Posts Worth Reading: Bloggers Who Kicked My Ass This Week

While I love to do the ass-kicking on this blog, it’s inevitable that more than a few people will swing their boots my way while I have my back turned.  While I shake my fist and get my bearings again, take a look at these bloggers who made me take notice this week.

Here’s The Good Stuff:

• Charlie Gilkey at Productive Flourishing asks “Why Are You Trying To Save Time?” and tells me that the juice may not be worth the squeeze.

• Gretchen Rubin at The Happiness Project sucker-punches my cranky ass with “How to be Happier: Ten Tips for Being a More Light-Hearted Parent.”

• Sonia Simone of Remarkable Communication reminds me that “Compassionate Selfishness” is the best way to make a difference in other people’s lives.

Enjoy these posts, and be sure to leave comments / Stumbles if they give you the same swift kick they gave me.

Keep rocking -

Dave

Are You Settling For The Wrong Kind Of Pressure?

Bad Pressure: Stress put on you by other people that drains you with worry.

Good Pressure: Stress put on you by yourself that gives you something to shoot for.

The secret of “stress” relief?  Turning Bad Pressure into Good Pressure.

Focusing on the 50 things people expect you to get done today will drain you.  It’s overwhelm.  It’s too much, it’s out of your control.

Focusing on getting the task in front of you done in 25 minutes instead of 30?  It’s a race against yourself, a chance for you to prove how kickass you are (and at the least, to do some “heavy lifting”) that will make your focus muscles stronger.

If you don’t like the pressure you’re under, rewrite the rules for how you’re positioning it to yourself. Don’t let other people do the positioning – put some spin on it that makes the pressure work for you rather than the other way around.

It’s not about productivity, or organization, or “peak performance.”  It’s about feeling good about yourself, shedding some stress and focusing on becoming a more capable person, because that’s something that makes the next 30 minutes easier to deal with.

Do this: Take something you’re stressing about doing and find a way to break it down into smaller tasks you can devote overwhelming short-term focus (10-20 minutes) to.  Close the browser.  It’s only 10 minutes.   Close the office door (pretend you’re on a call if you have to).

Just take 10 or 20 minutes, tell the world to screw off, because instead of stressing about the crushing pressure of the Overwhelming Task, you’re going to focus on the “good” pressure of proving yourself – even if it’s only for 10 minutes.

Do it now. It feels damned good.

Then do it again, and again, and again.

Don’t settle for external pressure that crushes you when you can leverage some internal pressure that drives you to rock your day instead.

Get to it.

Why You’re Not Doing The Things You Said You Wanted To, Part 5

Missed the previous 3 parts?  Get ‘em here and here and here and here.

Meanwhile, part 5 is live and on the scene, and we’re going to talk about how you avoid taking action when you don’t value your time enough to get mad when you’re wasting it.

The truth is, even though you might blame time pressures, money pressures or emotional pressures for why you’re running behind, the truth is that you are likely the bottleneck that’s limiting how fast you move towards what you say is important in life.

I’m not trying to depress you.  I’m slapping you in the face so you can wake up and do something about it

Life’s Cruel Irony: You’re Making Yourself Waiting In Line

Listen, I know what you hate.  You hate always being in the left lane and having that idiot do 5 miles under the speed limit.  You hate waiting in line while the slowest cashier in history takes care of that genius who waits for the total before deciding it’s time to fish out his checkbook (”Oh yeah, I guess I need to pay for this stuff, don’t I?”).  You hate waiting for videos to load, on flights to land, on the operator (who should be “standing by”) to get to your call.

You hate waiting in line.  Your time is valuable.

And yet you do this to yourself constantly.

You have things you want to do, “when you get the time.”  Spending time with the kids.  Writing that book.  Taking a long, hot bath.  Getting in shape.  Going on a vacation.  Getting that room painted.  Developing a side business that will let you quit your 9-to-5 hassle.

Yet you don’t do it. Because your favorite show is on.  Because you want to sleep in.  Because you want to surf the web some more.  Because you want to continue the meaningless small talk in the office.  Because the video game console is calling.

