The Healthy Discomfort of Personal Accountability

Waiting.

For the world to change. For the right time. For someone to share the experience with.

Waiting for what is to be something other than it actually was.

I was an experienced waiter. Over the decades I could find a great many reasons why waiting was better than actually doing. My ever-expanding list of things I told myself I wanted to experience was, well, ever expanding. Talking about climbing a mountain was always easier than actually doing so. Especially when you’re quite adept at “justifying” your own personal stagnation.

“Someday” became quite comfortable.

At some point I grew tired of my own BS. I grew tired of my own voice telling me “someday”. I finally challenged myself to Continue reading “The Healthy Discomfort of Personal Accountability” →

But, Why?

New year. New goals. New intentions.

Old results?

I tend to take my new years quite seriously. As someone who has often meandered aimlessly in life, it was only recently that I started taking the gift of time quite seriously. I’ve wasted a lot of time in life trying to figure out what to do with the time I’ve been given to live my life.

Through the years I’ve refined my system of getting ready for a new year. I gather the hopes and dreams and wishes, compile lists of things I tell myself I want to do and experience, both personally and professionally. And then I ask myself one question for each of these items.

“Why?”

If I can’t find a good reason why I should commit to a goal I know that I probably shouldn’t. It won’t end well.

Knowing me, I need to understand the motivation behind the desire. If I tell myself I want to run my first marathon, I’ve learned to Continue reading “But, Why?” →

“Quotes Have Never Changed A Thing”

I mean, who doesn’t love quotes?

Who doesn’t love seeing them pop up in our social media feeds several times per day?

A lot of great people have said a lot of great things. Life lessons learned and then shared. Inspirational. Motivational. Even beautiful.

I’ve got a couple of favorite quotes. They always make me think, always give me something to believe in. At least for a little while.

No matter how prophetically wise or inspirational they seem to be. No matter how much they resonate with us. No matter how true we believe them to be.

Quotes can’t change anything.

Only we get to change things.

And changing things takes action.

To quote Tony Robbins: “the path to success is to take massive, determined action.”

Whatever your definition of success is.

Whatever you’re working towards.

If You Don’t Know Why Then At Some Point You Won’t

So what do you write about when your week didn’t go as planned and you didn’t have your usual time to write?

This past week felt like a week full of Mondays. Lots of unexpected events which took unexpectedly long to work through and resolve. Usually I’ll write three days a week, but this week sort of got away from me.

One of my goals this year has been to become more consistent in many areas of my life. Writing and posting included.

I’ve done rather well with that so far this year. I’ve posted every week of the new year. But with my week running away from me, was I going to stop my consecutive post streak and not post this week? Was that going to be my excuse?

As I write this in my writing space I am looking at the number “9”. The number “9” is written on the whiteboard on the wall in front of me. It’s the number of consecutive weeks I’ve posted. That number will be erased in a few moments, replaced with either a “10” or a “0”, depending if, despite my challenging week, I actually get something written and posted.

I’ve had a mixed bag of success when it comes to goal achievement. Setting goals is the easy part, but it’s the commitment to them that makes it happen. And consistency is critical in turning plans into reality.

The most important determinant if a goal is achieved or not is the reason Why the goal matters. The Why fuels the commitment which in turn fuels the consistency. Without a strong sense of “Why” you’re doing something, inevitably you’ll simply stop doing it.

Whatever the goal, whatever the desired outcome.

When I tell myself I want to accomplish something, I will always challenge myself as to why I want to accomplish it. If I don’t have a powerful enough reason I simply won’t make the commitment and move on to something else I can passionately get behind.

I know Why I write, and that’s the reason a number “10” is now written on the whiteboard in front of me.

Why do you do what you do?

Why do you want what you want?

If you don’t know Why then at some point you Won’t.

Photo by Steady Hand Co. on Unsplash

This Day Doesn’t Owe Me Shit

Maybe you’ve had days like this?

Waiting. Waiting for the day to motivate you, to inspire you, to give you a reason to feel good and excited about the day.

I’ve had my share of those days. Too many, actually. Days when I’m sort of just going through the motions of being alive. Waiting to receive, willing to accept, but not quite willing to create.

Does this feel familiar?

It’s easy when the external world ignites you, fills you with energy, lifts you higher. Everything flows, everything feels possible, and time moves substantially faster. But what if the day doesn’t give us that spark?

Most days, it’s up to us to create our own spark, ignite our own fires, and lift our own self higher.

Funny thing about new days. They’re indifferent. They don’t care what we do with them. Their job is to simply show up. But since we only get a finite number of them in our lifetime, is it wise for us to be equally indifferent as to how we spend them? To wait and hope that something outside of us is enough to inspire something inside of us?

The great day we’re hoping to have today? The great life?

It’s just not going to show up.

It requires us to create it.

