get to make proactive choices because life gave me the intellect to know that I can, and life did not mar my life with insurmountable challenges. I get to live in a relatively free country (damn that Covid and its excuse for authoritarianism) and am not subject to an unwanted war. I get to hug five gorgeous grandchildren because I got to bring four loving children into the world, and I get their love, too.

I don’t ‘have to’ do anything special to get any of those things. They came naturally, or I sought them out and got lucky that way. I didn’t ‘have to’ have children, I wanted and got to. Some never have that blessing and some don’t seek it – that is up to them.

There’s no doubt about it. I am living a great life because of what I got and get to do,

So from now on, I don’t have to rise out of bed in the morning – I get to.

I don’t have to write a blog that is available to millions (if they want it) – I get to.

I don’t have to walk that bloody dog – I get to.

And it’s quite surprising how that simple change of expression turns an imposition into a benefit,

Try it – from now on, instead of ‘having to’ do something you don’t want do, consider that you ‘get to’ do it because something good happened, first.

Anything you can do, I MUST do better!

12 Sunday Jul 2015

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“When you choose your fields of labour, go where nobody else is willing to go.” Mary Lyon

Is a quote I wish I’d known about years ago. Occasionally, history shows I stepped up to the mark a bit and went a bit further than others may have done. Now and then I exhibited an attitude, some effort and greater knowledge about something that made me look a lot better than perhaps I was, and certainly better than a ‘routine’ me tended to be.

In 2003 I met a new boss, and he was the epitome of dedication, character and competence. I’d had some great bosses who were enthusiastic, caring, compassionate and who were great to work for, but in some ways this chap was one step above them in many ways. It may be, in the cold light of ‘now’, that he was only that one step higher up the stairway to perfection than the others, but that’s the point.

Tony Robbins speaks of the ‘two-percenters’, who only have to put out a little more effort, or more considered effort, to be seen as outstanding. Another fellow (Michael Heppell) illustrates this in his books when he supports Robbins’ contention that to get outstanding results you only have to be that little bit better at creating them than those around you. Remember – the Olympic Gold Medallist is usually only centimetres ahead of the next guy, but who can remember the guy who came second. (Which is a shame but it illustrates my point nicely.)

Albert E Gray is often quoted when he says, “A successful person has the propensity for doing the things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either, necessarily– but their dislike is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.” In addition to doing better than the next person, they’re also willing to do the things that the next person would rather not do, or delegate to someone else, or defer it to when it suits (in the hope it’s never needed).

Thjis manager was exactly like that. He did the work, and he knew his stuff better than anyone I knew. But he also knew better ways of doing it, or how to find the better ways. He was, without question, a master craftsman – and a thoroughly nice bloke.

The Second Resolution is a commitment to being a person of character and a person who is competent. The person who is competent is the guy who comes second. It is the guy with character, with the ability to do more than is called for, for the better reasons, and even when s/he doesn’t want to do – it that comes ahead of the rest.

I wish it as me……

“Are you getting enough?” Met needs, I mean.

07 Sunday Jun 2015

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“There are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfilment. If these basic needs aren’t met we feel empty, incomplete.” Stephen R Covey

There are a number of ways that writers and philosophers have elected to describe these needs. The oldest that comes to mind is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which looks like this to the unfamiliar:

Maslow

In an obvious nutshell Maslow explained that a met need no longer motivates, and that we climb this pyramid in order of settled need, in the sense that once one is ‘secure’ in one level it is safe to seek settlement of the next. In his view, once we met our physical need (warmth, food) we climbed to security (home, fence, walls), then to social (family, friends, community), then esteem (now we probably truly seek work, which feeds the lower levels and our self-esteem), but when we came to self-actualisation he was talking about how we were living our values – how we are congruent with what we believe in, and are getting it.

Anthony Robbins writes of 6 Human Needs, with no hierarchy at all. No, I’ll amend that – there is a hierarchy of 2 levels. Level one consists of the survival needs of certainty (principles, reliable systems), variety (surprise, amusement), significance (self-esteem) and connection (relationships); level 2 consists of growth (the need to develop intellectually) and contribution (the need to serve others in some fashion). Robbins contends that the latter two, while not essential for survival, do make life worth living and prevent us from becoming obsolete.

And Stephen Covey writes of 4 Human Needs – live (physical), love (relationships), learn (develop intellectually) and leave a legacy (serve, be remembered for something).

The only significant difference for me in these illustrations is that Covey is of the opinion that we need to meet all 4 needs if we are to be truly happy. Robbins contends that we should meet his 6, but that we can cope with ‘just’ 4. And Maslow appears to suggest that we only ‘need’ the level we are at.

That’s why I like Covey’s four. He goes into this deeply and suggests first that we aren’t truly happy if even only one of the needs isn’t met. We can be safe and secure, wealthy, intelligent and have a loving family – and still feel unfulfilled (unless we serve that family). We can be wholly engrossed in work, providing a home and income – and forget our loved ones need us. We can serve, love our family and friends – and yet be losing our edge through reliance on everything around us not changing. In essence, Stephen Covey is suggesting that we are happiest not when we are meeting all 4 needs separately – which is routine for most successes and is arguably ‘enough’ for most of us – but when we meet all 4 simultaneously. If we can find a hobby, career, pastime, relationship (etc.) that provides income, connection, mental stimulation and service all at the same time, we will be most happy. That, for me, is the true definition of vocation.

Go find or rediscover yours.

One week left – then Change your Life.

23 Tuesday Dec 2014

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“The best way to influence your future is to create it.” Stephen R Covey

Two key processes allow us to live in keeping with what we consider to be important. The most well-known is the setting of goals, something covered in most personal development literature, including The Three Resolutions.

The less public process is the creation of a personal mission statement, the purpose of which is to state in clear terms how you intend to live your life, and why you want to do it ‘your way’.

Listen (again). It is 8 days to the New Year, a poor but accepted reboot period for most of us. It is always a time when people look at ‘what is’ and promise to do better this coming year. Most of us, and I include myself, fail within a week.

But IF you have a PMS and a set of clearly defined goals that flow from it then you have set a physical marker. If it is clear and exactly as you want it, it is a reference point and reminder to you what you have declared will now come to be. When you plan your week, or need to make a decision, the PMS is the source Constitution for those plans and decisions.

Tony Robbins once described his own ‘PMS moment’ in these terms. “When people ask me what really changed my life (—) I tell them that absolutely the most important things was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming.”

That is what a personal mission statement is supposed to do. It is to design your future behaviour in your own terms and from YOUR perspective – not someone else’s. Discovering what you are ‘for’ leads to discovery of how you will achieve that purpose.

Here’s a thought. Celebrate the ‘destruction’ of your old life this week. Enjoy saying goodbye to largesse and inappropriateness by having that festive blow out. Have a ‘goodbye to the old me’ party. Then you have 12 months before you realise that, next Christmas, you don’t have to do daft things to have fun.

I cannot emphasise enough that you should write a personal mission statement. Do it before the festivities really swing into action. I’m not saying that you should stop enjoying the festivities and start your new life today. That is for next week. Just start drafting your future plan ready to implement it in 8 days’ time.

To have fun, you just have to live entirely in keeping with what you believe.

For further input on this subject, and goal setting, go here, spend $4.75/£3.09, and change your life immediately – or next week!