Because basically, your goals want to become realities, and you’re telling them to wait in line. For stuff that doesn’t matter in the long run.  And I’m not saying that entertainment is bad – you can be sure when the new Terminator movie comes out, everything will have to wait in line for a few hours in my life – but for a lot of us, this is a non-stop line where the trivial things keep the good stuff from getting done.

And you should be just as mad about the good stuff waiting in line as you are about the times you wait in line.

Breaking The Cycle – Here’s What You Need To Do, Right Now

There’s only one way to really get past this goal-killing brutality, and that’s to go against every bit of manners they taught you in grade school and tell yourself it’s okay to “cut in line.”  When you feel like watching TV, stop for a moment and imagine that long bath – the thing that will relax you a whole lot more than vapid mass-media storytelling – and say, “Hey, you can cut in line.”  And then do it.

When you want to play video games, look at that room you want to paint waiting patiently back there, think about how good you’ll feel to have it done, and then say “Hey, you can cut in line.”  And then do it.

Don’t stress about willpower and prioritizing and becoming stronger – just be a little mischievous and say, “Psst, that other thing?  Let it wait a while.  You’re getting taken care of first.”  Looking at it from that perspective helps to take the edge off.

Learn to hate letting your goals stay stuck, waiting in line.  Your time is valuable.

And leave me a quick comment to let me know what you’re going to let “cut in line” right now – then go take care of it.

Keep rocking -

Dave

Why You’re Not Doing The Things You Said You Wanted To, Part 4

Missed the previous 3 parts?  Get ‘em here and here and here.

Meanwhile, here’s part 4 coming at you – where we talk about how one way you avoid taking action is that we’re hiding behind the inaction of our peers.

This is one that nobody likes to admit to – especially me – and even this morning, I’m kicking my own ass about it.  Hopefully I’ll kick yours today, too, and we’ll be even.

Let’s talk about this painful subject and start dealing with it.

C’mon, Rationalize With Me … Everybody’s Doin’ It

We rationalize when we actively come up with reasons why it’s okay to do things we know we shouldn’t be doing (or that are counterproductive to our bigger goals), just so we can feel more comfortable with our current situation.

• “I’m so busy with my job, I can’t start working out now.  You know how it is.”
• “I’m so strapped for cash I can’t start saving money.  Isn’t everyone?”
• “I hate my job, but in this economy … what are you going to do?”

In each of these examples, we’re leaning on the inaction of our peer group to support our decision not to kick our own ass into gear.  We know that nobody is taking action, so we don’t take action either, because we don’t even have to make an excuse for it.  All we have to do is say “you know how it is,” and many of our peers nod in agreement.

And this behavior doesn’t indicate a lazy person … just a form of selected laziness. The same people who are so driven they can work like hell and achieve “big things” let their bodies and relationships go because they are surrounded by other people who are doing the same thing.  No one calls them out on it, because they don’t want to be called out themselves.

Overweight people tend to hang out with overweight people.  Slackers tend to sit around with other slackers.  Smokers drag with other smokers.  Procrastinators chill with other procrastinators.  Excuse-makers hang with other excuse-makers.  Urgency addicts buzz around with other urgency addicts.

My peer group is doing this.  Your peer group is doing this.  We’re strong in some of the same areas, weak in some of other areas, but we’re all justifying inaction together. And if we don’t change our behavior, it’s unlikely we’ll ever move past it, and we’ll damn ourselves to a life of regrets.

Breaking The Cycle – Here’s What You Need To Do, Right Now

Most people don’t push past their inaction because they think it will take too much willpower or require too much internal strength to grow … so they just keep on keepin’ on.  But there’s an easier way to move forward without having to endure the pain you’re dreading:

Connect with one person who won’t tolerate that behavior – today, and every day.

When you find yourself someone who is taking action in the area you’re struggling with and connect with them, you’ll feel a magnetic pull towards action as you bring them in as part of your peer group.  I’ve talked earlier about people being either grounders or magnets for you, and it’s as true now as it was then.

This is most effective when you’re connecting with someone who has been exactly where you are now and has risen above it (for example, you’ll get better encouragement from a formerly overweight person who worked the weight off than someone who has always been skinny).

Just connect with someone.  Today.  Become part of their peer group, let them become part of yours, and feel that magnetic pull start to stir up the part of you that wants to do more, be more, and have more … and see how your desire to follow through increases.

