We’ve all heard it said before “the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results”. And as I have said before: “Find a mentor, BE a mentor“…I believe these two thoughts share a similarity. At a base level…you need to have a clear perspective of the value of time. (slowly snap fingers) These are lost seconds of your life. Each one unique, full of possibilities to be anything you want it to be…then it is gone. Time is one of the things that is not replenished. They make more money, more jobs, and you’ll meet new people. But time becomes history in the blink of an eye. How are you spending your time? What “history” are you creating with each second? How are you investing your time?
When my son and I used to play different video games, there was the online version of Call of Duty which I absolutely despised. There was very little skill involved and most of the players were 13 year old fanatics with apparently nothing to do but master these games and they enjoyed powning me quite often (pown means to dominate or squash) and it was more like “Keep doing things over and over and eventually you might get lucky and live 5 seconds longer” I called it “RUN SHOOT DIE REPEAT” I reminded my son often that this game made me wacko and it wasn’t challenging or entertaining for me whatsoever. I liked the more strategic game where you had to think and plan and strategize. How many things in your daily routine could be classified as RUN SHOOT DIE REPEAT? What golden rare moment of luck are you waiting for as opposed to planning a path and creatively forming a plan of action and then applying yourself diligently to get where you want to go?
Each day we make choices of how to spend our precious seconds. What are you doing while at work? How do you spend your time when you get home at night? What plans do you have to spend time on the weekends? What is it that keeps you up late at night keeping you from going to sleep? How can you better invest your time? It has taken you your entire life to be where you are today. Don’t take that for granted or belittle it. We all learn things as we pass through different stages of life, and there is always ways to wisely sagaciously use our time. Are you watching TV, playing games, staring at the clouds..or learning vocabulary, reading books, learning new skills?
Sure we all need time to let our hair down (For those of you who still have it) and have distractions, but don’t get so caught up in those that you waste your potential growth time. It is easy to get into a habit of doing things and thereby learn to not recognize opportunities we may have. Maybe going to bed 30 minutes earlier…imagine the difference just 30 minutes would make. Not to just sleep longer, but imagine if you were to wake up 30 minutes earlier each day… many successful people start their day way before the sun rises and they don’t sit around just drinking coffee…they are meditating, planning (not in their heads but with a planner) they are exercising, they are praying, taking care of the loose ends that allows them to focus more on their day at hand. They are investing it wisely. How would 30 extra minutes at the beginning of YOUR day change things?
Similarly, Who are you investing your precious, irretrievable time with? Do they value your time as dearly as it is? Sometimes, it takes a while for people to understand the value of a time investment. So be careful you do not come under the brainwashing power of a time vampire. Someone who sucks the essence of life from your day and has no remorse for wasting your time. They talk about unrelated, unimportant issues, they distract you with idle talk and jibber jabber. And before you know it, you’ve lost count of how many seconds they squandered from you never to be seen again. With your best intentions, you have handed over to another person a chunk of your life you will never have again. Did they use to better themselves? Did they use it to improve their skills? Did they even recognize it as a gift you so graciously gave them?
Making 1% changes is a beautiful, wonderful wise use of your time and it is worth celebrating. However, there is NOTHING more damaging and wasteful than: Going backwards. If a car leaves Dallas to drive to Houston which is 4 hours away and then get a mere 30 minutes down the road when they realize they left something at home and have to turn around. That simple redirection of time has not cost them 30 minutes but an hour! And the farther you are (not just in mileage…maybe hours or days you have spent with someone) the more you stand to lose. Identify a Vampire and break from them ASAP. If the person is not growing or learning or applying the knowledge you share, it is foolish to continue pouring yourself into the other person.
Also…if you have a goal you are trying to meet or reach an achievement, and then you run in to a hindrance, don’t lose control and freak out and yell and scream because there is something in your way. Instead, look for a different path, a new technique, an alternate thought process. Change your perception of “problems” into “Challenges” that inspire you to find a way around your obstacle. If you see it as a “problem” then your mind thinks “I cannot continue” whereas, seeing things as a “challenge” inspires you to find a way around the issue…not come to a halt. When you learn to properly identify the situation, seeing things as a positively solved CHALLENGE rather than a Global Thermonuclear negative PROBLEM, then you are on the road to success!
Set a goal, follow a plan and stay focused. Be wise with your time, be wise with your perspective and abandon the old way of RUN, SHOOT, DIE, REPEAT.