Category: Excelerated Accomplishment

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Passion And Perseverance: How Effort Leads To Achievement

Having a talent for a specific endeavor does not insure that you will do it. You must exert effort to transform the talent into a skill. Turning the talent into skill does not insure that you’ll achieve your objective. You must exert more effort to transform the skill into achievement.

A Failed Dream

I was 6 years old and excited to have the chance to take piano lessons. I loved music and dreamed about playing – hymns in church or songs for my family to sing together. Although they didn’t have a lot of money, my parents bought a nice new piano and had it placed in our living room. A friend of our family, Miss Pritchard, who played piano at church, agreed to give me lessons.

The first book was a breeze. Simple songs to start my understanding of the techniques of the piano. My teacher wrote numbers over the notes and then numbers on the corresponding keys of the piano. It was a simple matter to match the numbers on the page to the numbers on the keys.

Miss Pritchard also gave me scales to practice. But for this part, I wasn’t as diligent at practicing as I could have been — I found it boring to play the same 8 keys over and over. But I practiced my songs and when we had our first recital, I was a star! I performed the best and Miss Pritchard gave me a big hug when the recital was over.

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Practicing Accomplishment

Accomplishment is one of the elements of well-being theory. We sometimes pursue accomplishment for its own sake, as well as in conjunction with the other elements – positive emotion, engagement, positive relationships, and meaning. Using deliberate practice to develop talent and skill is one path to accomplishment.

“Can You Swim?”

A professor was being ferried across a large river. To pass the time, he struck up a conversation with the boatman.

The professor asked the boatman, “Can you write, my good man?”

“No,” answered the boatman, “I never learned to write.”

“Then you have lost one third of your life,” the professor said. “Can you read?”

“No, sir,” replied the boatman. “I can’t read.”

“Then you have lost half of your life.”

Suddenly, the ferry scraped across a large rock and it tore a hole in the bottom.

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How Purpose Leads To Accomplishment

What did you come here to do? How could you do more of it?

A Late Bloomer

I am a late bloomer. I did not follow a straight path to success or happiness or fulfillment; as a matter of fact, I am still walking that path. But over the years I have gotten closer to what those things mean for me.

My journey has been a circuitous one. I went about life for many years not really concerned about what my “purpose” was, or even if I had one. Like many people, I kept busy with work, helping to raise a family, being a husband and father, dealing with aging parents — all the every day stuff that can fill our lives.

I didn’t take much time to contemplate the larger questions: What did I come here to accomplish? What is my Job (with a capital “J”)?

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Fundamentals Of Achievement

Here are two quotes from Robin Sharma.

“Success is really, really simple. It’s not easy, but it’s really simple.”

“Success lies in a masterful consistency around the fundamentals.”

Robin Sharma is the author of a number of best-selling books, including The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari and several others in that series and The Leader Who Had No Title. He is a speaker and consultant on Leadership and Personal Mastery, who numbers among his clients many of the top companies in the world, as well as leaders in governments, business, and entertainment. Robin has identified 8 fundamentals of achievement [Sharma] which I share with you today. Continue reading “Fundamentals Of Achievement”

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Effort or Results?

“The amateur focuses on outcomes and expects immediate results. The professional plays the long game and prioritizes the process, perfecting it for years with no immediate payoff.” ~ Ozan Varol

The Process

“We decided to use the approach that we’re not going to focus on the outcome. We were just going to focus on the process of what it took to play the best football you could play, which was to focus on that particular play as if it had a history and life of its own. Don’t look at the scoreboard, don’t look at any external factors, just all your focus and all your concentration, all your effort, all your toughness, all your discipline to execute went into that particular play. Regardless of what happened on that play, success or failure, you would move on to the next play and have the same focus to do that on the next play, and you’d then do that for 60 minutes in a game and then you’d be able to live with the results regardless of what those results were.” ~ Nick Saban [Elmasry]

Nick Saban is considered by many people to be the most successful coach in college football. He has a lifetime record of 218 wins, 62 losses (and 1 tie). He is tied with the legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant for most NCAA championships. [Wikipedia] Saban credits much of his success to the fact that he and his teams follow what he calls “The Process.” Continue reading “Effort or Results?”

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Magic Thinking

Forget magic. Real accomplishments require hard work.

“What’s missing, what we’re really looking for, is magic. Without realizing it, we want that momentary pleasure or excitement we feel to be a passageway into a whole new world—a world of ease. Unfortunately, it’s a world that doesn’t exist. Reality requires us to face three things: pain, uncertainty, and the need for constant work. No one, no matter how famous or rich, is exempt from these requirements.” ~ Dr. Phil Stutz, “Addiction and Magical Thinking”

Hard work is required.

Are you prepared to do the work required to succeed in reaching your BIG goals? Make no mistake – the Excelerated life is not achieved without effort. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s boring. Many times, you’ll want to do something else. There will be times when you can’t tell that you are making any progress at all Continue reading “Magic Thinking”

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Make Your Contribution Greater Than Your Reward

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Howard Thurman

In the book, The 10 Laws Of Lifetime Growth, authors Dan Sullivan and Catherine Nomura share their ideas, captured in 10 “laws” or principles, for continued growth, self-development, flourishing, and a lifetime of contribution and service. Continue reading “Make Your Contribution Greater Than Your Reward”

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Remembering 2017

“When you think about it and apply yourself, you are creating your life. When you don’t think about it and do whatever, you are creating your life.” ~ Holiday Mathis

The new year is often a time for beginning new things. We make resolutions and set goals. Sometimes we make other new starts . . . a new assignment, a new project, a new job. It can be exciting, and sometimes a little scary, to make a fresh start and the new year just naturally offers a place to start anew.

Before jumping headlong into the new year, it can be beneficial and freeing to reflect on the year we are finishing up. Continue reading “Remembering 2017”

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Life’s Summons

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep need meet.” ~ Frederick Buechner

What does Life want from you? Most of us, if we think about it at all, typically ask “What do I want out of life?” (Some of us never even get that far . . . we coast from day to day, being blown this way and that by the winds of circumstance. However that’s a subject for another time.) But the question I have been contemplating for the past few weeks is not “What do I want from Life?” but “What does Life want from me?” I invite you to think about this question, too. Continue reading “Life’s Summons”

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What If You Don’t?

To visualize,” said Peter McWilliams, “is to make visual lies. Visual lies, however, have a way of coming true.”

Visualization. You already do it . . . planning a party, replaying an argument and inserting what you “should’ve said”, daydreaming about an exotic vacation, fantasizing about Prince or Princess Charming. But did you know research shows that a specific type of visualization can help you reach your goals and help stimulate positive emotions? Continue reading “What If You Don’t?”