30-Day Discipline Experiment – Day 19

Jul 19th, 2008

I love Brian Tracy.  I began listening to his audio tapes a couple of weeks ago while driving and I find myself backing up the CD repeatedly to catch again one of his many inspiring suggestions.  The series I’m listening to now is The Psychology of Achievement.  Even though it was published in 1984, it’s packed with wisdom. He is one of the best self-help authors I’ve read.  

Tonight I did a search of all things Brian Tracy and was not surprised to hit a gold mine of results.  Thought you might enjoy the fruits of my search:

Brian Tracy’s Web site

Brian Tracy–Article about Discipline

Brian Tracy videos on Youtube.com (tons to choose from)

Brian Tracy’s books at Amazon.com (new and used)

What I like about Brian Tracy’s stuff:

• he starts with the foundation
• he builds from the foundation
• he provides interesting examples
• he’s clear and he makes sense
• he gives homework
• he inspires action
• he gives you hope
• he speaks great wisdom about how to love people–especially your children

Anybody out there familiar with him? 

30-Day Discipline Experiment – Day 17

Jul 17th, 2008

Yay Cheryl!  Don’t you agree it’s time for me to congratulate myself for being disciplined and writing in my blog for 17 days straight!  Yay me.

An important part of reaching any goal is to acknowledge your successes.  Success breeds success.  You may not have to announce your successes publicly like this in a blog, but acknowledge them to yourself and take time to congratulate yourself.  Yay you!

And then do something fun as a reward.  My favorite fun thing after a long day or week of successes is to watch a movie.  And Ben Stiller is calling my name! 

30-Day Discipline Experiment – Day 16

Jul 16th, 2008

Resistance – who doesn’t experience it now and then.  Some people are chronic resisters. 

How do we deal with resistance to achieving something we really want?  I do it by being nonjudgmental with myself about it (when possible).  I also work with my goal to make it feel more compelling than my resistance.  I believe that we keep doing what we’ve been doing until something more compelling comes along. 

How can you make your goal more compelling?

• You can look underneath your goal to see what it is that you truly want.  When I say I want to do strength training, what’s underneath that…..why do I want that?  I want to be strong.  Why do I want that?  So that I can easily lift my groceries and do daily activities.  Why do I want that?  I want to be able to live independently and take care of myself.  I can keep going with this line of questioning until I go “bingo” that’s what I want!
• You can discuss your goal with supportive people like I have in this 30-day series and get their inspiration and input.
• You can visualize your life 1 year from now having achieved the goal and then imagine not having achieved the goal.  Eeew.
• You can continue to work with the goal, tweaking and refining it every day.  It very well may morph into a greater, more inspiring goal.  My strength training goal might morph into strength building for my body, mind, and spirit. 

If you have an illusive goal and would like support achieving it, I may know someone who can help you.  Susan Johnstone, a colleague of mine, specializes in helping people work through their resistance to achieving something they really want.  She’s got a coaching special going on now through the end of July–15 minutes of laser coaching for $15.  It might be worth that much to find out what’s been stopping you!  If you’re interested, you can contact Susan for more information.

30-Day Discipline Experiment – Day 15

Jul 15th, 2008

I’m discovering that setting and tracking goals is really helpful.  And I’m loving using Joe’s Goals (topic of my post yesterday).

As you may know I’ve been struggling with the goal of going to the gym.  I confessed my challenges with it on Day 8.  Several of you have given me interesting things to try. 

What I don’t like about going to the gym is a longer list than what I do like about going to the gym (the results I will get).  The only reason I “want” to go is  that I think it will be an environment for me to lift weights–something I do not enjoy but know will be fabulous for me.  So it’s still a “should” in my mind today.  How to work past this is my experiment right now.  I like experimenting–way more fun that “shoulding” on myself. 

Someone commented/noticed that I hadn’t made any checks on going to the gym in my Joe’s Goals chart posted yesterday so I thought, hey I know I’m making progress on that goal, why not change my goal from “going to the gym” to “making progress on going to the gym.”  That way I can continue to support my progress and feel good about it.  I don’t think goals motivate us if they don’t feel good.  When I changed the wording of my goal to focus on the progress, I felt really good about that goal.  Now I’m eager to track my progress on that new progress-oriented goal, and I’m eager to make a check mark tomorrow on the next stage of my progress (marking my workout days in my calendar).

Progress so far:  I went online and printed the schedule of classes and gym hours.  I read the bios of the personal trainers to see which one I might like to work with and I put the printout in my planner. 

Next steps:   schedule weekly gym visits in my planner, call and schedule a session with a personal trainer, check whether the gym bag I have in my car is still loaded with the things I need to be in it.

I made one more mind shift today about weight training, but I’ll tell you about that tomorrow. 

30-Day Discipline Experiment – Day 14

Jul 14th, 2008

Success is amped and ramped up when we set goals.  Yesterday several of us had the courage to set some public goals.  Today I want to share a very cool tool with you that will help you track your success with achieving your goal.  A subscriber shared this site with me the other day.

