Tomorrow Already Happened

Good Morning, 

My dad had boxes and boxes of slides. Some of you no doubt remember those photos that you loaded into a slide projector and showed on a screen.  Anyway, one of the things my dad was always going to do was to organize all of them. Sort them by time, trip and so forth.  I bet my dad said that for over 30 years before he got around to it. It was always, “next winter when things are a bit slower, I’ll do it”. But the rub is, next winter never came. Each new winter was a reminder that last winter of good intention had come and gone. 

This gets to the point of our theme for January, “Tomorrow Already Happened”. In large measure this statement simply reflects the pace of life for most of us.  I bet you are sitting here at the beginning of this year with some of the things still undone that you were going to accomplish last year. That is not uncommon.  My point is not to make you feel bad. Rather, the point is to ask if next year at this time will be the same or if you will you do something to change the trend?

Next week we are going to talk about goals, in particular defining what makes something a goal.  Today however, we want to back up a step and establish two essential truths. Without accepting these, your goal pursuits will likely flounder. 

The first is that you cannot tackle all your aspirations at once. None of us has the capacity to pursue multiple tracts with the diligence required at one time. This is a fact stemming less from your skill and ability than the simple truth about how the brain works. It isn’t designed to effectively handle a myriad of things in the prefrontal cortex at once. Choices are required as to what to pursue and when.

The second is an over emphasis on being well rounded.  Just like you cannot handle lots of things effectively at once, neither can you great at everything. It is true that when we are young it is good to be exposed to many different areas of potential interest. Varied career choices, hobbies, and avocational pursuits. But as we get older it is wise to narrow our focus a bit. Few, if any of us, have the time and resources to become excellent at numerous things.  Once again, choices are required.

So, when we talk about establishing goals and intentionally capturing the current days, some serious consideration must be given to prioritizing where to start.  More on this next week. For now, give the following some thought.

 “That excellent performers must be well rounded is one of the most pervasive myths…excellent performers were rarely well rounded. On the contrary, they were sharp.”  -- Marcus Buckingham

Questions to ponder this week:

1.    As you ponder the above quote how does it challenge the way you have been approaching your goals?

Live on purpose, Ron Klopfenstein, CPLC