Tag Archive for: practice
A concept that has been preached to children since the beginning of time: decision making. You probably remember your parents teaching you the importance of making good decisions when you were young. When you became a teenager, you started to make your own decisions. Now, you’re all grown up. Do you still think about the decisions you make?
Over my years of studying human behavior, I’ve noticed that people mainly make decisions in one of two ways, either by intention or by default. Intentional decision makers devote time and effort into inspecting the choices and making the best decision based on the knowledge they have. Default decision makers simply base their decision on whatever is left for them to choose.
An intentional decision maker understands that every decision affects his/her quality of life. Every time a decision is made in favor of one thing, every other choice is intentionally declined. If you make the decision to live in one specific location, you are also deciding to NOT live in every other available place on Earth. Living with intention allows for better control of the life we choose to live. Become more intentional with every decision you are faced with. Don’t let others decide how you will chart the course of your life.
Be in charge of your own destiny. Intentionally align each decision you make with achieving higher goals.
How many of you have felt like you had everything in place in one aspect or another in your life, but then all of a sudden something happened that you never expected? I think we have all felt this way at one time or another. This is the concept of being in command but still out of control. No matter how much planning we do, there are still those variables that we can’t account for. The take-away is that we need to continue to be strategic and plan, but keep in mind that at any given time you may need to adapt your plans. Adaptation and change are the real juice where possibilities take place.
I was attending a college in the beautiful Smokey Mountains. I enrolled in a general psychology course that involved a lab experiment where we would have to train a rat. Instead of being out in the beautiful mountains enjoying myself with friends, I was relocated to a small room with a rat in a box. The course required me to train this rat to hit a lever at random times and intervals to receive a pellet of food as its reward. The experiment would progress by rewarding the rat at random intervals. For example, the rat may have to depress the lever 5 times, or ten times, or only when a small light was on in the box. I would have to log my progress and could not move on to the next level of the experiment until the rat and I had completed each step. I spent endless hours pleading with the rat, screaming at this rat, and at times wanted to end this rat’s life.
At the time, I did not understand the importance of this experiment, but I have developed an appreciation of that time in the lab. I learned that “random reinforcement” would excite the brain of the rat and the more random the reinforcement, the more exciting the activity became even if you removed the reward.
I contend that we are no different than that rat in the box. Let’s spend just a minute thinking about how we are wired as human beings. We like the feeling of accomplishment and progress. We have fallen to the misconception that if we check off 20 emails that we have accomplished something, but have we? Did deleting, forwarding, or moving that email to a folder really do anything productive? Did it move the dial toward your vision? Did it produce any substantial step toward progress, or was it merely the feeling of accomplishment because something happened?
I caution you to be careful when you disguise busyness with productivity! We have become conditioned by “random reinforcement” in our own lives by the countless distractions that limit our focus and diminish our productivity. The “box” that sits on our desk or in our laps contains a multitude of seemingly “potential rewards” that cause us to become consumed with having to constantly be checking our inbox, what others are doing on Facebook, Twitter, and the list goes on.
Our time is our most precious asset, and we have allowed “time creep” to permeate every hour, minute, and second of our lives. We have filled our time with “random reinforcements” that have robbed us from creativity and productivity that allows the manifestation of abundance, affluence, success, significance, and impact.
So what is the solution?
- Acknowledge your most valuable asset, Time! How we use our time is up to us. The reality is that when we say yes to something we are saying no to something else. Learning to manage time is a skill to be acquired, and I contend it is paramount to our success, significance, and impact.
- I AM in the am. Our most creative and productive time is in the morning. Many of us have routines that include checking email and social media outlets first thing in the morning, and for that matter, throughout the day and into the evening. We suggest you use the time in the morning to do your creative work. Write, read, think, create, journal, meditate, and review your vision, mission, and goals. Mornings are magical! Use your mornings wisely, and don’t be tempted by all the distractions in our world that are nothing more than drugs that enter our brains through our eyeballs!
- Set the edges. Be intentional about every hour of your day. A calendar that provides an intentional focus and allocation of time creates productivity toward your stated vision. Schedule time to create, to think, to play, to be with family, to work, and to do whatever you want. All of us have 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week, 8,736 hours a year and how we spend that time is 100% up to us!
