A life of well-being, meaning and purpose.
Continue reading “Excelerated Movement”Action requires movement. Movement is necessary but not sufficient for action. There can be movement without accomplishing a specific action, but there is no action without movement.
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Continue reading “How To Move From Procrastination To Productivity”When we procrastinate, we “voluntarily put off tasks despite believing ourselves to be worse off for doing so. When we procrastinate, we know we are acting against our own best interests.” (~ Piers Steel) If your aim is to reduce procrastination, you’ll want to increase Expectancy and Value or decrease Impulsiveness and Delay. Either will work, but the quickest way is to do both at once.
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Continue reading “Power Under Control”You don’t need tons of self-discipline to live the Excelerated Life. You need just enough discipline to train yourself to behave in a certain way. Untrained power is useless. Excelerated Self-Discipline helps you get your strength under control and channeled toward the life you want.
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Two related principles of the Excelerated Life™ deal with setting and achieving BIG (Bold, Important, Gratifying) goals. The two principles are Goals and Goal Setting and Action. Goal setting is an important step but by itself is not enough. Once you have your BIG goal in mind, you must start to take the actions that enable you to achieve it.
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I have told the story before about my client, “Mary”, who came back for more coaching after she had set some good, workable goals but had failed to make progress on any of them. I told Mary at the time that a goal “was a necessary step toward creating her best life, but it is only a step . . . a beginning step at that. She needed to develop strategies – a detailed plan – to help her progress toward achieving her goals.”
Continue reading “Take Action On Your Goals”Efficiency is “doing things right”. Effectiveness is “doing the right things”. Productivity entails both – doing the right thing in the right way. Excelerated Productivity comes when you improve both efficiency and effectiveness.
“A Lioness and a Vixen were talking together about their young, as mothers will, and saying how healthy and well-grown they were, and what beautiful coats they had, and how they were the image of their parents.
‘My litter of cubs is a joy to see,’ said the Fox; and then she added, rather maliciously, ‘But I notice you never have more than one.’
‘No,’ said the Lioness grimly, ‘but that one’s a lion.'” (1)
This Aesop fable comes with the moral “quality over quantity”. (I leave it to you to decide if one lion has more “quality” than a litter of foxes.) But we can also read it in terms of efficiency – the lioness had only one baby – and effectiveness – that baby was a lion!
Continue reading “To Improve Productivity Improve Efficiency And Effectiveness”Success comes from doing a few simple things, every day, over time. And failure comes from not doing those simple things, every day, over time. Consistency is key.
“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” ~ Calvin Coolidge
Imagine you come upon a stone cutter standing before a huge rock. As you watch, he strikes the stone with his hammer. Nothing happens. He strikes again. Nothing. He continues hitting the stone and you begin to count the number of times: 3, 4, 5, 6 . . . 48, 49, 50 . . . 95, 96, 97, 98, 99 . . . Nothing. You can barely see that he has hit the stone at all.
But on the 100th blow, the stone breaks in two. “Wow,” you might think. “That 100th blow must have been tremendous!” But you’d be wrong.
Continue reading “Consistency Is Key”The Universe rewards action. Knowing your goal isn’t enough. Thinking about your goal isn’t enough. Wanting, desiring your goal isn’t enough. To reach your goal, you must act.
“In a spell of dry weather, when the Birds could find very little to drink, a thirsty Crow found a pitcher with a little water in it. But the pitcher was high and had a narrow neck, and no matter how he tried, the Crow could not reach the water. The poor thing felt as if he must die of thirst.
Then an idea came to him. Picking up some small pebbles, he dropped them into the pitcher one by one. With each pebble the water rose a little higher until at last it was near enough so he could drink.” [The Æsop For Children]
“The Universe rewards action.” OK, we get that . . . but what kind of action should you take? What’s the best way to begin? You know the importance of doing, but how do you do?
Continue reading “How Do You Do?”Many of us have more to do than we can get done. To improve personal productivity, the solution isn’t to find better ways to do more but to find ways to do less . . . of the unimportant things.
“As Jesus and his disciples went on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha welcomed him in her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat down at the feet of the Lord and listened to his teaching. Martha was upset over all the work she had to do, so she came and said, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to come and help me!’
The Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha! You are worried and troubled over so many things, but just one is needed. Mary has chosen the right thing, and it will not be taken away from her.’” ~ Luke 10:38-42 Good News Translation (GNT) [Bible Gateway]
Continue reading “To Do More, Do Less”Reactive language puts the control outside of you and gives it to someone or something else. Using proactive language puts you in control. You select the consequences you desire, then choose the actions that you believe lead to those consequences.
“I have to stay up till I finish this paper,” my daughter said to me. She was in middle school and I had gone in to remind her that it was close to bed time.
“Have to?” I asked. “Or choose to?”
“Oh, I have to finish it,” she replied.
“What happens if you don’t finish it?”
She gave me a look that said, “Can you really be that dumb!?” Out loud, she said, “I’ll get an F on the paper!”
Continue reading “What You Have To Do”If you are not progressing toward your BIG goal, or you don’t have a BIG goal, two questions can help get you back on track and hit the target. Ask and answer these two questions from time to time to keep embracing the Excelerated Life™.
Here is something about me — I never make the same mistake twice. I make the same mistakes 10, 15, sometimes dozens of times. And because the Universe rewards action, I get feedback from each mistake and learn from it.
Imagine you are throwing a ball at a target that is 100 yards away. Are you going to hit the target on your first try? Well, that isn’t likely. But you toss the ball and let’s say it goes about 30 feet. Now, you get to go stand where the ball fell. Throw again. This time, it goes 40 feet but to the right. The Universe rewards your action and you move to where the ball is. You can see that if you keep doing this, eventually you’ll hit the target. Each throw is rewarded. Your target doesn’t move . . . but you do.
Continue reading “Two Questions”