Think As Inc

THE PERSONAL AUDIT

Daily life is a series of decisions:  how we spend our time, how we spend our money, how we focus our energy.  Time, money and energy are our key resources.  Yet, we may not realize how our daily decisions squander these precious resources little by little.  To get control over these daily decisions, it is helpful to audit how these resources are spent:

TIME AUDIT.  For at least a week (and longer is ideal), write down what you spend each half hour doing.  Don’t censor yourself; if you find yourself logging in many hours of television, don’t omit these to look good.  It is this insight that will help you manage your time better for the future.  After logging your activities, identify time-wasters and make a list of what else you’d rather be doing.  When you next find yourself tempted by one of the time-wasting activities, substitute an activity from your priority list instead.

MONEY AUDIT.  Some credit card companies provide an annual purchase summary, and you can see how much you spend in a variety of categories.  If you don’t get this summary, calculate it yourself for a few months’ worth of credit card statements.  Review past checks and categorize these expenses.  Spend a week logging in all cash purchases and categorize these expenses.  This will give you a picture of how you spend.  As with time, identify money drains and alternative priorities.  Before you buy anything again, ask yourself if it is a priority.

ENERGY AUDIT.  Using your time audit, assign each activity to the priority in your life that it supports.  For example, taking the kids to school would be a family activity.  Paying bills would be a finance activity.  Laundry would be a household activity.  After you categorize these activities, calculate how much time you’re spending on each priority.  Are your energies placed on the things that really matter?

Once you complete this personal audit, you will see how much power you have over your time, money and energy, and you will make conscious decisions that align these resources with what you really want.

MIXING IT UP

You may want to emulate what a successful person does, so that the same success comes to you.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since you want to learn from successful people and not reinvent the wheel.  However, one person’s success formula may not apply to your specific circumstances.  Furthermore, if everyone follows the formula, it becomes average, and true success requires something beyond average 

For example, when I tried to lose my post-pregnancy weight, I diligently followed the fitness magazines.  These tips worked, up to a point.  Then, I hit a plateau, and the things I was doing before that successfully dropped the pounds were no longer working.  A trainer at my gym noticed that I hadn’t changed my routine and advised me to mix it up.  I ended up following a completely different approach, but it worked for the remaining pounds.  Now, after following that approach for some time, I realize that I need to mix it up again. 

Success is self-correcting.  Even though something works, it won’t work all the time.  Not only do you need to find a success formula that works for you and your specific goal, but you need the flexibility to ditch the formula and try something new.  If you think you’re doing the right things but not getting the result you want, mix it up.  A success philosophy is only right for you when it gives you the results you want.

CHANGE YOUR LIFE

The phrase, “life-changing experience,” conjures up images of extreme joy or of undue hardship.  Therefore, the act of changing your life implies momentous decisions involving career transition, financial risk, and emotional upheaval.  Actually, changing your life can be a series of small actions that together lead to big change.  These small actions require no resignation letter, no lien on the house, and no melodrama.  However, changing your life even in small steps does require an open mind and a willingness to start today.

You need an open mind to put yourself first and to not feel selfish about doing so.  Your boss, partner, kids and friends will be thrilled because you will be so much more fun to be around.  Small actions that put yourself first: 

book that doctor’s appointment for whatever has been ailing you and, if nothing ails you, get a physical;

finally book that eye checkup;

see a live show or sporting event and savor the rush of the crowd around you;

rent that movie, read that book, or visit that museum on your I’ve-always-wanted-to list;

eat your favorite food slowly;

put an object of beauty (e.g., flowers, painting) in your workspace;

reserve a three-day weekend with no plans;

take care of a nuisance on your I-must-attend-to-that list (e.g., tailor those pants, frame that photo);

open a retirement account or stick an extra $50 in your existing one;

write a thank you letter to your partner/kid/best friend (yes, even this one’s for you b/c it will remind you how lucky you are);

enter appointments in next year’s planner for next year’s dates with yourself.

You need to start today because change feeds on momentum.  Lack of change feeds on inertia.  If you get moving now, whatever baby step you choose, you put the process in place.  Plan one small action each day.  In a week, you’ll feel energized.  In a month, you’ll be renewed.  In a year, you will have 365 rich experiences that you made happen, and you will recognize your power to change your life in the direction you choose.

FOCUS ON THE UPSIDE

The all-time strikeout leader in baseball is Reggie Jackson, followed by Babe Ruth.  Neither player is remembered as a strikeout leader.  Still, people hear stories of great success coming only after great struggle, and this is not enough to encourage them to go after their dreams.  The potential downside of failure often greatly outweighs the potential upside from success.  Here are some tips to focus on the upside, so you do go for your dreams:

Confront the downside.  What are the specific consequences of failure to meet this goal?  How much money will you lose?  How much time will you have invested?  How much notoriety will this bring?  Really visualize for yourself the worst possible downside, and make specific plans on how to mitigate the consequences.

Confront the upside.  What are the tangible effects of success at this goal?  Express it in pictures that you hang on your wall.  Write it down in a journal that you read regularly.  Tell friends what it means to you.  Keep your upside in your sight, your mind, and your words, and it will seem more reachable.

Replace one fear with another.  At some point, we need to just take our shot.  You may never get over your fear of failure, but you could replace it with a greater fear of never knowing.  Think about what it would mean for you to never know what happened if you tried.  The prospect of living with a what-if is not very appealing.  Focus on the regret, remorse, disappointment, shame, sadness, etc. of not even trying, and you may find these feelings worse than any downside from failure.

Reggie Jackson wouldn’t be a Hall of Famer, baseball icon, and candy bar, without also being the strikeout leader.  Putting himself in the game meant downside, but also great upside.  If you never take your shot, nothing will change.  Is the life you have now exactly the way that you want it to be?  If not, take aim.

PUTTING THE SPRING BACK INTO YOUR JOB

There is a spring in our step when we walk with enthusiasm, excitement and energy.  Much of spring cleaning is de-cluttering, planting new flowers, out with the old and in with the new.  It is about refreshing our environment and putting the spring back into our homes.  In our jobs, we should also take a refreshed look at what we do.  The monotony of many jobs makes it easy to get into a rut.  As the seasons change, identify ways to put the spring back into your job.

BRING SOMETHING NEW TO YOUR PHYSICAL WORKSPACE.  Move the furniture, hang a new poster, or use a different mug.  These visual cues can be an inspiration and a reminder that we can change things.

PLANT THE SEEDS FOR FUTURE GROWTH.  Take advantage of your company’s training offerings.  Read career development and business books.  Pursue subjects outside your work that support your whole life – personal finance, fitness, arts.

ADJUST YOUR ATTITUDE.  Sometimes, we get our spring from waking up on the right side of the bed or buying a winning raffle ticket.  Ideally, we consciously decide to focus on the positive and attract good fortune.  The energy that puts a spring in our step also puts a spring in our jobs.  We all like to work with people who are energetic and excited to be there.

Spring cleaning gets its namesake, not just from the time of year it occurs, but also from the result we want.  In our jobs, that spring could mean the difference between loving our work and tolerating it.  It could mean the difference between moving forward and staying put.  Putting the spring back into our jobs could mean a season of change, growth and renewal.

PLAYING A COMPLETE GAME

Great offense still needs defense.  Defense keeps the offense in the game.  Likewise, great defense needs offense to win.  Thus, career and life planning requires attention to the complete game.  In both spheres, the complete game means maintaining what you have while striving for more. 

Maintain an inventory of what you have that is meaningful to you, and protect these things.  In your career, identify what skills and work situations interest you.  Keep these in your current job by honing these skills and putting yourself in the optimal situations (e.g., volunteering for suitable projects).  In your life, check your balance.  Are there areas that you have been neglecting (career, family, friends, community, your health)?  What can you do now when there is no crisis on hand to build a stronger foundation?

However, you can’t just focus on keeping what you have.  Not only does this prevent you from taking advantage of good opportunities, but it doesn’t prevent bad things from happening.  You might be doing a fine job in your current position, but your position might still go away.  Therefore, you need to take the offensive and strive for more.  This includes networking, keeping abreast of industry trends, and adding to your skill set, even when you aren’t actively looking for a job.  This includes making life improvements before crisis hits.  Is there a relationship that needs tending?  Is there a problem in the community where you can help?

A complete game is balanced.  Too much offense might mean uncalculated risks that can knock you out of your game (think the entrepreneur going after every idea who burns out of capital before the winner pays off).  Too much defense might mean too little risk (think the indifferent employee clinging to the status quo who is unexpectedly downsized).  Taking no risk is not the same as having no risk.  There is always risk, so think defense and play offense to reach your goals.

DON’T GIVE UP

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." -- Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize winner

On January 1, we were pumped, inspired, and motivated to have a super new year.  As the days pass, our resolve may wane.  The exercise routine becomes tiring.  Those networking goals become tedious.  That research into your dream career can wait.  If you miss a day or days or weeks, just start over.  If February or March or even April has to reset your clock back to January 1, then so be it.  Just don’t give up.

Our goals are made up of small steps over a big period of time.  Like the quote says, our days add up to our lives.  It may not seem like you’re doing much each day, but it adds up over time.  Skipping a day might not seem like a big deal, but that adds up too.  Motivation doesn’t just come like a bolt of lightning.  Motivation is fed by action — persistent activity, discipline, small steps each day.

