Personal Development

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When’s the last time you closely examined your habits?

If you’re like me, it’s been awhile. It’s not that we avoid it. We just don’t think about it. We go ’round and ’round and ’round giving it little (if any) thought.

Until something happens…

That causes us to think about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.

I’m fond of systems and automation. Always have been. And I love technology. But I still find myself doing things simply because I’ve always done it that way. Only when I’m inspired enough to examine my habits do I come face to face with the reality that what I’m doing may not be working for me, or my business. Other times a workflow or system is in place that works well, but circumstances change…and I don’t change the system.

If you carefully think of how much life is spent in mindlessness — you’ll quickly be depressed. Most of us waste hours doing things that don’t work, but we’re not thinking about if it works or not. We just do it because it’s what we’ve done for a long time. Or because it’s comfortable. Or because it’s easy. Or because we think there’s some reward (when in reality, there is no reward). Delusion hurts us every time!

Today’s show would likely get downloaded more if I filled it with the lastest, greatest iPhone apps…or talked of the newest software…or explained some “hack” that a famous blogger uses. Nope. That’s not it. It’s about getting more done. It’s about finding out what works for us. It’s personal. It’s individual.

I know it’s easier to listen to somebody we admire tell us what she does. Then we can just copy that.

It’s a lot harder to examine what we do, figure out why we do it that way, then architect a better way. It’s a LOT harder. But it’s more profitable.

Mentioned in today’s show (fondly):

• Beyond the To-Do-List with Erik J. Fisher
• Field Notes
• Evernote
• Moon Hoax Not (a YouTube video)

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I was once a fan of Jimmy Buffett. When I was younger. His early days. And I’ve never had so much as a single drink of alcohol. Go figure.

By the time he moved from the gulf coast to the mountains of Colorado to find himself, I was long gone as a fan. So when he returned to the Florida Keys and found his way back home to the gulf, I had been away from his current music for a few years, but his earliest work continued to be in my ear buds pretty regularly. Well, to be fair — I’ve always loved his voice. The whole Parrothead thing escaped me though. But, this isn’t about Jimmy Buffett so much. It is about one of his songs though. A song that I’ve sung thousands of times while driving in the car.

I’m out and about and “A Pirate’s Look At 40” pops into my head. I’ve seen him perform it live many times – pre-Cheeseburger in Paradise Jimmy Buffett.

Part of the lyrics are…

Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothin to plunder
Im an over-forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late

And so in keeping with the last few posts/podcasts/videos here – I began to wonder about my place in time. It’s not something we can do much about, but there are a few takeaways that might be able to help us.

Mentioned:

• Myers-Briggs test
• StrengthsFinder
• DISC profile (this is the one I couldn’t think of)
• Perry Marshall’s Marketing DNA Test

Today’s show was recorded out and about – not Inside The Yellow Studio. Give it a listen, it’s short.

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Pine needles still provoke calm and creativity. I spent hours laying on the floor of piney woods, clearly away the pine cones to make a soft spot where I could just lay on my back and gaze up into the trees. The trees were usually too thick to see the sky. I had another spot or two where the pine trees were enormous, but not nearly as close together. I’d go to those spots if I wanted to look at the clouds drift by.

As kids we were either working to build a fort, a cart to roll down the hill or some other medieval-inspired project or we were playing hard. It didn’t seem we spent much time doing anything else, but there was a third thing we often did. It was a vital part of doing those first two things. Thinking. Dreaming. Conjuring up ideas. Being creative.

Every fort I ever built, every cart I ever dared drive (after helping build it), every tree house…they all began in my head and in the heads of my friends.

Nobody talked to us about that stuff. Parents didn’t talk about it. Teachers sure didn’t. We didn’t read books.

Adults read books about creativity, passion and doing cool things. Kids just think them up, then do them. And if our ideas didn’t work, the fun was in figuring out how to make it work!

It’s sorta sad to think of how many books on creativity I’ve read since I’ve been grown. And you know what? I needed to read them, and that makes it even sadder. As adults we analyze things. As kids, we just do them.

Maybe it’s time for us to be more like kids. I’m going to take a drive to the east Texas piney woods and go lay down for awhile.

* Photo courtesy of Bruce Crooks via Flickr

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