You can start by following me on Twitter … me an my peer group kick some pretty good ass on a daily basis (and often kick each other’s).  Join us.

That is all.

Now I need to go take my own advice and reconnect with FormerFatGuy on Twitter, because I’ve got some weight to lose.

Dave

Why You’re Not Doing The Things You Said You Wanted To, Part 3

Missed the previous 2 parts?  Get ‘em here and here.

Meanwhile, here’s part 3 coming at you – where we talk about how one way you avoid taking action is by lying to yourself about the real cost of inaction.

Because when it comes down to it, we lie to ourselves a lot, except we don’t call it lying.  We call it rationalization or worse, “thinking realistically.“  Realistically, it’s lying.  it’s misrepresenting the truth – because the truth is pretty ugly.

The truth might be that if you don’t lose those extra 50 pounds, you’re likely to be dead at age 50 instead of 70 or 80.

The truth might be that your kids are growing up without you, because you’re not spending enough time with them – and you’re almost out of time to fix it.

The truth might be that you’re only a layoff away from discovering that your current skillset just won’t serve you in a job search – and that the company’s stability is shaky at best.

The truth might be that you’re building your business the wrong way, with strategies that keep you on the treadmill rather than put you on a ladder.

So Why The Hell Aren’t We Doing Something About It?

Facing up to ugly truths is scary.  Damned scary.  That’s reason enough to run and hide from it.

But oh, wait, we don’t “run.”  We don’t “hide.”  I mean we’re smarter than that.  We just do other things.

We check our email, or our blog stats, or our twitter account, or our RSS feed.  Again.

We watch LOST, or worse yet, flip the channel looking for something interesting.  Again.

We go to Digg, or StumbleUpon, or Reddit, or wherever the hell we go to click on things that don’t matter.

We go to the fridge, even though we certainly didn’t go light on our last meal and shouldn’t need a food fix.

We do a hundred million things to distract ourselves from facing the true cost of inaction - the true cost of facing all these personal demons that scare the hell out of us (almost as badly as it scares us to think that people might *gasp* find out we have human weaknesses).

We pretend that we’ll get to it “someday” when “things settle down” or “we have more time / energy / money” and yet we are still watching f***ing LOST and we still have the energy to play XBOX and we are still buying $5 coffees and expensive fluff we just don’t need.  (Self, I’m talking to you.)

But we pretend we’re not doing all that, because it’s easier to blame “not enough X” and do whatever it takes to shift our focus away from just how much it’s costing us not to fix our stuff.

And then we’re all surprised when we have health problems.  Or when the kids have nothing to do with us.  or when our spouse leaves us.  Or when we just can’t seem to find a job in this “terrible economy.”

But by God, we won’t miss our chance to find out if pretend people on TV get off the damned island.  Sitting on our asses is easy.

Screw that.

It’s Time To Face Up to The True Cost Of Inaction

Those things you don’t like to think about?  Think about them.

Not “if” they might happen, but “when.”  Because they will, if you don’t turn the tide.

They will happen, if you don’t start taking action today to make sure they don’t happen.

If things haven’t been getting measurably better for you over the last 12 months, and you don’t change your habits and actions, you can guess where you’ll be 12 months from now.

Jack and Kate might be off the island, but you’ll still be trapped.

Here’s What You Need To Do, Right Now

I wish I had pat advice I can give you about how to make it all better in 7 easy steps.  But I don’t.  because facing your “stuff” is hard.  It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do.

Turning off the TV and spending 60 minutes facing your anxieties instead?  Unbelievably uncomfortable.

But losing out on life – perhaps literally – because you didn’t take action?  Utterly unacceptable.

So here’s what you should do to start.  Stop pretending your fears aren’t there and learn how to understand them, so you can figure out what to do next instead of going into hiding.

If this scares the hell out of you, do what I do.  Read Havi’s stuff at The Fluent Self:

• Talking truth to fear
• You don’t have to face your fear
• It’s not freaking easy, okay?
• Everything else she writes

Don’t pretend that you’re not going to have to face the consequences of the things you’re avoiding … because you won’t get a second chance.

That is all.

Now I need to go take my own advice.  And think a while.

Dave