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Success Principle 1 – Taking 100% Responsibility (Rehashed)

In Success Principle 1: Taking 100% Responsibility For Your Life, I identified two actions to start doing:

  1. Paying attention to what I’m doing, not doing and trying new behaviors, approaches and strategies with things
  2. Requesting more feedback – specifically from five people.

How have I fared?  Well, ironically, requesting feedback is a future topic in the book so I think that will come up again, but that’s okay because I was most successful at action #2.  I vowed to reach out to five different people, I did, here’s what happened.

I asked five people whose opinion I value, the following questions:

  1. Is what I’m doing working?
  2. Could I be doing better?
  3. Is there something more that I should be doing that I’m not?
  4. Is there something that I am doing that I should stop doing?
  5. How do you see me limiting myself?

Person 1: Was enthusiastic about my request and suggested we get coffee to discuss the five questions I asked.  Our meeting is first thing in the morning, so more feedback to come there
Person 2: Pretty straight forward answers to the questions I asked.  What I am doing is working, there’s nothing I could be doing better. Keep doing what I’m doing, don’t stop anything and I’m not limiting myself.  They included other candid comments about future growth opportunities which was affirming.
Person 3: Said they would think about it and requested I provide similar feedback to them.  I don’t think that will go anywhere.
Person 4: No response
Person 5: Yes I’m doing a great job.  We all have room for improvement, although no specifics were given.  Something I can do is to continue to share in learning opportunities and promote growth amongst peers and support team.  I shouldn’t stop doing anything.  Am I limiting myself?  This is the most interesting (and motivating answer) – chase your dreams, you only get one shot – you have the skills and abilities to make it anywhere.  That makes you feel good.

The nice thing about this process was I got a few attaboy’s.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but I realize that true improvement will come from addressing areas that I’m limiting myself.  Finding the people who are willing to candidly discuss those things with you is extremely difficult, but if you do find them, hang on to them.

I need to focus more on paying attention to my behaviors and trying new strategies or approaches.  Any suggestions?  How can you approach things differently?  Do you have a limiting behavior?  Find out: Ask your friends, family, colleagues, boss, peers, clients the five questions above to see if there is something you are doing that’s limiting your growth.

Posted 21 January 2010 † Greg Scharlemann § success principles ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: , ,

Success Principle 2: Be Clear Why You’re Here

Principle 2 is all about developing your personal purpose statement.  Staying “on purpose” is important in life because “you are doing what you love to do, doing what you’re good at and accomplishing what’s important.”

Decide upon your major definite purpose in life and then organize all your activities around it. – Brian Tracy

I’m convinced that knowing your purpose is an important part of succeeding in life.  If you are doing what you love and what you’re good at, the end result is far superior than when you’re doing things that are not “on purpose.”  Pay attention to the things you do at work, some you will feel invigorated about, you will dive into the details and produce great work, others not so much.  The things that are invigorating, may be on purpose.

Identifying what feels good to do is easy, but developing your personal purpose statement can be very difficult.  Not only is it hard to determine what your purpose is, it’s hard to articulate that in a clear, concise statement.  Jack Canfield offers two suggestions for determining your purpose:

  1. Using your inner guidance system – joy – to tell you if you’re on purpose
  2. The Life Purpose Exercise from Arnold Patent.

Your Inner Guidance System

The first approach, using joy, consists of paying attention to the amount of joy you are experiencing.  The things that bring you the most joy are in alignment with your purpose.  Identify the things the experiences that create joy have in common.  Once you know what brings you the greatest joy, you will be able to establish a purpose statement.

The Life Purpose Exercise

The Live Purpose Exercise is a more concrete approach to developing your purpose statement.  It’s broken down into four steps:

  1. List two of your unique personal qualities: ambition and focus
  2. List one or two ways you enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others: to help
  3. Assume the world is perfect right now.  What does the world look like How is everyone interacting with everyone else? What does it feel like? Write your answer as a statement, in the present tense, describing the ultimate condition, the perfect world as you see it and feel it.  Remember, a perfect world is a fun place to be: everyone is achieving their goals and becoming successful.
  4. Combine the three prior subdivisions into a single statement:  My purpose is to use my ambition and focus to help others achieve their goals and become successful.

The above is my result using the Life Purpose Exercise.  My purpose statement is:

My purpose is to use my ambition and focus to help others achieve their goals and become successful.

After drafting this I thought, that can’t be my purpose.  It sounds like I’m supposed to be a teacher and I know I wouldn’t like that.  But if you take the statement less literally, it could be applied to my current job.  As a property manager I help others do their job by keeping to building open, operating and occupied.  Now, that’s not to say that I want to be a property manager forever, but it does convince me that I’m on purpose for the most part.

The key to having this is to review it, continue to modify it as I see fit and find additional opportunities to fulfill that purpose.  Take this exercise of writing about completing the 64 success principles.  If it works, it will motivate others to follow this path in order to achieve their goals.  Today, I’m on purpose.  Will I be tomorrow?

