Posts tagged energy
A good follow-up for our Managing with Aloha next-stepping and value-verbing discussions recently, for both practices are about higher energy action.
Tony Schwartz of The Energy Project offers some good, common sense advice with this Master Plan. You’ve likely heard this stuff before, but has it become your habit? As we often revisit on Talking Story: You are Your Habits, so Make ‘em Good!
Here’s the problem we face, every day of our lives. Nearly everything that generates enduring value requires effort, focus, and even some discomfort along the way. At the same time, we’re deeply wired to avoid pain, which the body reads as mortally dangerous, and to move toward pleasure, the more immediate the better. We’re also exposed to more temptation than ever. The world is literally at our fingertips, a few keystrokes away. It’s forever beckoning us, like the Sirens singing to Odysseus, who lashed himself to the mast of his ship to resist their call.
The sirens sing to us, too: Have the dessert. Skip the workout. Put off the hard work. Surf the web. Check your email. Indulge your whims. Settle for the easy way out.So how do we take back control of our lives? What follows are the key moves we can make. It’s not all or none. More is better, but each one will help… (click to blog)
He then ends with that values-based Managing with Aloha message we love!
Above all else, it’s critical to ground yourself in deeply held values. Knowing what you stand for is a uniquely powerful fuel for behavior, especially when the going gets tough, and the temptation is to take the easy route. If you’re clear about who you want to be in any given situation, non-negotiably, the songs of the Sirens aren’t so alluring.
I love good questions. Received this one yesterday:
“What is ‘gainful employment’ — how should we be defining it?”
Well, the word ‘should’ sends up red flags for me, and I prefer to answer with another question, not to dodge the issue, but to better frame it: How do you want to define it? What can our gainful employment be about?
I offer you a strategy in this Talking Story post:
