Analysis of two quotes that will spark your career and life!

This week the analysis of the two quotes presented last week:
"Judge less and live more!"
"I don't believe in failure, only the lack of action."


The two quotes are really quite simply pointing in the same direction.  How much time do you spend focused on what is going on around you instead of your dream, your career, your life?  We tend to judge what is going on around us instead of focusing on what we are seeking.  You have heard it before that if you believe you can achieve anything, you will achieve it.  Well, stop for a second and see what you have achieved.  We need to break down the quotes and see how they in fact reflect the reality of success.

Energy is the key component to everything you do.  It takes energy to think, eat, run, scream, write, use the computer, breath, to do anything.  When we spend our time "judging" others, we are expending energy that could be used to help us achieve our goals.  Why spend energy focusing on what you feel others are doing "wrong", when you can spend your energy focused on doing what is "right"?   Many successful individuals throughout history believed you should not waste the"gray matter" of your brain by memorizing items you could easily find in a book, newspaper, from someone else or in today's environment, the internet.   “Never memorize something that you can look up.”  Albert Einstein.  Why expend great amounts of energy seeking answers when you can quickly look up or just ask?  Why not save that energy to create a solution to what you are working on?   Look at your career.  You work with individuals and of course will most likely become frustrated with them from time to time.  You can't directly control them or their attitude, but you can affect them.  What do I mean by this?  Your actions, attitude and communication can directly affect them and in a sense "control" their future behavior.  If you respond negatively to the individual or "judge" them in this manner, then their response will be a negative response or at least they will continue the behavior that is bothering you.  Change your approach.  Try responding to that behavior with a  supportive approach and a questioning approach and see what happens.  When you "hit the ball back in their court", then they have to play it.

I see this all the time in action.  I had three conversations today with individuals asking, "What Now?" to their individual issues.  In all the cases there was a common theme that dealt with the issue of others' and their actions that were causing distractions in the lives of these three individuals.  In the conversations, I was hearing the "judging" concept being communicated.  There was so much energy being consumed by the complaining, focusing and giving power to the actions and comments made by others, than there was seeking the outcomes they desired.  One definition of "to judge" is to form an opinion.  ( According to http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/judge : to form an estimate or evaluation of; especially :  to form a negative opinion about <shouldn't judge him because of his accent>   to hold as an opinion :  guess, think <I judge she knew what she was doing> )  Here is a simple truth about us humans, we are quick to form an opinion without looking at all the facts or factors involved.  Why do students in schools act different than each other?  Well, what do they bring with them from home or the environment they live in?  How can we truly "judge" or form an opinion about someone without knowing all the "baggage" they are carrying?  Listen at your place of work to all the complaining and back talk.  I'm sure I have discussed this before.  "Did you see what so and so did?"  It can get overwhelming and begin to consume your use of your time.  You become so involved with the "gossip" and judging, that you fail to complete your tasks and perform to your expected performance. You take work home, you work late, you get stressed and this overflows into the other aspects of your life.  Stop.  Don't spend the time judging, spend the time living and focusing on the positive that life and others have to offer.  Try giving positive feedback when someone who frustrates you does something wonderful instead of reinforcing their negative behavior by judging.

We create failure in our lives as those around us only reinforce it.  We tend to sped so much energy blaming and pointing instead of looking at the piece of truth in someone's criticism of us.  Remember that others' perceptions are their realities.  If they perceive us as this or that, it becomes their reality.  Just as we perceive someone as something and we "judge".   Look at the energy we spend trying to find blame in situations instead of accepting that something failed and we need to fix it.  Our politicians are a great example of this concept.  They are so busy blaming each other for the failures, that they fail to spend energy on fixing the problems.  Look at history and you will see that the problems have stayed the same and only the technology has changed.  If we would learn to truly find the reality of situations and others, we could then solve most of our issues.  We would more easily collaborate and solve issues instead of creating more issues.  Look at meetings.  Meetings can become a huge waste of energy and time.  We have a meeting to discuss an issue.  Then from that meeting we create committees and then more meetings.  From those come more meetings, committees, presentations and them more meetings.  So, we then see failure due to the lack of productive action.  This is just like our careers and lives.  We dream or see this, then we contemplate with ourselves and others, then we doubt our abilities, then we lack trust, and then we accept it as that's the way it is.  Ok, lack of action just produced failure.  I took over a job where there had been six different leaders ahead of me in five years.  I came in with a vision and looked at the data.  I had to look at what was right for the good of the organization and decided I would rather go down in flames doing what was right instead of doing what had been done before.  Guess what, I had five years of leadership in that organization until I decided it was time for me to leave.  Was it easy?  No.  Was it right? I would hope so as performance and results improved.  Was it perfect? No, as nothing ever is.  My friends.  Create action to create success. I work with so many individuals with great ideas, but they fail to act on them.  They don't act because they assume they will lose their job, get reprimanded, fail, or who knows what.  Guess what?  I had failures, successes and even caused some times that I maybe got reprimanded.  Through it all, I made a positive difference.  Begin to take action in your life and career and see the results.  Is there risk?  Yes.  There is risk in everything you do.  When you brush your teeth, you could choke.  Who knows?  Decide to act instead of react and watch success take over your career and life.  

Simplify your career and life.  What to do now?  Set up a process where you review the week ahead.  Create a priority list of what you need to get done each day.  Look at those individuals or situations that are causing you stress.  Instead of judging, look for solutions that you can use during the week.  Maybe you can create some opportunities to help direct them to find answers they are seeking.  What if you took fifteen minutes in the  beginning of the week and had a conversation with that person on what you wanted to accomplish that week?  Could you put in their mind where your focus is and alleviate interruptions?  Just a thought.  Share your thoughts, ideas, expectations and provide a road map of where you are headed and this will illustrate your action and alleviate failures.  Trust me.  Ensure that you know yourself where you are headed and set a positive tone to the journey ahead.  You will begin to observe what is coming and become proactive instead of reactive.  Actions speak louder than words, so show the world your actions and they will respond.  Be positive and expect positive results.  Take some risks and accept the small failures in order to create the huge successes.  Trust me as it works.

Feel free to contact me and share your issues and I will quickly give you a simple solution to try.  That's my challenge!