Category: Personal Development

Fitness, Fortitude, Personal Development

Brush Your Teeth To Fitness

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Discipline bridge

Here are a few ideas to help you achieve your fitness goals, whether you are triathlon training (like me), trying to get to your target weight, couch to 5k, or making it through an entire Beachbody DVD program like PiYo (my favorite).

1. Write down your plan.
Make your workouts part of your daily schedule/ routine – just like brushing your teeth, work meetings, appointments, etc. Consistently completing your scheduled workout appointment will build the habit – and improve your results.

2. Have a purpose to your workout.
This is especially true of endurance athletes who often log unnecessary or “junk miles” because they believe the volume of work will make them better. Not necessarily true. Regardless of your fitness goals, make sure your workout is aligned with them. Focus on your form and the quality of your workout. Learn to do it right before adding weight or intensity to your workout.

3. Try Habit Stacking. One clever way to sneak in your exercise is to associate it with something else already in your routine. I’ve made it a habit to hit my pull up bar after brushing me teeth in the morning. It only takes a minute. Brush teeth. Do pull ups. Boom! done!

4. Don’t ever give up.
Sometimes circumstances will block your workout schedule. Life happens. Healthy living is a journey intended to last a lifetime. Miss a day? Don’t do a double the next day, just move on to the next one. Short on time? Sneak in a partial workout, or modify it to get some activity in. Some is better than none. Building the habit is key and consistency grows over time. Eventually, exercise will be such a natural part of your life that you hardly have to think about it. Daily workout? Yep, that’s just like brushing your teeth…

Fortitude, Personal Development

BREAKING THE VICIOUS CYCLE OF FAILURE

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vicious

Forgive me for getting personal, but I’m compelled to share something I’m learning in my personal development study. Maybe this can help you as it helps me, or at least provide some encouragement. I’ll make it an equation just for fun.

Commitment – Character = Failure

This may not be obvious at first glance, so stay with me. I find myself often riding this cycle of Commit – Fail – Recommit – Fail despite what I believe are my best efforts to change. Further, the vicious cycle gets me down impacting my confidence, self-esteem, and ambition. Sometimes for few minutes; sometimes for days or even weeks. Can you relate?

I’m learning that breaking the failure cycle requires more than a stronger commitment, or a ‘never give up’ attitude. I’m proof they don’t work long term. I believe the answer is character development and renewing my mind.

First let me clarify that not all failure is bad. Failure is how we learn and grow. If we don’t ever fail, it simply means we aren’t pushing ourselves or trying anything new or trying to improve anything. I’m referring to the failure to stop the bad habit, attitude, behavior, etc. Whether it’s to quit smoking, drinking, overeating, cussing, or being angry, bitter, resentful, depressed, selfish, or some other negative thing in our life we want gone forever, we all have something we can’t seem to kick. It could be we struggle to start something too, like to start exercising, eating healthy, being more generous, kind, selfless, or some other positive thing that we can’t seem to gain momentum on in our daily life. Follow me? Simply recommitting to do better doesn’t work.

Character is the key to breaking this failure cycle, but character is a term that’s hard to define. Don’t you think so?

CHARACTER DEFINED

What is character? Google calls it “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.” Sounds nice, but it’s not very specific. What are mental and moral qualities? And how does one know if these qualities are good? There must be a better definition. Merriam-Webster’s simple definition is “the way someone thinks, feels, behaves; someone’s personality.” I’m sorry but most times I hear character used, it references an assessment of the persons good or bad character. Yet the definitions we have don’t seem to help us with what actually makes up ‘good character’.

Wouldn’t you agree it’s important to determine what mental & moral qualities or what thinking, feeling, and behavior make up good character? Yet how can that be done when everyone seems to have their own opinion about what is good and what isn’t? Without getting further into a debate about whose definition of good qualities fits good character let’s just agree that a universal standard must be used. You shouldn’t be surprised that the universal standard comes from God in the Bible.

I’m not going to do Bible study here to define what is good vs. bad mental & moral qualities, but I will assume God’s universal standard to clarify a solid working definition for character (specifically ‘good character’), or the type of character required to break the Vicious Cycle of Failure. (credit Andy Stanley’s book Louder Than Words): “Character is the will to do what is right, as defined by God, regardless of personal pain.”

There are a couple important things to catch in this definition. First is that what is right (or good) is defined by God. God tells us the standard for what is good and clarifies truth in the Bible. You are welcome to debate me on this, but just because you don’t believe what God says doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. Truth is truth. Second is that doing right costs something. So having good character requires modeling the character of God in our behavior whether it hurts or not.

Yikes! Suddenly, all this has gotten pretty heavy. However, it’s important to know what character is if we’re to break the failure cycle.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

If you are reading this far, you likely agree with me that character is required to hold the commitments we make to be our very best. You may even agree with the definition of character I shared. Before I move on to how to develop good character, let me back up a minute.

I now understand that who I really am comes from what I really believe about myself, my circumstances, and the world around me. When I fail at a commitment to slay the negative parts of my behavior or do something good it really just means that I’m doing what my mind is programmed to do. I’m just living according to what I believe. Does that make sense? Our behavior follows what we actually believe.

For example, a person doesn’t just one day end up in adultery. No one wakes up one day and says, “I’m going to commit adultery today.” It’s more like, “I don’t know what happened, but one thing led to another and here I am.” It happens over time based upon beliefs about self, circumstances, and the world that lead to a string of choices (seemingly innocent choices) that ended up in adultery. It started with a thought and progressed to outward behavior from there. The same is true for anything in our behavior. We act according to what we really believe. The reality is, we are often lying to ourselves. Do you believe that? Do you think it’s possible that what you think about yourself, your circumstances, and the world around you is actually wrong? Yeah, well I didn’t until quite recently. So what can we do?

