effort Archives - The Goalden Lady

#TBT: How To Change A Bad Past Into A Bright Future

Judging your future by your past impedes your progress and stifles your potential. If you have control over the possibilities, why not stretch and see how far you can go?

What is holding you back at this moment? Is there something you want to do, but that invisible voice keeps giving you excuses and telling you it’s not possible?

We’ve all experienced the doubts and fear that creeps into our minds, convincing us that it won’t work. All it takes is a few seconds of listening and we decide to play it safe, without even putting forth an effort.

Effort and failure is what carries you to success. Giving up because it didn’t work the last time you tried, is not the way to go – get out of your past and take action towards a better future.

The Past Is Your Teacher

Learning from the past can be a good blueprint for life. There are unfortunate things that happened, which you don’t care to experience anymore. This is helpful when making quick decisions.

Things like not putting your hand on a hot stove, or wearing a seat belt while riding in a car – those things can prevent significant harm or save your life altogether. Because of this, you depend on your past to help you in the future.

All of the various situations you experience in the past can contribute to how you live your life, currently. Some good, some bad, but it’s up to you to determine how it allows you to move forward.

The present is always happening. Your mind is constantly having thoughts and reacting to stimuli. Your past has a tremendous influence on each moment, as it occurs. How does this affect you in your everyday life?

The Past Doesn’t Decide Your Future

Sometimes, you can let your past dictate your present and future. Unconsciously, you can hold your present hostage by reacting with what you know, as opposed to doing something different to change the outcome.

If you had a bad business deal in the past, it doesn’t mean that every business deal will be bad. If you failed a science test, it doesn’t mean that you’ll fail every science test in the future.

Just because something went wrong the first time around doesn’t mean it will go wrong forever, whenever it happens. When it’s in your control to change the outcome, think of how you can adjust the details to make it work.

Turn the hot stove off, instead of touching it. Get past references before doing a business deal. Attempt to study in a different place before the science test. It is your responsibility to build your future by correcting the mistakes of the past.

How Analysis Paralysis Occurs

Analysis paralysis is a real obstacle. It’s when you overthink or consume so much information, you end up not doing anything at all. It’s better to proceed and make a mistake, because you learn what not to do and can make another attempt. Sitting still and not doing anything because of your fear of what might happen, is not effective.

Researching information is necessary for making decisions, but if you give yourself too many options, you’ll end up doing nothing. You’re so full of different choices, you become unable to make a move. The confusion alone becomes the new issue that needs to be conquered.

Realize that consulting with your past has it’s benefits. If anything, it should assist you in moving forward more strategically, putting you in a place to win. The rear view mirror is used to make better decisions, not to see how terribly wrong things might turn out.

It’s also important to note that you shouldn’t live in your past. Get whatever information and logic you need in order to make intentional moves, but don’t get stuck there. Some people will stay in the past a little too long and begin to overthink the outcome and hinder their growth. This is a common path to analysis paralysis.

Intentional Decisions

When thinking through a situation, you normally go back to your own understanding and experience, but your experience isn’t the only way to creating a definite solution.

If you grew up with parents who were drunk all of your life, you can make one of two decisions. Your experience will either teach you to be a drunk parent, or it will teach you that you don’t want to be a drunk parent. You may have experienced it, but it doesn’t mean you have to follow through in that particular way.

Make intentional decisions. Use your past experiences to make calculated moves in the future. It doesn’t make sense to make the same mistakes repeatedly, especially if you know better.

You can change your outlook on life by making forward-thinking choices. Allow your past to guide you, but don’t let it drive you down the same road that leads to nowhere. Let it give you the boost you need to make more intelligent and constructive choices. Everyone has a past – don’t let yours define you.

#BeGoalden

Using Your Time Wisely

Time management is not a ‘one size fits all’ type of thing. Everyone is different, so we have to figure out what works best for each of us.

Everyone doesn’t do their best work in the morning. Everyone doesn’t work well after a full meal. Weekends are precious to some because that‘s their family time. Others see the weekend as a time to do uninterrupted, quality work.

As you can see, time management plays a role in how efficiently you do your work. How do you know what works best for you?

Self Awareness

You must know who you are and how you work best. This means you need to know your strengths and weaknesses. It will take trial and error to figure out the best times to do certain things.

When is the best time for you to tinker with your invention? Is it when the kids are up or when they are asleep? Is it early evening or late evening? Do you generate your best ideas while driving to work or in the shower? The most important thing is to be honest with yourself because you are aiming for the best results for productivity.

I find it hard to write early in the morning. When I write early in the morning, I struggle. My mind is chasing what I need to do throughout the day and I have no focus. Some writers do their best work early in the morning.

By paying attention to how my body and mind responds to different environments and time, I can determine what works

best for me. My best time to write is mid-afternoon. I don’t know why, but that’s when my focus is strong and my words flow.

Knowing that my best time to be productive is mid-afternoon, I’m able to use my time wisely and schedule everything else around it. We can’t control time, but we can create a plan and use every minute to our benefit.

Being able to make the best use of your time will take some effort. People waste time when they don’t know exactly what they’re doing. Some people think they have all the time in the world, so they don’t plan – they play everything by ear. Everyone has a different perspective.

To use time to your advantage, become self aware – know what you do and when you do it. This could possibly take weeks, maybe even months to discover, but it’s worth the effort. When you’re self aware, you end up doing more constructive and intentional work.

Once you figure out what works best for you, your plan can move forward. You’ve mastered the time of day, now, you have to do the work.

Dedication

What does dedication have to do with time management you ask?

At this point, you’ve figured out the best time of day (or night) to do your best work. Now, you have to align your dedication with that time of day.

Doing your work at the same time, everyday (or whatever your schedule calls for) is dedication. You are bringing the same energy and motivation to the table to give your highest effort.

Progress ensues and you’re making improvement that you can see. You keep going nonstop for days and months because you’re dedicated.

That should be easy – normally, whatever time of day that works well for you is the same time you have the energy and willingness to do your best work. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

An excerpt from Book 3 of the “Help! I’m Stuck” series.

#BeGoalden

Live Your Life In ‘Real Time’

The concept of ‘real time’ is doing something as it happens or at the moment it occurs.

It seems like we live in ‘real time,’ but most of us really don’t. How can you not live in ‘real time’ while you are actually living?

Some people put things off, therefore, real time is delayed time. Procrastination at it’s best.

For people who never have enough time to exercise or eat right or spend time with their kids, etc., that’s absolutely not true.

You can find time – it’s always there. What you want to do, you’ll find time for- you can make time for anything.

Understandably, when you’re at work, you can’t just stop and do the things you want to do – but what about those moments when you can?

When you’re at home and you’re eating a bag of chips, your mind says, “Maybe I should eat an apple…”. In ‘real time’ you would put down the chips and eat the apple, but instead, you choose to ignore that thought.

That’s how living in ‘real time’ works.

When you’re binge-watching your favorite show and you think, “I need to write an outline for my paper…” stop watching it and create the outline for your paper. That’s ‘real time’ living.

We all know what we should do in out minds, but we seem to make the choice to ignore those hints. When we see others who are successful, we complain, “I could be successful like that, but I didn’t have time.”

The difference between you and them is that they listened to those mindful hints and applied it in ‘real time’. They acted upon those thoughts in ‘real time’.

They didn’t say, “Let me finish eating this ice cream first, then I’ll eat healthy,” or “I’m gonna sleep in – it’ll be there when I wake up, it’s not going anywhere.”

As you can see, living in ‘real time’ takes discipline and effort. Sometimes, we’d rather do what we want to do, rather than what we need to do.

Living in ‘real time’ accomplishes goals. You can’t be lazy and expect to achieve what you want – it takes ‘real time’ habits.

When you think it, do it – that’s all there is to it. Before you binge-watch your favorite show, get all of the ‘real time’ tasks and responsibilities out of the way, first. Then you can enjoy your shows with a sense of completion and fulfillment.

Besides…it’s not going anywhere.

#BeGoalden