True or False: Questions for Your Goal-Oriented Self

The more attempts you make at a goal that are successful, the more luck can be ruled out as a factor in your success.

If you need other people to do certain things to achieve your goal, it’s important to get them on the same page.

The command and control form of management is suitable only in crises and emergencies; in normal business operations, it is better to set goals, ask what support is needed, and check in on progress; also, it is important to recognize there is more than one correct way to achieve any goal.

Managers who recognize that how they say things is just as important as what they say, know something that managers who are not aware of that don't, simply that careless negativity can take even the highest performer’s eye off the goal.

A manager can shake someone’s confidence and morale, and not even be aware of it; many managers routinely shake their staff’s confidence, without ever being aware they did. Since this is detrimental to goal-focus, managers need to be more self-aware about their words and actions. 

Managers who miss or cancel meetings with their staff make them feel devalued and unimportant. The result of this is time wasted on nursing psychological wounds, instead of time spent focused on goals.

Most employees need to be trusted to do a good job; Controlling, fearful, and untrusting managers who do not trust their staff, who do not give them freedom and responsibility, who criticize them at every opportunity, and monitor their every move, cause goal-damaging morale losses.

Even high performers can’t achieve their goals without the right support. New managers (and busy, unavailable managers) who leave their staff high and dry, and without sufficient support to do their jobs, will get less than the best goal performance, even from their highest performers.

Managers should be given retention goals; including the goal of retaining staff who contributed to getting a company or a team to where it is today.

True or false - there's lots to think about when it comes to goals.

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Dear Reader,

If you've read this through and through, do let me know if there is any point on which you don’t agree with me. I'd love to know your reasons. Also, if you have anything to add to this list, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for reading and seeeeeeeee you next weeeeeeeeek!

True or False: Questions about the choices you make (Your Selective Self)

Your choices are born of your unique struggles and joys, your unique deprivations and privileges, and your unique opportunities and challenges.

Some choices you make without thinking. Some choices are a result of the family you were born into,  your peers, your community, and your culture. You value the choices you have made freely (based on your self-awareness, knowledge, experience, reflected-on advice, insight, wisdom, and maturity) more than those other types of choices.

Wrong choices contain hard lessons; and the most wrong choices contain the hardest lessons. Wrong choices have value for your life.  They usually guide your future choices.

Your choices will become sacred to you if they are the right choices; any choices that appear unholy to you (immediately, on in looking back), are, or were, the wrong choices.

You will regret some of the wrong choices you make, when it's too late to do anything about them.

That's because some choices and losses are subtle, and will be caught in the net of your wisdom only when sufficient time has passed, your emotions have subsided, and you have developed the maturity to think wisely about those choices and losses. Maturity is hard-won, and a lifetime's work.

Likewise, you may also regret some of the wrong choices you make, only much later in life, when you are older.

That's because the net of our wisdom expands as we get older, and is one of the gifts of getting older.

You can have regrets about copying your peers, about making hasty decisions, about not being kinder, about taking unnecessary risks, about not paying enough attention to people or things that matter, about not being serious enough, about not being persistent enough, or character regrets such as not being truthful or honest, or not doing the right things.

Even if some of these regrets come only after the fact, or much later in life, they still have value.

The realization of your wrong choices enables you to grow as a person.

It also enables you to clear the air, make amends, and make things better, should you choose to do so. And you should choose to do so.

Choosing the right way or ways to deal with your wrong choices by making things better, will strengthen you physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

Choosing the wrong way or ways to deal with your wrong choices, such as wallowing in regrets, guilt. self-pity, victimhood, or resentment, will weaken you physically emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

You have to avoid what weakens you and move towards what strengthens you.

When you decide to let go of regrets, guilt. self-pity, victimhood, or resentment, and replace them with positive thoughts and positive action, it will start the brushstrokes of a brand new picture of your life.

Where there was only the dark sky of your negative thoughts, feelings and actions, it will unleash the light of one firefly and then another, and then another, until hopefully you can see the flickers of a thousand fireflies (Thank you David for your firefly themed painting).

This is also true about dealing with life's adversities and tragedies.

The right choices will strengthen you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

The wrong choices will weaken you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Simple things chosen joyfully and ethically are better than golden things chosen in an unwise way.

Joy, bitterness, resentfulness, jealousy, are all a choice.

True or false:  There's lots to think about when it comes to choices.

Suggested Next Reading: The River of Life

And a quote from Carl Jung:  "I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

Somebody Else's Child Died

Somebody's Child Died.

All we did was say OMG to the senseless act of violence that took their life.

Somebody Else's Child Died.

And all we did was say "Again?!!!"

Somebody Else's Child Died.

All we did was say, "glad they caught the b….."

Somebody Else's Child Died.

All we did was say, "they should lock up all those crazy people"

Somebody Else's Child Died.

And we have gotten so used to it, we watch or read the news, and then go about our day, opening our Mother's Day gifts and enjoying our Mother's Day lunches.

Something that Somebody Else's Child Who Died will not be able to do.

A child of God, made in the image of God.

But oh well, they were, after all, Somebody Else's Child.

___________X___________________X_______________________X

Mothers, we (our predecessors) have done it before - Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Mothers, we can do it again - create, become, or join a force for Mothers Against Guns.

 

True of False: Questions for Your Collaborative Self (applicable to all the groups and teams you are in)

The more people with a service heart and a service heart in a group or team, the better the group or team - everyone in a group or team should have a servant heart and a service heart.

There may be shy people or introverted people in a group or team, there may be reserved people in a group or team, but there should never be any isolated or disconnected people in a group or team. Everyone should feel connected. Nobody should feel they are on the outside.

There should be no favoritism in a group or team. No "I'm better than you" or "Only my ideas count". Everyone should feel equally valued.

Interactions between two group or team members should leave the other person uplifted, not diminished. There should be no talking down to, no teasing or ridiculing, and no shaming. Further, all group or team interactions should be warm and not cold.

The only kind of competition teams should indulge in amongst themselves is friendly competition. There should be no toxic popularity contests. There should be no toxic ability contests. There should be no toxic power contests.

Everyone in a group or team should have a voice and be attentively listened to. Attentive listening strengthens groups and teams.

Everyone in a group or team should feel that they walk on water. If some have work secrets, tribal knowledge, or privileged information, and others don't, this is an unfair advantage. Those without the knowledge and information should be given the knowledge and information as quickly as possible. The goal should be not to have some group or team members feel knowledgeable and capable, but have all group or team members feel knowledgeable and capable. This typically requires patience and humility on the part of those with the early advantage. Even more so, if they are team leads or managers. In time, the advantage should be erased. This is a good thing for the group or team.

True or false: there's a lot to think about when it comes to your Cooperative Self.

Suggested next reading - a piece from 2018:

How to experience more job satisfaction:

And a quote from Carl Jung -

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart."