Tag Archives: motivation

Execution, not just ideas.

Leave a reply

I came across this quote by Felix Dennis:

“If you never have a single great idea in your life, but become skilled in executing the great ideas of others you can succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Seek them out and make them work. They do not have to be your ideas. Execution is all, in this regard. If on the other hand, you spend your days thinking up and developing in your mind this great idea or that, you are unlikely to get rich. Although you are likely to make many others rich. That’s usually the way of it. Ideas don’t make you rich, the correct execution of ideas does.”

I think this message is equally true for achieving any goals, not just getting rich. Execution, execution, execution.

I’m reminded of a joke about an old man praying. He says, “God, I’ve been a good man, a loving husband, a devoted father, a loyal employee. I’ve lived a good life. I’ve never asked you for anything. Now I am old, and I am tired. Please, can you help me win the lottery?”

He doesn’t win. Each night he repeats this prayer. Again, and again, and again. After a full year of saying this prayer before bed, nothing. And on the 366th day of saying this prayer, he finishes with, “…Please, can you help me win the lottery?” Then in a thundering and frustrated voice God replies, “I want to help you, but can you at least buy a ticket?

Execution, execution, execution.

Getting unstuck

Leave a reply

I remember teaching Grade 6/7’s about Nigerian fables. One of them was about a greedy animal during hard times. All the animals had collected food and stored it in a clearing to share, but each night some of the food went missing. To catch the culprit they put tar around the food and the thief got caught in it. The next day after an apology the other animals started trying to pull the animal out. He was extremely stuck and they yanked so hard that they stretched this animal and ripped of its legs.

The fable is about not being greedy, but the title is something like, “How snakes came to be.” I love when the moral is not explicit in the storytelling.

I got thinking about this for a totally different reason, one I’m far more explicit about in my title… the idea of getting unstuck. Sometimes we absolutely have to step out of our current experience in order to see what’s possible beyond where we currently are.

The saying, ‘No matter where you go, there you are,’ has come up a few times recently in conversation. This is only true if you let it happen, if you stay inside of the tiny box you put around yourself. There are people who travel all around the world and they look forward to seeing a Macdonald’s, Burger King, or Starbucks. They look to keep their world the same. But travel can give you so much more than that. There are people who keep friends that aren’t nice to them, who dismiss an entire genre of music, who stick to a plan and never take side adventures. None of these people might see themselves as stuck but they are.

For me personally, I’ve been stuck in pain and/or drowsiness for a couple months and while I’m slowly recovering, I am also stuck in the way my days go. I’m not following any healthy routines to consistently workout or meditate. I can still ride a stationary bicycle without causing any harm to the bulged disc in my neck. Meditation would actually be great right now and I’ve let my daily habit slip.

I’m going through slow (admittedly often dizzy) motions of the day waiting for moments of clarity, but when they come I don’t necessarily take advantage of them. I need to see beyond my current condition. I need to see what I what to accomplish in the future and I need to do things now to support that. I need first to have goals that I want to achieve beyond where I am now, then I need to move towards those goals.

Sometimes it only takes baby steps, sometimes it takes a massive leap. But you don’t get unstuck thinking ‘No matter where you go, there you are’. The issue with this is not about geography, it’s about moving who you are to who you want to be.

The gap

I was one of those kids. I got the report card comment that basically said, ‘Not meeting his potential’ on a regular basis. I got ‘A’s if I really enjoyed the class or the teacher, and ‘C’s if I didn’t. Not just in high school, for my undergrad degree in university too. Well, at that point I wasn’t getting the comments, but my marks followed the same pattern. A’s and C’s, and hardly a B in sight.

This is a tough learner profile to work with: “If I care, if I’m interested, I’ll do the work… if I’m not, I’ll do the minimum.’ It’s not inspired. It’s also not bad enough to raise too much concern. Just flying under the radar, doing what needs to be done.

But when I was inspired, I was really inspired. I would go deep, dig right in and learn as much as I could. I’d create projects that teachers would ask to keep as examples. I’d spend 2 hours in the library just perusing books on the bookshelf related to the topic I was researching.

The gap between studying what interested me and what I was doing because it was required by school was massive. I was essentially a light bulb, either on or off, with no dimmer switch. No motivation (off) or fully engaged (on). And not a care about what my marks looked like as a result. I’d look at a ‘C’ and think, ‘Yeah, that’s about right,’ in the same way I’d look at an ‘A’ and think the same.

It took me going back to school at 29 years old to change this. Only heading into teacher education made me think about doing well even if I didn’t enjoy the course.

It’s good sometimes for me to remember that not everyone cares about marks. Not everyone is motivated to do their best. I cared enough to pass but not enough to do well in every course. I’m not the only kid that has ever thought that way. The interesting thing to me is that it wasn’t always the subject matter that drew me in. Sometimes it was the teacher. Good teaching bridged the gap for me.