Don’t beat yourself up over missing a small period of time (or even the first weeks of this year if that’s your case).  Get back on track, and when you look back over a longer time period (say, a few weeks), you’ll have a more realistic view of your progress.  Maybe you exercised half of those days.  That’s great!  Now shoot for three quarters of the days over the next period.  Maybe you had just one networking lunch.  That’s a start!  Now shoot for two, and you’ll have doubled your result.

Don’t give in to the temptation to quit just because you don’t stay perfectly on track.  The path to success is never linear.  Expect some bumps, plateaus and ruts along the way.  Just keep moving and eventually you will pass them by.  Just don’t give up.

CHANGE YOUR HABITS

Biting your nails, arriving late to appointments, and overeating are obvious bad habits.  However, there are some habits, which are not bad outright, but which over time might have negative consequences.  If you have a habit of seeing the same friends, that is not bad, but it likely means your network is limited and like-minded.  If you take the same route to work each day, you may miss a better view or a more efficient way to go.  Even good tendencies can lead to bad habits, if you allow yourself to fall into a rut and be blinded to new possibilities.

Because ruts are unconscious, you need to make a conscious effort to break them.  Look at your career over time, and see if any patterns emerge.  Is there a recurring reason for your job dissatisfaction?  Are you stuck with projects you don’t like?  These patterns exist because you are doing something to perpetuate them.  Your bad habit might be not speaking up, waiting to be assigned rather than volunteering, or simply going from job to job without a clear sense of overall career. 

Whatever you identify as the problem, think about ways to change this.  If your problem is bad projects, find ways to transition to better ones.  This means delegating the bad projects or at least minimizing your time spent on these, identifying the better projects, and ensuring that you get these better projects.  How do you get the plum assignments?  Find out how they’re assigned.  Then, move out of your comfort zone to get them. 

Your comfort zone is a bad habit if it keeps you from what you want.  There is nothing wrong with being comfortable, if it also means satisfied and content.  We all know people who are never satisfied, and that’s not a better alternative.  However, if your comfort zone keeps you settling for less than your ideal, then comfort is a habit worth changing.

CAREER SPRING CLEANING

It’s spring, and time for those projects for home and garden.  Don’t forget to add some projects for your career spring cleaning:

Assess the first quarter.  How is your job different from last year?  Are you working on more challenges or taking on more responsibilities?  Is the work still interesting?  Are you happy with your progress to date?  This simple check-in can expose some issues you need to work on for the rest of the year.

Spring clean your database.  Input those address changes from your returned holiday cards in 2004.  Scan your phone list, and make a list of those people you’ve been meaning to call.  Make an appointment in your calendar to call one person a week till the list is done. 

Organize your work files.  Have you been clipping articles that you’ve meant to read?  If they’re older than three months, the news is outdated and should be purged.  Do you have old emails saved for just-in-case?  If you haven’t referred to them in the last month, you probably won’t need them.  But, save any electronic receipts you may need for tax purposes. 

Stock up on career supplies.  Update your resume.  Get a permanent email address outside of work (e.g., through your college), and check that it is properly forwarded if you already have one.  Have business cards packed in every bag you typically carry, so that you are prepared even for unexpected networking opportunities.

Find some inspiration.  Have lunch with a colleague from a different group or at a different level.  Scan your industry’s trade journals.  Take a general career development class, attend an industry conference, or learn a new skill. 

Spring is about growth and new beginnings.  Put some spring back into your career.

LIVE UNCONDITIONALLY

We all know people who live conditionally:  I will play more golf but when I retire; I will travel but when I get a raise; I will buy some nice clothes but when I lose weight.  There is nothing wrong with rewarding yourself for achieving something special, whether it’s retirement or weight loss.  But there is also something powerful about treating yourself now.  Constant but-when’s lead to the blahs.  It is important to supplement the sticks with the carrots.

Make a list of small ways to treat yourself (a round of golf, an hour of uninterrupted reading, a weekday matinee movie).  Pick the item that most sparks your interest right now.

Do the legwork.  Where can I play golf?  How much does it cost?  Can I rent the clubs?  When can I go in the next two weeks? 

Be flexible.  Is the course too far away?  Consider a driving range.  Is the club too intimidating?  Book a lesson.   

Do it and then do it again and then do it again.  Experience your reward several times in the near term.  But fit it into your life as it is right now.  Don’t quit your job to get the time, don’t mortgage the house to get the money.  Find a way to fit it into your existing life.   

You need to repeat the reward several times to get used to treating yourself well, just because.  This is living unconditionally.  You need to practice living unconditionally because it sends the message that you are worth it right now and right as you are.  In this way it is as powerful as loving unconditionally.  When you love someone unconditionally, they feel that and they benefit strongly.  When you live unconditionally, you benefit from an inspired life, a confident life, and freedom from the blahs.