Being On Time

Here's a message we know all too well, yet practice way too little.  Well, for the most part anyway.  What does it mean to be on time?  Well if you were to ask legendary coach Vince Lombardi he would introduce you to what we know of today as:  Lombardi time which states:

"Show up for every important business meeting 15 minutes ahead of the scheduled meeting time."

Obviously if you show up with fifteen minutes to spare you would be able to collect your breath and get situated for whatever your endeavor might be.  We've also, however, grown up in a culture where we spread the message of being "fashionably late" - a time frame I've noticed means a lot of different things to many different people.

So what's really the point of being on time?  If nothing else, it reduces stress.

Hubby and I were on our way to an important meeting a couple of days ago.  If you are familiar with the differences between Utah Highways (where we just came from) and New Jersey Highways (where we live now), you would agree that they are night and day.  While Utah is built on a measurable grid system with two main highways, it's really difficult to get lost.  However NJ has about 100 highways and they all like to loop around ten times before spitting you out on a straight road.  Fun stuff for sure.

So as we have began to become familiar with these roads we decided to leave an HOUR early for our appointment to make sure we'd be "on time".  Glad we did.  We drive a sporty red Acura that has a double muffler (we bought it that way and have yet to change it back), so it's loud!  As we navigated through the potholed streets confusing the hell out of our GPS system we saw flashing lights behind us.  You got it, we were getting pulled over.

We actually got pulled over right in front of our destination and we had about thirty minutes to spare.  Apparently they were looking for a car that matched our description and we had to wait in the parking lot until they boss-man came to verify that we weren't indeed running away from the law.  After a time the officer tapped our window and motioned to us that we were free to go.  Great, no problem. We entered our building and still had 15 minutes to catch our breath.  Vince would be proud!

Had we left later or tried to make our appointment just at the right time, we would have been stressed out by the encounter and our meeting could have gone poorly.  But we weren't stressed, just a little amused at the whole thing.  All because we gave ourselves plenty of time. 

This is an easy habit to implement.  Get up a little earlier, get ready the night before, so that as you travel to work, school, or casual events, you can go in a positive attitude that will surely affect the rest of your day.

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Great Expectations

As I was finishing up my previous post about setting goals and achieving milestones, one thought came to me which I felt merits an entire post for the message to be delivered correctly.  How many times do we set goals that are too easily achieved, which by reaching those set milestones we aren't even motivated because it was simply too easy of a task?  This happens a lot because we have fear of not being able to accomplish greater things.

The real tragedy is that the only thing holding us back from doing greater tasks is the little tiny insignificant inner voice that says, "You're not good enough," or "You could never do that," or "What will everyone think of you," etc, etc.  It's that one nasty jerk that sits on one side of your shoulders that usually overpowers the awesome coach on the other side of your shoulders and moves you in the direction of playing it "safe" by staying small.

Now, goals should be realistic.  If you haven't been off your couch in years than it should be safe to say that you probably won't be running a marathon in less than 3 hours by the end of the week.  But don't set a small goal of being able to walk around the block once without stopping by the end of the year.  See the difference?

One of my mentors explained to me that goals should be stretchingly realistic.  They need to be believable enough for you that you can actually visualize yourself in the attainment of your goal, yet just far enough out of reach that you will truly have to grow and learn and put yourself just on the outside of your comfort zone to accomplish it.  Only with those kind of stretches will we be able to turn into the kind of people we want to be.  Only then can we truly begin to see the potential that really lies deep within us.

So dream, but dream big.  Make your goals important enough to you that you are willing to stretch and learn and grow.  Make them sit at a level of life that you have yet to touch and by moving in that direction you know you will become closer to the image of the self that is truly who you are.

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Accomplishing Goals

Lot's of focus on goals lately!  That which you focus upon expands, and I want expansion to happen in my life abundantley.  So one good place to begin was my bucket list.  I've noticed it was getting a bit neglected and decided to tackle one of the items on that list.  I've chosen to set the goal to learn how to do a "split" again.  Of course I'm an over-achiever and psycho, so it's not going to be enough for me to just to a split in one direction.   Oh no no, I want to hit the goal of being able to do a split with either leg in front and both my legs to the side.  This will be a painful and lengthy process, as it has been at least 15 years since I've been able to do one!

Why is this even relevant to anything in my life?  Will doing a split enable me to be better at closing business deals?  Will it give me the ability to enhance my writing skills?  Will a silly split give me the confidence to become a better leader and servant?  The answer to all these questions and any relevant questions is a resounding YES!  How is that so, you ask?  Here's the answer:

Life is about accomplishments.  It's about not staying stagnant.  You start small and believable.  You build up your faith muscles (you know, the ones that have been in hybernation for the last hundred years?) and become a giant of mental strength.  One goal is as important as any other goal.  So this goal in and of itself isn't the key.  The key is that I have a goal and I am working toward accomplishing it.  I will post a picture of myself doing these splits once I am able to perform this olympic triumph to measure my accomplishment.

What goals are you going to begin tackling from your bucket list?  Don't have a list, yet?  Get crackin' and make that happen asap.  Then, once you have items written out don't just stuff the list in the bottom sock drawer, create those things in your life so that you can live that kind of reality.  Become a delibrate creator and move in the direction of your dreams.

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