Teachers who can build those relationships and foster excitement in learning are a real treasure. They are inspiring and make learning fun. They know how to reduce the gap between students doing the minimum and students being motivated to do well. They inspire students to do more and to find greater success than they ever expected.

The teachers that helped me cross that gap are the ones I remember most.

Incrementally better

I’ve had a cough for 18 days now. The first week was really rough, then I started to feel a bit better. Each day has been slightly better than the day before. Each night has been a slightly better night, with less coughing and waking up… but it has been really slow progress.

This is a challenge with ‘getting better’ in general, not just from recovering from this nasty flu. When we are trying to work out and get stronger, when we are looking for gains in our fitness, we often see them pretty quick in the beginning, but then we get on a slow path of small gains that are hard to notice.

We want to see great gains. We want to be instantly rewarded for our hard work. But the gains are incremental and sometimes unnoticeable for long periods of time. The personal best achievements don’t come every day. And we don’t always notice the gains when we want to. We quickly notice the setbacks, but not always the gains.

Recovering so slowly has made me see improvements I usually ignore… because I’m looking for them, and I’m appreciative of any improvement. But working out I don’t pay attention to tiny gains in pursuit of bigger ones.

I’m going to be a bit more appreciative of the tiny gains in my fitness from now on. I’ll look for them, and know that I’m getting incrementally better. Who knows, these small moments of appreciation might even make me incrementally happier. 😁

Many words, not one word

I created a #OneWord for 2020, and 2021, and the past few days I’ve been thinking about what my one word would be for 2023. But too many words are vying to be the one, so I’m just going to list a few key words for myself. Words that will be important to me in the coming year.

Consistency: Since January 2019 I’ve been using a year-long calendar to track fitness, meditation, writing, and another goal that has changed. I don’t think I need it anymore, even though I’m off to a poor start with my fitness thanks to a really bad cough. Still, I think I’m at the point where these things are so consistent, that tracking isn’t actually improving my consistency. But, it’s my actions, not my beliefs that matter. I will need to demonstrate to myself that I can stay on track without the tracking, and so being faithfully and honestly consistent with my healthy living goals will be important to me this year.

Efficiency: I’m prone to distraction and this year I want to commit to being focussed on specific tasks and not being easily distracted. I plan to improve my list-making so that I get bigger items done every day, and not be distracted by the most recent email, or smaller tasks that eat up so much time that bigger tasks are no longer achievable. I’ve improved in this area over the past few years, but there is room to focus and be more efficient.

Positivity: I have a great family, great friends, a great job, and other than a nasty cough I’m dealing with right now, great health. There is no reason for me to focus on a few challenging things and letting these adjust my attitude and frame of mind negatively. I have a lot to be grateful for and I can be more positive in my day-to-day attitude and disposition.

Vocal: I said in my post, Everything is so political, “2023 will be a year to speak up and speak out. You don’t have to support a political party, but if you think you can be vocal and not also be political, you are probably mistaken. Your politics will permeate your point of view, and choosing to be silent is no longer just non-partisan or apolitical; it’s choosing to allow lesser, more biased people to share their minority points of view as if they are the majority. The silent majority can be silent no more.”

This isn’t about politics, it’s about speaking out against small thinking, and not allowing bad ideas to permeate. It’s about recognizing bad ideas and being a voice that helps stop them from spreading.

Gracious: This is a year to show my appreciation. I really have a lot of wonderful people around me and I want to let them know how much I appreciate them, value them, and how they make me a better person. Sincere graciousness is something I often feel, but don’t always express, and so this will be a year to emote, to express, and to demonstrate my gratitude for the people around me that I value and appreciate.

That’s a lot more than one word, and if I can focus on these things 2023 will be a fabulous year.

Priorities Versus Motivation

“Get your priorities straight.”

That’s a term you’ve probably heard at some point in your life. But more than likely it means, ‘your priorities don’t match mine.’ The thing is, it’s hard for people to all have the same priorities at the same time. Sure sports team members all want to win a game, but a player in a defensive position moving too far forward trying to score could jeopardize giving up a goal.

Even when the goal is the same people in different roles need to have different priorities. It’s easy to project your priorities on other people, much harder to recognize other’s priorities when they don’t match yours. Even when the motivations are the same priorities can be different. At this point, what’s more important, the priorities or the motivation? I think more often than not people look at what they think others prioritize and lose track of what the motivation is for their actions, and that creates unnecessary conflict.

Going through the motions

My workouts have been minimalist recently. I’m going through the motions but not pushing myself. And I’ve come to realize that this is ok. 5 years ago, I would have just stopped my routine. I’d have made excuses that I was too busy. And, I probably would have stopped for over a month.

Instead, I’ve kept the routine up, and am committing to still getting up early, writing, then working out. In the last week I’ve taken a couple days off exercise, but I am still good with 5 days a week… after I started this regimen in January of 2019 in my first year I averaged only 4 days a week, and now it’s unusual for me not to do 6. I have slowly improved my habit such that only working out 5 days a week is less than normal, while I was actually proud of averaging 4 days a week when I started.

My point is that I need to give myself some slack. I’m not quitting, I’m not breaking my pattern, I’m just coasting a bit while still putting in the time, even if I’m not giving 100%. I can’t give 100% for 100% of the time, and right now I’m just not up to ‘giving it my all’.

Will I meditate? Yes. Will I do a short stretch? Yes. Will I get my heart rate up for a 20 minute cardio? Yes. Will I do at least one strength exercise? Yes.

Done. Mission accomplished. Pat on the back and move on. There will be time to give it my all when I’m ready, but for now going through the motions isn’t just good enough, it’s exactly what I need to do in order to maintain the healthy lifestyle I want to keep, even when I don’t feel up to it.

Push

If I’ve learned one thing about myself, when it comes to physical effort, I’m very externally motivated. Working out in my basement alone, I have to go through all kinds of mental gymnastics to get myself to put out a good effort. Working out with a buddy, I can really push myself. It’s not about competition. Many of my workout buddies have been significantly bigger and stronger than me, and I don’t have the body or muscles to match what they do. But having them there with me is the push I need to give my all.

The same is true in sports. I have to be in just the right frame of mind to give my all in a solo sport. However in a team sport I will do all I need to do to, and more, so that I don’t let the team down. It’s not a part of my personality most people see in my current position, but I literally would do whatever it took to win.

But I’m not on a team sport now. My hobby is archery. I don’t have that push in my day to day. So, my challenge now is to find a way to create that push internally. I worked out in a gym this morning, and there were a couple other people in there. They were doing their own thing and not even in positions where they could see me for most of my workout, and yet I gave far more effort than my workouts alone recently. This isn’t the time for me to join a gym, and my best workout time is before I leave for work each morning, so I’m going to be working out solo 95% of the time or more. I need to figure out ways to push myself. I’m open to suggestions. Music helps, but what strategies do you use to pump up your effort when working out alone?

Before the sun rises

Today was the first day in a very long time that my alarm went off before sunrise. Part of this is getting back into a routine before work, part of it is that the days are a little shorter as we head into fall. It took me a while to actually get started this morning. I literally could have woken up 45 minutes later, because none of my usual routine got started until then. It’s amazing how slow I can be, how easily distracted, when I’m off of a routine. Put me on a routine and I get stuff done. Remove the routine and I lose focus.

This makes me think about a typical day at work. How much of it is me focusing on the next issue or concern that arises versus getting what I need done? Some days the answer to that is quite surprising. I had a vice principal tell me years ago, “You know, being a VP is really just a 3-4 hour a day job. The problem is that you usually can’t get most of that done between 8am and 4pm. That was a vice principal in a school that also had a principal. When you are the lone principal in a building this can be even more challenging with more duties and less time.

That’s why I get up so early. I write for this blog (usually by 6:00 even though I publish it a bit later). I meditate for 10 minutes. I do 20 minutes of cardio followed by 10-15 minutes of stretching and/or weights. I get stuff done for me, before the distractions of the day start… and as the days get shorter, before the sun rises.

It’s a wonderful feeling of accomplishment to do these things for myself before my work day begins; before the unexpected distractions of my typical day; before I get home exhausted and full of excuses as to why I should skip one of these activities. After a very routine-less holiday, it’s going to take me a while to get used to this. But eventually I’ll fall back into the routine of waking up in the dark and getting my mental and physical well-being taken care of before the sun comes up.

External motivation

I usually use an app by Under Armour called Map My Ride to track hikes, walks, and rides, but a few days ago I went on a ride with my brother-in-law and forgot to start the app, and he shared the ride with me on the Strava app. Since my oldest daughter uses this as well, and goes in some awesome hikes, I thought I’d make the switch.

When I looked at the app afterwards I noticed that I had an Achievement given to me for the trip.

Looking further, I was 7th overall on this portion of the hike.

I love the competitive sharing aspect of apps like this. I’m totally motivated to improve my standing. While I’m pretty sure Kelsey is safe at the top, I’m gunning for a spot above Shane, Dave, and Lisa.

I’ll share my progress below over the next few days.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Ok, so for the run above, I crushed this segment time! However, in full transparency, yesterday I did the whole trail in 23:23 and got 6th, then did the trail later with my wife and kid and figured out where this segment is. Then today I walked the 149 steps and steep incline before the segment and even with this fast pace, my total route was done in 26:01… in other words, I ‘saved myself’ just for this one section. Now that I’ve done this, the motivation to do better is gone. I’ll end my updates here and try to beat my full route time of 23:23 next time.