«
»

SEESAW… Or acting in the NOW

At this time of the year a lot of folks are looking back and reviewing the year just gone. This is a good thing to do; taking stock of what we have achieved, and perhaps failed to achieve is useful. However, if you think about it we are almost exactly evenly poised between 2007 & 2008; it is a bit like standing in the mid-point of a seesaw; one year behind us and one year in front. In many ways this mid-point is a place of huge power, because this day, this moment, NOW is the only time you can change anything!

Everything else is a dream, a plan, a memory, a regret, an excuse. So perhaps after you have done your review of this year, and patted yourself on the back for all the things you achieved, noted the things that slipped through the net of ‘good intentions’ and once you have given some thoughts to what you want 2008 to be like, you will take a moment to ask what you could do right now? It is easy to say that this isn’t the right time, or we aren’t ready, or we are too tired or too busy, but at some stage if we want to convert those dreams into realities we have to act!”

“What can I do now?” is always a much tougher question to answer than “What can you do now?” Part of my answer is making the time to write this blog. It would be very easy to grab a cup of coffee and switch on the TV and leave this till… When? And that is the point: Please give yourself the gift of enough time to ponder what you did and what you want to do, and then begin something TODAY!

Please do share what happens… Good Luck

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” Anais Nin

“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.” Henry Ford

 

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 17:11 and is filed under Personal Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “SEESAW… Or acting in the NOW”

  1. jackie_w says:
    30 December , 2007 at 20:44

    Great blog Richard – today funnily enough, I’ve been emptying cupboards, shredding (like Neil) and generally preparing as if 2008 is more than just the next morning. I also recently came across Jinny Ditzler’s book Your Best Year Yet and in it she suggests the following to be able to recap and plan –

    1] What did I achieve in the last 12 months?

    2] What were my biggest disapppointments?

    3] What have these taught me?

    4] How do I get in my own way, and how can I stop that?

    5] What do I really want out of life?

    6] What different roles do I play? What hats do I wear?

    7] Which role do I need to focus on for the biggest benefit?

    8] What is my top goal for each role/hat?

    9] Therefore what are my top 10 goals for next year?

    10] How can I make sure I achieve these? What/who can help me?

    Then put your top 3 learnings from Q3, your main focus area from Q 7 and your top 10 goals on a single sheet of paper, and stick it to your wall where you’ll see it everyday. Visibility is key.

    Focus, plan, action.

    Happy 2008 everyone!

  2. jackie_w says:
    30 December , 2007 at 20:45

    Lol – thanks for asking Richard – it’s the only way I got through 2007!

    Focus, plan, action.
    Focus, adjust plan, action

    Funnily when I started 2007 as a novice set-up-your-own-business I thought, yeeha this’ll be a scoosh, I’ve got so many tools at my disposal, I’ve got loads of folk in my network, I’ve got marketing, sales, accounting, new business background – it’ll be fine! I also had a great mentor working with me.

    What I didn’t reckon on was the, now apparent, hunger leading to the wall which I had to hit before I just about freaked out – after all I was doing well, meeting folk, building interest, excusing myself that my niche was very new and a lot was educational and that took time, allowing myself to defocus .. often, to explore other avenues and then suddenly – the wall.

    All’s ok now – and yes, having met the wall the 10 steps are easy for me – it’s all about focus, plan, action, calibrate, and start again! Which is why I like those 10 questions as I could see very easily where I got in my own way, where my successes were, where my challenges lay, and yes it’s real life and every single one of us could do with more help than most would care to admit!

    Thanks Richard.

  3. richardderwentcooke says:
    30 December , 2007 at 20:52

    Jackie, Some great advice there, thanks for posting it. Dare I ask if you planning to do this?

    Having a plan is great thing, but I am a firm beliver that all plans need modifying in the light of Real Life Feedback

  4. richardderwentcooke says:
    30 December , 2007 at 20:53

    appreciate that extra sharing Jackie. I had a not dissimilar experience trying to sell Change when no one wanted to buy it (Everyone know that Everyone HATES Change!), and no one else was daft enough to be selling it as a first line specialisation. The first 5 years are the toughest

  5. neil_f says:
    30 December , 2007 at 20:54

    I was recently re-introduced to Myers Briggs by a psychology student; I first used MB as part of an outplacement exercise during one of my many redundancies… but didn’t take it seriously then.

    Reviewing things, perhaps I should have done – I appreciate such things are only guides… but very interesting and useful.

    True to form, based on my mirror-like profile, I can’t stand “the drudgery of life” – paperwork, filing etc – so it never gets done. Fortunately for pod3.tv, one of my business partners is excellent at it all, so he deals with that, but Neil’s private stuff – woh! You don’t want to go there.

    So, now I have a better understanding of my character, warts and all, I took the shredder home and knuckled down to some serious clearing out. I kid you not I filled 3 large black bin liners!! Unopened bills etc etc… it was very therapeutic and one of the several New Years resolutions is never to end up like that again.

    It also shed light on a bad reaction i had to what was offered as supportive and caring advice earlier in the year – i took it as criticism and I’m embarrassed to say I lost a friend… however we’re now talking again as from earlier today and I’m looking forward to meeting up soon for coffee.

    other stuff that’s going to get sorted is too personal for here – but it’s all great stuff!

    An exciting time of year!

    Cheers

  6. richardderwentcooke says:
    30 December , 2007 at 20:58

    Neil,
    Thanks for sharing this. I’m pretty organised but spent a week and quite a lot of money reorganising my reasonably tidy office and took it obsessive levels and I felt marvellous; everything neat, labelled, in identical folders in stead a collection grown over 12 years. New shelves all level etc. I really felt much more professional and it started to impact my work too.

    I thank for getting into some of the more personal stuff I known that is tough and wish you luck in building the required bridge. I wish you a very successful 2008.

Leave a Reply

This blog is kept spam free by WP-SpamFree.