It’s called www.joesgoals.com.  It’s an amazing little program that doesn’t require a software download…so you don’t need to get permission from IT to use it at work.  You can set yourself up in a matter of seconds.  You can use this tool to set personal or professionals goals.  And it’s FREE – one of our favorite words!

Here’s a description of Joe’s Goals from the web site.

What is Joe’s Goals?
Joe’s Goals is a simple yet powerful tool to make tracking your goals the easiest part of accomplishing them. Use the simple single page interface to setup daily goals and track them with just a click. Watch your daily score to gage your success and use negative goals (or vices) to confront and overcome bad habits that finally need to get the boot. Share your success with your friends and family or post your personal score badge to your blog or MySpace page. Add as many Goals as you want and update them all from a single interface.

Here’s a screen shot of my goals page:

You can add journal entries for each day too–see the bottom line?  I called my journal “Healthy, Happy Living.”  Neato!  Try it. 

Tracking our goals takes our commitment (and discipline) to the next level.  Ready to do that? 

Click on the blue box below to see my goals.  You can root around and see how this tool works!  How’s THAT for public goals! 

30-Day Discipline Experiment – Day 13

Jul 13th, 2008

OK now it’s time to get serious.  I’ve been enjoying playing with my idea of discipline, now I’m ready to choose several things to be disciplined about and track my progress on for the remainder of this 30-day experiment.  Here’s my “for sure” list:

• Go to the gym – at least 2 times a week
• Clean house before the weekend – so I can be free to do other things
• Complete tax project by the end of the month
• File papers by the end of the month
• Continue with my “no complaints” challenge–BTW I’m doing well with this!  Yay Cheryl.

I think that’s enough

What’s your short list?

30-Day Discipline Experiment – Day 12

Jul 12th, 2008

Remember on Day 5, I wrote about having the discipline to get tasks done during the week so I could have a day (or two) completely free each weekend?  That’s been working well.  Friday morning I cleaned my house and got it “weekend ready” so I feel comfortable spending the entire weekend screwing around if I want to.  And of course, I do want to.

Today a friend and I drove around Kansas looking for small town surprises–restaurants, antique shops, and great Kansas scenery (Flint Hills, grain elevators, cattle, etc.).  What a fabulous day.  I feel regenerated.  We struck it rich (entertainment value) when we stumbled on Scranton, KS.  What a great little town–loaded with antique shops–a mecca!  Breakfast was really good too.

I am planning to keep working on having the discipline to work effectively so that I can play on a regular basis. 

Now it’s time for a movie.

30-Day Discipline Experiment – Day 11

Jul 11th, 2008

In numerology number 11 is all about mastery.  I can’t say that I’ve mastered discipline, but this experiment has led me to many interesting discoveries about myself and about life.  As my discoveries become more personal, I’m confronted with how best to share my journey.

What I can say is that having a singular focus like this 30-day experiment is having a dramatic impact on my mood, events, and insights.  People and ideas are coming into my life providing me with pieces of the discipline puzzle–even if the pieces don’t appear to be related.  My friend Brenda provided a very important piece about looking at life through the lens of love–sending love and being love. I have heard about the famous book Love is the Killer App – and though I haven’t read it – it seems like a good idea to love people at work.  Let’s give it a try.  When I visited Tim Sander’s website to check out his book, I noticed that his new book is intriguing:  Saving the World at Work.  I think that’s a good idea too.  Work needs to be transformed.  It’s time.  I think you’ll find the video on that page informative (it loads automatically).

I’m not sure how sure how any of this relates to discipline, but i do know that it relates.   It’s part of the journey.  How is your journey going?

30-Day Discipline Experiment – Day 10

Jul 10th, 2008

I’ve really enjoyed writing these daily posts and reading your comments.  Thank you so much.

One person who commented reminded me of a Complaint Free World.  I knew that having a bracelet would support me in my discipline to stop complaining.  I ordered 15 bracelets (purple!) and they arrived the other day.  Am looking for ideas for giving them to people who might really enjoy the experience of wearing them–people from this list in particular. 

Here’s how the bracelet works.  If you complain, you simply move it from one wrist to the other.  And back and forth all day.  Even if you’re thinking critically but not saying it, you get to change the bracelet to the other wrist.  It’s a great awareness tool and feels more like a game than like self-judgment or a punishment. 

Got any ideas for a contest or something?  I would like to give them to people who really want to make this a personal goal.

My Secret Weapon: My Spy!

Jul 9th, 2008

I’ve been worrying about my parents taking their medication, sticking to a healthy routine, etc.  I finally stopped long enough to call Wayne–the man who takes care of my parents every morning.  This is part of the system I set up before I left them on their own.   He’s getting along well with them, taking them on errands, making sure their pill boxes are full, making recommendations about getting rid of clutter (family can’t get away with this!), having conversations with my mother, etc. 

It’s working out really well.  They pay him for a couple of hours every morning which stretches into several more hours if they need to get groceries, do errands, or go to the doctor. 

I asked him questions about the various things I was concerned about and he’s on it!  My advice if you/your parents are in the same spot–get a spy!  He’s our “inside man.”  And he genuinely cares about them which is great. 

I know I’ll sleep well tonight!