Source: The Success Principles

Posted 19 January 2010 † Greg Scharlemann § success principles ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Half Ironman Training Through Week Five Recap

As you may or may not know, I’m training for the Beach2Battleship Ironman in November.  As a precursor to that event and to keep me on track in my training, I’m registered for the White Lake Half Ironman in May.  The first 20 weeks of the year (it really started in December), I am doing a half ironman training program.  This week is the conclusion of week five of training program that I’m following – a program I found online from beginnertriathlete.com.  Here are some stats on how I’ve done thus far:

  • 66% of the swim sessions complete for a total of 9.76 miles
  • 73% of the cycling sessions complete for a total of 192.78 miles
  • 93% of the running sessions complete for a total of 61.8 miles

It’s apparent that I lack the motivation to get in the pool as frequently as the training program calls for.  I take all the blame, but would note that the two primary YMCA’s that I use: Childress Klein and University both closed either their pool or the entire facility over the Christmas holidays.  Now that they are back open and operating, I’ve done fairly well at sticking to the program.

The Swim

The problem (or challenge) with the swim is it’s boring.  Swimming back and forth, back and forth 60, 70, 80 or more times is mind numbing exercise.  Quite frankly, it’s brutal.  I’m so unmotivated to get my swim gear on and get in the pool because of the monotony.  Fortunately the training program developed by the people at Beginner Triathlete has some variation to it.  Using the kick board, or floating thing you stick between your legs (what’s that called?) or swimming backstroke every now and again mixes the swim up enough it becomes more tolerable.  I just need to find a way to stay motivated, especially when I’m in the pool.  As I’ve heard in the past, once you get the swim gear on you usually get the swim regiment done -  this would apply to me (although I might cut short the cool down portion).

The Bike

It needs to get warmer in a hurry.  Yesterday we rode a little over 28 miles and a 15.7mph pace.  It was cold.  The temperature at the start was in the 30’s, my fingers quickly became numb after a mile despite the thick gloves I was wearing and we were going so slow (I rode with a group) I had trouble breaking a sweat and getting the heart going to warm me up.  Fortunately, about half way through the ride, a group of us turned up the speed – at one point we were cruising at 22mph – which got the blood flowing and warmth back into my hands.  I think I came up with a new rule yesterday: the temperature must be 40 or above and getting warmer for me to ride outside. I’m not built for cold weather riding.

The Run

The run has been the easiest to do by far.  For one, it’s easy to get in.  The cold weather doesn’t bother me when I’m running, probably because I’m moving so slow the wind isn’t cutting through my gloves or multiple layers of clothing.  It also helps to have the iPod running. I particularly like to list to NPRs Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! program when I’m running.  It’s a great program and sometimes I find myself laughing out loud during parts of it.

Up Next

Next week starts week six of 20.  At a glance it looks similar to week five, which was pretty easy.  Monday’s swim of 2300+ yards is the least exciting and most difficult.  If you’re interested in how I’m doing, you can track my training log via MapMyRun.com


Photo Credit: foramenglow

Posted 17 January 2010 † Greg Scharlemann § ironman training ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Principle 1: Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life

No more excuses.  I am 100% responsible for everything that does, or does not happen to me.  If something doesn’t turn out as expected, I have a series of questions to ask:

  1. How did I create that?
  2. What was I thinking?
  3. What were my beliefs?
  4. What did I say or not say?
  5. What did I do or not do to create that result?
  6. etc.

Event + Response = Outcome

Mr. Canfield writes “every outcome you experience in your life is a result of how you responded to an earlier event or events in your life.  If the outcome is not as expected, I can blame the “so-called limiting factors.”  You know, the factors that hold you down but allow everyone else to succeed.  Maybe it’s the weather, economy, lack of good jobs or opportunities.  Maybe it’s timing, lack of support, etc.  Whatever it is, the outcome is not my fault.  I have an excuse, right?

No.  I need to break my habits of blaming others or external factors.  I need to change my thinking, communication, behavior, etc.  As Dr. Wayne Dyer says “change your thoughts, change your life.”  Everything “that I think, say and do needs to become intentional and aligned with my purpose, values and goals.”

I need to listen to my gut, what Canfield calls the “Yellow Alerts.”  These yellow alerts are advanced warnings about something.  It should give me time to prevent the unwanted outcome.

Next Steps

How do I apply the first principle?  On page 17 Canfield states, “… do more of what is working, do less of what isn’t, and try on new behaviors to see if they produce better results.”  I need to start paying close attention to what I’m doing and what I’m not doing.  I need to try new behaviors, approaches and/or strategies for different things.

I need to request more feedback.  I can’t improve upon anything unless I know where I’m limiting myself or what I should be doing that I’m not doing.  I will request candid feedback from at least five people who, 1) are in a position to provide candid feedback, 2) have worked or interacted with me directly recently and 3) who’s opinion I value.

Posted 14 January 2010 † Greg Scharlemann § success principles ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Now Sporting: Vibram FiveFingers

Just received these today:

Vibram FiveFingers

Vibram FiveFingers.  They are supposed to “stimulate the muscles in your feet and lower legs… mak[ing] you stronger and healthier, it improves your balance, agility and proprioception.”  I had to look that last word up: awareness of the position of one’s body.  The FiveFingers are supposed to simulate barefoot running, while protecting the soles of your feet.

I’m going to wear them around the house for a bit to become accustomed to the feel and then take them outside for what I hope to be long runs in the future.  Having run barefoot before in the past, I know transitioning from Nike’s to FiveFingers takes a while to build up the unusual muscles that are used. Here’s a good 12 step guide to transitioning to barefoot running.

Here are some more pictures:

Top View

Side View

Posted 09 January 2010 † Greg Scharlemann § ironman training ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,