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We all have encountered people who have taken the time to define principles and behaviors that, if practiced frequently, help them deal successfully and consistently with the challenges we all face in life. While there are many formulas that people have designed for use in their own lives, here are a few that might strike a chord with you.
Taking personal responsibility for our actions
Blaming one's lot in life on someone else or on some other set of circumstances has become fashionable for many people. Examples of this phenomenon sometimes occur when a person is accused of a crime. Rather than accepting the responsibility for their actions, these folks drag out a long litany of circumstances that they hope will mitigate their guilt and shift it to others. These are high profile situations and the lack of personal responsibility is obvious. But, how many of us practice the same thing only on a much smaller, less visible scale? We empower events and circumstances to control us and leave us in a constantly reactive mode. Rather than reaching out and causing things to happen, we reach out for excuses and reasons why things did not happen.
Senator John McCain was a Navy flier who was shot down over North Vietnam and spent 7 long, brutal years as a POW. He was interviewed about his experience and how he felt about the Vietnamese who had captured and tortured him for so long. His comments suggested that on the day he was repatriated and walked into the arms of the American servicemen waiting to take him home, he put the ordeal behind him mentally and emotionally. Here is an example of a proactive person who refused to let circumstances rule his life and turn him into a person he did not want to become. He had a vision for his life and, although it was not easy, he took control and made it happen.
Defining the result
All of us have had people whom we have admired in our lives. There was something about them that challenged and drove us to become better people. I worked for such a person several years ago. Whenever I went to him for an okay on a project, he asked me a simple question, "What result are you hoping to achieve"? I was much more interested in all the activities and steps the project would require, and I had lost sight of defining clearly the result that my efforts would produce. How many times have we failed to define the end result in things that we do? We all become a bit intellectually lazy and are content with our day to day activities. We are a little like those big beds of kelp in the ocean that are motionless until the currents move them. It's easier that way, isn't it?
Figuring out what's important and treating it that way
Although it happened several years ago, I still vividly remember a discussion I had about the promotion potential of a manager in our company. It was a big job that he was being considered for, and we did not want to make a mistake. We sought input from a number of folks who knew him and things were going well until we heard this comment. "He's a great guy, but his life is run by the next crisis that hits his desk." There it was ... the big knock out punch! He couldn't set and keep priorities straight in his life. It hurt him professionally and personally, because his family life was suffering as well.
Life is not always about winners and losers
Many of us believe that cooperation is essential for success. Getting people to work together toward a common end is desirable. Yet, the way we sometimes go about it is to set a series of mini competitive events that pit one against the other in an effort to get the desired result achieved. The result that occurs is that we feel we have given our folks all the tools they need to achieve, but they continue to be uncooperative. Now what? The problem is simple; we have set up a win/win objective and a win/lose means to achieve it. This sometimes happens in both our personal lives as well as our professional lives.
We promised you a short course in personal effectiveness with this article. On the surface, these appear to be pretty obvious. Obvious, until we sit down and think about real situations in which we have applied or misapplied these principles.
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