Here’s an equation I recently wrote in my journal to illustrate how to develop good character.

Speaking truth + Replacing lies = Character Development

The first thing we need to do is to speak the truth to ourselves. I already mentioned that truth comes from the Bible, so if I’m to speak the truth I’ll need to know what the Bible says. Once I know what the Bible says (hint: read it daily), I need to speak this to myself. Did you know the Bible has a whole lot to say about who you are, who you can be, and what your purpose is? There is no greater book written for your personal development and encouragement than the Bible. There is great power in speaking the truth to yourself. Try it if you don’t believe me.

The second thing to do is to replace the lies we tell ourselves. This goes hand in hand with speaking the truth to ourselves. When our minds are filled with truth about ourselves, our circumstances, and our world, it’s much more difficult to think about the lies. This is a process that takes a while and it may hurt at times. The lies don’t go away easily. Some are deeply rooted in our minds and have been watered and nurtured over the years by our own (or others) reinforcement. However, I’m convinced that I can guide and guard my mind to focus on the truth so that eventually the lies don’t impact my behavior negatively.

So how do you get off the Vicious Cycle of Failure? Through character development. By replacing lies we tell ourselves with truth from God’s word (Bible) and by preaching this truth to ourselves, our minds will be renewed and our behavior will change for the good. Ultimately, it takes behavior change (aka: character) to keep our commitments and be our very best. It’s simple but not easy. And just so you know, you will never “arrive” for this is a lifelong process. I am thankful for this valuable life lesson and I look forward to the journey ahead of me.

I’d be honored to hear your thoughts on this.

Fortitude, Personal Development

Manage Yourself: 3 Timeless Principles to Manage the Most Important Project

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you

Stephen R. Covey’s 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People teaches timeless, universal principles to help us be our best. I couldn’t help but notice how nicely these habits apply to making me a better Project Manager.While this article is not meant to be an exhaustive commentary on Covey’s 7 Habits, perhaps you can relate to some of my observations.

Habit #1 Be Proactive (You’re in Charge)

Proactive means acting in anticipation of future problems, needs, or changes. Being proactive is a helpful quality for one who is to be successful and happy in life.

Unfortunately, many of us believe we are proactive when we really aren’t.

For example, it may surprise you to realize that failure to be proactive explains why you get upset about something that does not go your way. I’m sure you can think about many situations in hindsight and say, “Dang, if I had only ______, then this wouldn’t have happened.” Proactive people say in hindsight, “I’m sure glad I _____, so everything could work out like this.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that being proactive will make everything work in your favor every time. I am saying that it definitely helps.

Proactive people take responsibility for their actions. People who are not proactive often find others to blame when things don’t go right. They say, “It’s not my fault. If “they” would have _____, then none of this would have happened.”

Personal responsibility is important in project management. Generally, the project manager is responsible for the success of the project. The PM is the leader, the orchestra conductor if you will, to make all the moving parts of a project come together at the right time for the right price. A PM needs to be proactive by asking lots of questions, engaging the experts, and following up on the details. Expecting someone else to do these important tasks is recipe for disaster.

Here are a few suggestions on how you can be more proactive with your projects today:

  • Are you waiting for someone to provide info, answer a question, or give a status report? Make a point to follow up with them today.
  • Did someone tell you that a deliverable would be ready at some date in the near future? Trust but verify that date is still accurate today to ensure there are no changes to the schedule.
  • At the start of your project, record the items that typically hold up the project or otherwise provide difficulty. Initiate communication with your team on how these items can be mitigated before they come up.

Habit #2 Begin with the End in Mind (Have a Plan)

Having a Plan is important in project management as you might imagine. Nothing can set up your project for success more than having a solid plan. You can read my thoughts on project planning in Planning for Success in Projects and Triathlon.

Planning and being proactive go together. Being proactive means you have a plan. The key is to be disciplined and follow the plan.

Knowing the end product or primary outcome is necessary to building a plan for how to get to the goal. That seems obvious, but the reality is that many projects fail for lack of a plan.

Habit #3 Put First Things First (Work First, Then Play)

The idea of First Things First seems easy when we are telling our kids to get their homework done before they can play with their friends. The same habit should apply to our work as well.

Have you ever started your work day with great intentions for all that would be accomplished by noon, but when noon comes you realize nothing was accomplished?How did that happen? Aside from losing the discipline of Habit #2, my guess is you got bogged down in low urgency, low importance tasks, or you found yourself fighting fires all morning.

Urgent – requiring immediate action or attention

Important – of great significance or value; likely to have a profound effect on success, survival, or well-being.

“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

What can you do to incorporate First Things First in your projects?

  • Understand the difference between urgent and important. Eisenhower nails it.
  • Go back to Habit #2 and follow your plan
  • Recognize that many tasks are important to others, but not to you. Remember: “Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”Sometimes you need to say ‘No’, or schedule it appropriately into your plan.
  • Limit mindless web surfing and other time wasting activities. Mental health breaks are necessary, but keep them in check to maximize your productivity. I like to incorporate exercise into my mental health breaks to care for my mind and body at the same time.

These first three habits are primarily inward or self-focused. To be successful in managing projects, I believe you have to manage yourself first. Live intentionally, purposefully, take responsibility for your actions, practice these three habits. The remaining four habits are outward focused or others focused. I’ll discuss them in a future post. I’d love to hear your ideas and tips for living these habits in your life and projects.