this is how i’m doing: in case you were wondering…

While reading another book (I can’t seem to read one at a time) I found myself drifting off in thought and ended up with this statement: “What I do today will open or close doors for me in the future.”  I was reading a chapter titled “Inspiring a Shared Vision” in Kouzes and Posner’s book “The Leadership Challenge”.  It’s a great book even if you’re not interested in leadership.  By the way, you are;  you just might not know it yet.

The day I decided to start running again in April, I opened the door to the level of fitness I have today.  If you run, you’ve heard it before;  “Oh, I could NEVER run that far” or “I can’t even run ONE mile” as if to say that runners were born with super-human abilities that enable them to do things the “average” person cannot.  If you don’t run, I’m probably talking about you. That day I opened the door to running my first 10k in August.  That day, and every day since, I have been gradually opening (and sometimes closing) the door to running my first half-marathon in December and my first marathon in February.

Every day I have to make a decision, “Do I want to run Boston or not?”  I never really phrase it that way;  it usually sounds like “Am I going to run today?  Am I going to make sure I eat enough today?”  I’ve started to see that running doesn’t have to be my obsession to reach my seemingly impossible goals.  I just have to make some trade-offs.  Instead of sleeping in, what if I went for a run?  What if I went for a run instead of spending the evening watching TV and surfing the net?  Those little trade-offs (which will eventually develop into habits) will start to add up to some serious mileage which in turn will open the door to more satisfying finishes on race day and eventually take me all the way to Boston… and beyond?

Kouzes and Posner quote Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard who says “the human being is the only animal that thinks about the future.”  I’ve tried to get into running before with marginal results.  I focused on what I had done in high school and college, but never really thought about where I wanted to go.  This resulted in half-hearted efforts which lasted a few weeks.  Now, with my eyes on a seemingly unrealistic goal, I’ve run farther and faster than I ever have before and have the motivation to continue to climb this mountain.  Ziglar says “the only way to coast is downhill.”  What are your goals?  What are your dreams?  What do you want to be when you grow up?  YOU get to play an active role in shaping your future!  What are you doing today that will open doors for you in the future?  What are you doing today that is closing the door on a dream or a goal?

Oh, and I set a new 5k PR today!  I ran the Tyler Half/5k today which makes me 6 for 6 on running a race every month.  It wasn’t my goal of 21 minutes, but at 22:43 22:38, (waiting on the official results) I was just quick enough to sneak in a second place finish for my age group.

It’s the only way to dream.

I’m a bit of a visionary; I have a habit of taking ordinary ideas and turning them into impossible dreams. “But what if we COULD” has become my mantra. My problem is on the execution and follow through which have been poor at best. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered my problem was that I don’t have any goals. When I had the motivation to go, I didn’t have any direction and my efforts ended miserably soon after I began. So, over the past few weeks I’ve come up with a list of goals I’d like to accomplish.

1. Become a College Professor (currently my dream job would be to teach at SFA).
2. Run the Boston Marathon
3. Learn to read Greek, Italian, and German
4. Become a Millionaire by the time I’m 50
5. …I don’t have to share ALL of my goals

All of these goals have varying levels of “impossibility” which just means that they are worthwhile. The only way they are completely impossible is if I give up and say “I can’t do it”. I’m too young (and too thin) to not achieve these goals.

Each of these goals are specific enough to motivate me to change my behavior to achieve them. A goal “to get in shape” is far to general and rarely produces any results.

Each of these goals reflect more on who I’d like to BE that what I’d like to DO in life. I don’t want to have a million dollars, I want to be financially responsible and if I am REALLY responsible with my money, over the next 24 years I can’t see how I wouldn’t be a millionaire (also, $1000 per month invested in a mutual fund averaging 12% over 20 years would be about a million — compound interest baby!).

If I fail at any of these goals, I will most certainly be a better person for trying. If I can’t run a 3 hour 10 minute marathon (to QUALIFY for Boston), I’ll still be in excellent shape. If I don’t have a million by the time I’m 50, I’ll be out of debt, have a paid for house and be able to pay cash when my kids go off to college. If I can’t read the manual to my Italian sports car, well, I’ll have an Italian sports car right?

I’m finding (through reading and experience) that we are MUCH more effective at even the smallest of things if we establish goals and develop strategies to meet those goals. Every day strategies, or tiny goals that can be accomplished each day will propel us (slowly) towards our bigger goals.

What are your goals? It’s okay if you didn’t have any before reading this — but you’d only be hindering yourself if you choose to not establish any now.

This statement:

“Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.” - Bennis and Nanus

Just a thinking exercise; no research or citations needed on this one — but they are always welcome

I want to be like Zig Ziglar. Partially because I think it would be cool to be an alliteration (I could use my middle name and go by Jeff James…) but mostly because he has made it his life goal to be in the business of helping OTHER people succeed in life. Zig Ziglar says “you can have everything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want”. Isn’t THAT the truth? I tried this out in a small way several months ago. The more I comment on my friend’s blogs, the more THEY comment on MY blog! Imagine what would happen if we applied this philosophy to the rest of life?

The LIFE! Staff Creed:

“I shall pass through this world but once,
Any good therefore, that I can do,
Or any kindness that I can show to any human being,
LET ME DO IT NOW.
Let me not defer or neglect it,
For I shall not pass this way again.”

LIFE! (Leadership Is For Everyone) is a company created by one of my former professors at SFA (I got a B in his class, if you were wondering).  In November I had the opportunity of joining him and his staff in facilitating a leadership retreat for high school Key Club students called “Weekend of A Lifetime”.  I walked away from that weekend energized (possibly from the caffeine)  and excited to see how I could implement some of the things that I had learned into my job as an advisor.  To be honest, I hadn’t though much of it since November, but as I was flipping through the material I acquired that weekend I came across the LIFE! Staff creed.  I liked it so much I thought I’d share it with you all.  It encourages me in two areas that I struggle with - immediacy and intentionality.   It’s much better than my current philosophy of “better late than never” — in 2008 I want to be more intentional and live more in the moment.

I’ve got two more retreats this year (Jan and Feb).  I’ll be sure to share with you any other nuggets of wisdom I pick up.