Making Choices

Mistakes are inevitable, yet the fixation on perfection in our society is debilitating.

Whether it be lawmakers, bakers, payroll makers, or homemakers, the fear of making a mistake can flatten one’s life into a “safe zone” of mediocrity. Risks and loss are inevitable when one ventures into life or work with a sense of wonder and discovery. You are better off to have a mistake than to miss-a-take at what could be.

It is a mistake to view mistakes as merely mistakes.

Instead, mistakes can lead to retakes and become invaluable guideposts to life and growth of one’s personal growth and leadership.

Mistakes open doors to learning or blaze new pathways that might otherwise go undiscovered.

• “Mistakes” enabled Thomas Edison to discover 9,999 ways a light bulb couldn’t work. And in the process, he developed a reliable means of tracking research and increasing his knowledge of elements.
• “Mistakes” created the Post-It^® Note. “Mistakes” often open doors to new frontiers of thought, use, and development, as well as some really practical stuff.

Just Say It!

“Yes, that’s my mistake.” These are the four magic words that when said sincerely are your path to a healthier and happier life without the stress and strain imposed by the pride of perfection and the need to be right. It will take practice and some hard swallowing, but you’ll be amazed at how much simpler life becomes.

Problem ownership is your best chance to open the door to mercy, grace, and forgiveness. The risk of owning up has a downside of consequences, but it also has the upside of building trust and rapport. In practical terms, when the mistake is out in the open versus covered-up, a solution or fix will happen sooner and with less cost.

Make Your Mistakes Like A Leader

When we make a mistake, our natural reaction is to be defensive. We retreat and distance ourselves from the mistake and then look to whom we can pass off the blame. Shedding responsibility for a mistake may momentarily soothe the psyche, but each pass of the buck creates a self-inflicted hit on one’s leadership equity.

Admittedly, most of us prefer to cover our mistakes under a blanket of embarrassment, shame, or self-pity. Stopping dead in our tracks at our mistakes to point fingers at people, circumstances, and systems invites a bitter and negative stronghold to enter our emotional and spiritual system. We’re stuck in a self-imposed unhealthy manner of living that taints every aspect of our lives. Now that’s a tragic and true mistake!

Compounding our initial mistake with another more sinister mistake knits a habit of ill-fitted denials into the cloth of our soul with great peril.

Do this too often and we live in a straitjacket of fear of failure and bitter close-minded defensiveness. In time, the fear of exposure arrests our maturity and so we become the very thing we fear most—a dull and ordinary blank slate of a person with no distinguishing quality. We live small (which is different from living humbly). Repeating these actions and circumstances reinforces a debilitating pattern and fuels a vicious cycle of defeat.

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A Penny For Your Thoughts

Life need not be this way. Instead, what if mistakes are friends in the form of hard lessons? They’re not roadblocks, per se, but guideposts revealing a better way to navigate life. Mistakes can help us know who we are and what we’re called to be about with our special gift of time on the planet.

Mistakes are an odd currency of redemption. Their true value comes with a cost in the form of a workout where we have to face ourselves. Throwing “good money after bad” is viscerally upsetting. We’ve been given an intellectual and spiritual capacity to rise higher and dig even deeper to strengthen our condition regardless of the proposed outcome. It only requires us to admit our mistake and gain the clarity and opportunity to set things right—stronger and better than before in some cases.

Wisdom is often the byproduct of mistakes, provided we invest in processing the lessons to be learned. Here’s where a mentor or coach can help us reflect and grow. If you’re seeking that mentor or coach, perhaps we can help you?

Be honest with yourself … do you know how to make a life plan? Do you even have a plan? Is it a written life plan?

My experience with clients and readers of The On-Purpose Person tells me very few people have any sort of a plan in place for their lives, especially a written plan. Sure, we have ideas and dreams that we ponder now and then, but to take it to the step of writing out a plan is very rare.

The process in The On-Purpose Person is a format and guide for creating a life plan that is very meaningful and gives you a strategic advantage in life.

Imagine a contractor attempting to build a house without blueprints. It makes no sense, yet many of us are building lives without the benefit of a plan.

Do you want a life plan?

Chances are you don’t know how to structure your life and process the information, so you haven’t created one. Here’s where an On-Purpose Coach can serve you well.

God, The Designer!

Yes, in the video I reference God. You can’t really talk about purpose without addressing the spiritual realm. My goal is expand, not offend. Each of us a viewpoint on God. Out of respect for your perspective, if it helps you to mentally replace “God” with a word such as, Spirit, Universe, The Force, Mother Earth, or whatever reflects you view, the do it. The point is that there are observable patterns to life, cycles that come and go, seasons of the year, and so forth. We co-exist with these realities that are out of our control.

Much as farmers learn to leverage the weather to grow their crops, we too have the opportunity to grow our lives by getting better in touch with God, the Designer of the universe, and, therefore, also the Designer of you and your purpose.

