What do you think of January?
Strange question, I know.
January is a month of reflection and new starts. And on the surface, that’s a good thing. It’s good to refresh and reset to get ready for the new year ahead, right?
Be careful though, what gets you excited in January can leave you feeling defeated in December.
The flood of do this and do that advice can quickly wear thin.
The inspiration for this post came from one of those articles about success. You’ve seen them, they could even be more plentiful this month than all the political banter. It’s possible.
You’ve heard me rank on the success junkies before. This guy was a classic.
The writer defined success as becoming a millionaire.
The piece was about his simple formula for success in life.
e = mc2 is a simple formula, his included over twenty factors.
The thing is, he entirely missed the point of success. Any wisdom he shared, he shared unwittingly. I had to turn it inside out, shake it vigorously, smash the bugs and remove a whole lotta hype and canned internet-style platitudes.
Stripped free of the same old power mantras and the rest of the usual advice, he actually managed to get some of it right.
He just wasn’t quite there yet in his understanding of what might really matter.
I could imagine him sitting there in his coffee shop, all wide-eyed, still in awe of the possibilities… sharing his insight with the world. But I’m not so sure he has taken enough trips around the sun to qualify him for writing such an article.
Where would you find me in this achievement space? I’m in the camp that says success is any standard you set for yourself. You decide what’s right for you. What fits you. Period. It’s not a fame thing and it’s not a fortune thing.
Here are the pieces I picked up off the floor after my virtual shakedown…
- Surround yourself with good people and build quality relationships.
- Waste as little time as possible.
- Carve out a few minutes every day for focused, creative thinking.
- Read a lot.
- Get plenty of sleep.
- Exercise.
It’s not bad, is it? See, there was redeeming value in his post.
But let’s dig a little deeper now…
- Surround yourself with good people and build quality relationships. – No doubt, this is sound advice. All the big icons espouse some version of this. Here’s the missing link… It too often sounds like “go hang out with impressive people and they’ll impart their wisdom upon you.” No. No. No. First, you’ve got to be someone they’ll want to hang out with. Start where you are, with who you are, and become a good human. Contribute first… the rest will come.
- Waste as little time as possible. Sound advice again, right? Not so fast. It seems like every treatise on the subject has you striving for super-human productivity. Exploit every ticking minute of your life. The problem is just that— we’re humans. We require down time. Down time is not wasted time. It’s that simple. We’re simply not capable of that standard. You can only cut so many corners until it catches up with you. Stop trying to become a machine. The bots will be here soon enough.
I use this quote often. I really believe it’s one to remember for hyperconnected living—
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
– Bertrand Russell, British Philosopher
- Carve out a few minutes every day for focused, creative thinking. This one he got right. Old-school corporate America continues to suppress creative thinking in the workplace. Don’t think… just do what you’re told. It begins in our schools, where they prepare us for work in the real world. Creativity is well and good until more practical and rational approaches are introduced. The interesting thing is, organizations that are crushing it these days are those that embrace and develop creative thinking.
- Read a lot. Read. Read. Read. More solid advice that fewer and fewer of us make time for. If you read at average speed and comprehension, you can read twelve books a year spending just fifteen minutes a day. Reading equals learning and learning equals knowledge. Browsing and scrolling do not count. That’s not learning. Let’s call it what it is… junk food for the brain. Read the good stuff. Reading it the great equalizer.
- Get plenty of sleep. The importance of sleep keeps coming up over and over again. My favorite metaphor is that sleep in nature’s defragmenter for your brain. For Mac people, defragmenting is the clean-up process for a sluggish drive (I mean abnormally sluggish). If that doesn’t inspire you to stop cutting your sleep short in exchange for your worldly pursuits, try this one… recent studies have shown an inverse relationship between sleep and dementia. Sleep keeps your brain from turning to mush.
- Exercise. That’s a verb in this context! When you’ve got all that pent-up stress and tension inside, you’re not a nice person. Burn it off for goodness sakes. You’ve got to get your ya-yas out and keep them out. Exercise is the best way to do that. Possibly the only way. Oh, it supposedly makes you healthier too. But, then again, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. Can you?
I’m hoping you’ll have a rockin’ New Year!
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Be untucked this week…
Copyright © 2019 Jeff Meister
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