Courage of Convictions

Posts Tagged ‘proactive’

When looking for answers you have to ask good questions?  When making your journey to success you have to continually draw your map to make sure the vision that you have is current and accurate.

It is imperative that we have an open mind to new realities and not have a world view that we stubbornly waste precious time fighting to excuse.

M. Scott Peck says it better than I.  Enjoy.

Dedication to Reality

Excerpt from ‘The Road Less Traveled’ – M. Scott Peck

….The third tool of discipline or technique of dealing with the pain of problem solving, which must be continually be employed if our lives are to be healthy and our spirits are to grow, is dedication to the truth. Superficially, this should be obvious, For truth is reality. That which is false is unreal. The more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world – the more our minds are befuddled by falsehood, misperceptions and illusions – the less able we will be to determine correct courses of action and make wise decisions. Our view of reality is like a map with which to navigate the terrain of life. If the map is true and accurate, we will generally know where we are, and if we have decided where we want to go, we will generally know how to get there. If the map is false and inaccurate, we generally will be lost.

While this is obvious, it is something that most people to a greater or lesser degree choose to ignore. They ignore it because our route to reality is not easy. First of all, we are not born with maps; we have to make them, and the making requires effort. The more effort we make to appreciate and perceive reality, the larger and more accurate our maps will be. But many do not want to make this effort. Some stop making it by the end of adolescence. Their maps are small and sketchy, their views of the world narrow and misleading. By the end of middle age most people have given up the effort. They feel certain that their maps are complete and their Weltanschauung (worldview) is correct (indeed even sacrosanct), and they are no longer interested in new information. It is as if they are tired. Only a relative and fortunate few continue until the moment of death exploring the mystery of reality, ever enlarging and refining and redefining their understanding of the world and what is true.

But the biggest problem of map-making is not that we have to start from scratch, but that if our maps are to be accurate we have to continually revise them. The world itself is constantly changing. Glaciers come, glaciers go. Cultures come, cultures go. There is too little technology, there is too much technology. Even more dramatically, the vantage point from which we view the world is constantly and quite rapidly changing. When we are children we are dependent, powerless. As adults we may be powerful. Yet in illness or an infirm old age we may become powerless and dependent again. When we have children to care for, the world looks different from when we have none; when we are raising infants, the world seems different from when we are raising adolescents. When we are poor, the world looks different from when we are rich. We are daily bombarded with new information as to the nature of reality. If we are to incorporate this information, we must continually revise our maps, and sometimes when enough new information has accumulated, we must make very major revisions. The process of making revisions, particularly major revisions, is painful, sometimes excruciatingly painful. And herein lies the major source of many of the ills of mankind.

What happens when one has striven long and hard to develop a working view of the world, a seemingly useful, workable map, and then is confronted with new information suggesting that that view is wrong and the map needs to be largely redrawn? The painful effort required seems frightening, almost overwhelming. What we do more often than not, and usually unconsciously, is to ignore the new information. Often this act of ignoring is much more than passive. We may denounce the new information as false, dangerous, heretical, the work of the devil. We may actually crusade against it, and even attempt to manipulate the world so as to make it conform to our view of reality. Rather than try to change the map, an individual may try to destroy the new reality. Sadly, such a person may expend much more energy ultimately in defending an outmoded view of the world, than would have been required to revise and correct it in the first place.

- M. Scott Peck

Recently I was challenged by a “friend” on Facebook to prove that I could help others improve their business or their life in 90 days or less. The challenge got me to really thinking about what this would mean to those who participate, and what it would mean to me and my family as well.  Hey, I want to improve my family’s life as well.

Let’s pretend for a moment, that YOU are the person who accepts this challenge with me. What would that look like for you?  Really, why would you want to improve your life or business?

* We would have to get really serious about where you are in life right now, today. We would have to record the areas in your life that you want to improve. We would have to really get transparent about the pains that you are dealing with and how to eliminate or greatly reduce those pressures. We would have to discover WHY you want to improve those specific areas of your life or business, and what it truly costs you not to achieve your desired results.

* After identifying the problem areas, and the reasons to leave that in the dust forever, we then have to identify what SPECIFIC OUTCOMES you MUST ACHIEVE. This is the area that says what your are committed to. This is the time that it requires you to BE COURAGEOUS! This is when you decide to “burn your ships” because there is no going back to the problems, pains, and excuses of the past.

* Next on our agenda: We would have to write out an ACTION PLAN and IMPLEMENT the steps that we identify that causes you to ENJOY the outcomes from your results. This will require further accountability each week, maybe each day. What good is a plan that is not written out, and what good is a plan that is written that is not followed. This is where the rubber meets the road. You either will be, do and have, or you will not. As YODA says, “Do or do not… there is no try.”

The hardest thing about this whole process is honesty.  You have to become very honest with yourself.  You have to really be honest with me as your coach that you are being accountable to your action plan.

So ask yourself this very important question:  IS IT WORTH IT?  ARE YOU WORTH IT?   We both know the answer is YES!

I was reminded of this when looking at my own life for this challenge:

WHEN YOU COMMIT AND THEN IMPLEMENT TO THE DAILY ACTIONS OF IMPROVING YOUR LIFE BY IMPROVING THE VALUE YOU CREATE FOR AND WITH OTHERS, THEN YOU CANNOT FAIL.

Please accept this challenge with me ONLY WHEN YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE YOUR BEST YEAR YET!  YOU ARE WORTH IT!

BE COURAGEOUS!