What can you create for you today?

Photo by lucas Favre on Unsplash

The Inconvenient Nature Of Sunrises

More people would enjoy sunrises if they simply scheduled them later in the day.

It just doesn’t work that way.

The alarm on my phone reminded me it’s 4:30 AM. It’s unseasonably cold, it’s dark, and I’m very tired. But I told myself I wanted to see the sunrise and the sun tends to get up early.

My trek to meet the sun isn’t very convenient. The best view is over the bay, and that’s about a 30 minute drive from home. But that’s the price I must pay if I want to experience an ideal sunrise. Because the sun isn’t going to wait for me to rise.

On this particular morning, the cloud cover on the horizon did not produce the spectacular sunrise I had hoped for. But none the less, I showed up for it, and if you don’t show up in life you’re guaranteed to miss far more than spectacular sunrises.

Experiencing things out of the ordinary requires me to do things I wouldn’t ordinarily do. The blast of frigid air on my face as I walked to the car reminded me that quite often the road to accomplishment is seldom comfortable. Comfort, actually, is often the greatest obstacle to accomplishment.

So much of the personal growth I’ve experienced in my life started with me doing something uncomfortable. Inconvenient. Out of my ordinary. Even deciding to do something new can be met with a wave of discomfort. Change is never easy. It complicates things and who needs more complications in their life?

It’s only when the reward is greater than the discomfort are we willing to create the new habits and rituals needed to claim our reward. Be it witnessing a sunrise or anything else we hope to experience or accomplish in life.

So what’s your reward? What are you striving for? Is it greater than the level of comfort you already enjoy? Because if it isn’t, at some point you’ll simply choose comfort over accomplishment, what is over what could be.

Goals and dreams require us to work with them under their terms and conditions, not ours. Often inconvenient. Often worth it.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

Playing Big By Playing Small

New Year’s Day.

I’m invincible.

I’ve been fine tuning my resolutions. My intentions are confidently set and I’m ready.

“This year will be different” I confidently tell myself. “This is the year I stick to my resolutions.”

Because I usually don’t.

Maybe the best resolution is no resolutions at all.

I’m not quite sure why I have such a challenging time with resolutions. I know there are things I want to change and things I want to accomplish, and there are things I tell myself I no longer want to do. Yet within a few weeks the resolutions I enthusiastically and boldly ran into the new year with feel like work.

They never make it to February.

Change, even change we tell ourselves we really want, can often be quite difficult. We’re often undoing things that we’ve spent a lifetime doing. Change is always much easier Continue reading “Playing Big By Playing Small” →

Buddha, Red Meat, And A Salad Fork

So, how do I not eat meat?

For a full year?

New Year’s Day for me falls in October. Because that’s my birth month. I’ve started getting far more intentional about what I want to accomplish in the 12 months between birthdays. Far too many years have come and gone and the only thing I got was older.

I don’t want to just be older.

This past year the goal was to do 20,000 push-ups, which worked out to be 55 push-ups per day, every day, for 365 days. I still don’t really know why I wanted to do it. I guess the Continue reading “Buddha, Red Meat, And A Salad Fork” →

It’s Amazing What You Can See While Running In The Dark

It’s dark. And it’s cold. My mind logically presents compelling arguments as to why I should go back under the covers and get just a little more much-needed sleep.

But I made a promise to myself. And fitting this promise into my schedule requires me to start my day much earlier than my body and mind both feel I should.

It’s just before 5:00 AM. I’m standing in my driveway with a halogen lamp wrapped around my head, wearing a reflective vest and holding my iPhone.

Time to run.

I will win no awards with my running, either for speed, endurance, or technique. But that’s not why I do it. In addition to the health benefits, accomplishing a goal before the Continue reading “It’s Amazing What You Can See While Running In The Dark” →

Embracing The Momentum of Accomplishment

Yesterday I ran my first-ever 5k road race. In the grand scheme of things, running a 5k race is far from a major accomplishment. But in the grand scheme of my things it was.

“I suck at running.” That’s what I told myself for years, and it served as the perfect rationale for why I shouldn’t even bother trying. Over a year ago I had purchased some expensive shoes and some high-tech clothing designed to keep me dry. What I couldn’t purchase was the motivation to really try.

I went out a few times. My legs hurt. I would often speak to God, asking for the strength and stamina to get to the next telephone pole. Yes, I guess I really wasn’t good at running and now I had some current data to base my conclusion upon.

A couple of months ago I revisited running. This time I brought a better attitude on the road with me. I’d been reflecting upon life and noticed a pattern where I’d enthusiastically jump into a new hobby or activity and then slowly watch the excitement fade away. The dust-covered guitars hanging on the wall were daily reminders. It was time to lace up the Asics and decide once and for all if Continue reading “Embracing The Momentum of Accomplishment” →

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Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Category: accomplishment