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin

The On-Purpose Person and Making Life Plans:

“Without a doubt this is the best guide I have seen for creating a meaningful life and plan.”
– Dr. Malcolm E. Hawley, DDS

“The On-Purpose Person is a valuable addition to an important and growing literature on effective time management and leadership. McCarthy brings to life and makes operational powerful ideas that will help all of us make a difference.”
– John W. Rosenblum, PhD, Dean Emeritus, The Darden School

“The best tool I’ve seen for turning good intentions into positive actions. Highly recommended for anybody, but especially for those who need a way to organize unstructured time—like clergy!”
– The Right Reverend William Frey,
Dean, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, retired

“What’s happened to the American Dream? Despite working harder, too many people lack fulfillment, happiness, and emotional security. The On-Purpose Person gets us back on track, organized around what really matters, and equipped with a purpose and plan for thriving in a rapidly changing world.”
– Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen, D.O.
Author, Dr. A’s The Habits of Health

“Reading The On-Purpose Person changed my life. The concepts and practical applications detailed in this wonderfully engaging book empowered me to re-focus my personal and professional goals to achieve true inner peace.”
– Gordie Allen
CEO & Professional Sales Trainer, Leads-Plus, Inc.

This article called Why Creating A To-Do List is Derailing Your Success highlights the importance of time blocking as we do in the 24-Hour Day found on page 50 in The On-Purpose Person.

I found the article interesting reading because it says To-Do Lists actually create more stress. Guess what? I don’t consider that kind of stress necessarily a bad thing. Stress motivates and ironically moves us to work to remove the stress. This process of growth and accomplishment provides a increased confidence and capacity.

I’m an occasional user of To-Do Lists for both planning larger projects as well as daily tasks. Creating a To-Do List within a day allows me to focus on the most important matter at hand. When a fleeting thought or action item comes across my brain — (shiny new object or squirrel), I find that if I capture the idea on a running list for the day, I tend to be able to get back to the matter at hand.

Email is my greatest distraction in my working day. I work hard to avoid opening it up at the beginning of the day. There’s something sweet about emptying my junk folder and inbox. What’s bitter though is the hours I can lost responding to email and never working on what really was important for that day.

Writing books or client business plans, for example, are intense efforts demanding minimal interruption or distraction, yet my brain is always running with seemingly random thoughts popping in and out. If I give one an audience, then I’m an hour down the road on something else when what was really important gets put off.

Time blocking works when I work it. If I know I have 90 minutes to write something and then there’s a next time block coming for exercise, another project, a client video conference, etc. then I value that time and attention better. I’m less apt to interrupt myself because I know what the rest of my day looks like.

I’m a natural night owl. Yet, I’ve learned to go to bed earlier so I can get up earlier in the morning. More often than not, but never always, I start my day with what’s most important to my life.

So what works for you? 

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin

Goal setting is the poor person’s way of doing strategic planning. And that’s mostly just fine. For all the benefits of setting goals, they’re still insufficient. For now let’s focus on the benefits of setting goals of various lengths of time.

Research shows that as few as 1% to as many as 10% of all people write down their goals. Why not more people? Here are some of the excuses I’ve heard over my decades of life coaching. See if any sound familiar?

1. I don’t have time to write goals.
2. I’m not really sure that’s where I’m supposed to focus my effort and energy.
3. If it is meant to be, then it will happen.
4. Goal setting is a waste because my goals never come into being.
5. Who am I to set goals?
6. No one else I know sets goals.
7. I don’t know how to write a goal.
8. What if I don’t reach my goal?
9. What will other people think? They might think I’m crazy.
10. I have too many goals to write them down.
11. I don’t believe my goals can be realized or are realistic.
12. Goals don’t motivate me.
13. Goals are too basic for what I need to get accomplished.
14. I don’t write goals because I don’t want to fail.
15. I won’t get it right anyway, so why bother frustrating myself?

What’s your reason for not setting goals? Behind every rationale for not setting a goal is a tragic assault on hope and possibilities fed by irrational thought or mental miscalculation.

OK, so maybe you don’t have Killer Goals; that’s still no reason for not learning the process and getting started. In fact, make setting goals your first goal. Write that down!

Beyond Goal Setting

Guess what? For about 90% of what you want to do with your life, writing down your goals will get the job done. If you want to take something to the next level, however, you’ll need to invest in strategic thinking and planning. Otherwise, you’ll just be busy but likely left feeling unsatisfied.

You know the feeling where you made a To-Do List the night before of all you needed to get done. And, optimistically, let’s say you got it all done. The next evening you’re sitting there with an empty sense of accomplishment because all you did were tasks, chores, or life maintenance. You did grow or advance your life in any particular way. You’re just another day closer to death’s door and you have little else to show for it.

Goals are consumable milestones within a larger mission. Mission is a piece of the language of leadership and strategy that includes: Purpose, Vision, Mission, and Values.  Why is Life So Hard will give you further context and insights into creating a life plan that is infused with purpose so the compound effect of setting and meeting goals truly amounts to a satisfying and meaningful life.

Goals are a piece of strategy. Strategy is the way to peace.