Tag: motivation

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Make sure you have a Goal

Imagine you are playing in a basketball game and the score is tied at halftime. You and your team make some adjustments and you are going to go out and execute better in the second half and win the game. Big problem, someone has taken down the rim from your goal. The other team still has their rim but you only have a backboard. What would happen? Would your team finish the game?

Life is not a game. It is very serious.  The basketball analogy is silly, but it can be very meaningful. Our time is designed to be used while we are alive. Just as playing a game of basketball with no rim will not work; neither will a life without meaningful goals. In order for activity to useful in any matter, it has to be used to accomplish something of value.

For most things we do, we use default goals that have been ingrained in us as children. Most people do not talk about these goals but without them, life would be very confusing.

Common Goals:

Eat 3 times a day
Go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning
Go to work in the morning and return at quitting time
Watch a television show from the start and expect to complete it
playing games(like basketball) where getting the most points makes you the winner

If you did not have these goals, it would be hard to live a balanced life. Imagine going to work and always wondering when you were going to get to go home. Imagine only going to work when you feel like it. What if you just watched five minutes of every television show?

Valuable Goals

What would it be like if you really did play a game of basketball with no rim? You’re just running around getting sweaty and shooting the ball at the backboard. You are being guarded for no reason. It is impossible to score an actual, tangible, visible goal.

Now that you understand you are actually quite good at setting goals, please understand that you can set more advanced goals towards meaningful activity. A more successful use of time is completing small medium and large goals on a consistent basis.

If you are working on valuable goals, they will require valuable activity. If your actions are valuable, you will be elevating value.

Carlin

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When is it time to Start?

By: Carlin Day

Here is another example of farming without the farm. See my first post on farming without the farm here.

When should a person start?

A new farmer is planning on having the best crop ever. He wants everything to be perfect. He does all the research on what seeds to use. He prepares the soil with rich fertilizer and cultivates the soil getting rid of all the weeds. He finds out all the chemicals to spray to get the best results once the plant is up. He creates a chart with how much sunshine and rain he will need. He even goes out and buys all the right harvest equipment so he is ready to bring in the bumper crop. After all the research, it is time to plant.

The land is to dry and the temperature is too cool. His perfect chart says it is the time to plant but he knows there is not enough water for the seeds to sprout. The farmer checks the forecast and finds out that the weather is expected to be ideal next week. Next week comes and it has rained and it is now too wet. The next week comes and it is now too cool. As time passes, the days get shorter, the rains begin to fall daily and, by now, it is too late to plant. This year’s crop is a failure and it was never even planted. It never had a chance!

The perfect crop has turned into a failure. As the farmer drives around, he realizes that the land around him has plants coming up all in a row. The other farmers land is producing? What happened? How could they have planted in all the rain? How could they have planted when it was too dry?

How to Start

In the example of the new farmer who wanted to make the best crop, he would have been better just asking when to plant and plant the crop. The crop would have grown just like his neighbors. Instead of planting, he focused on perfection and found all kinds of reasons it was not the right time. Just like on the farm, there are so many ways we see this in life.

When to be kind – all the time, not only when people are kind to you

When to lose weight – all the time meaning eat healthy and live healthy

When to give money – all the time, be generous, regardless of circumstances

When to start your business – start now, just don’t start the perfect business

When to start running –  in about 20 or 30 feet you can get to running speed. That will be a start.

Focus on Value

If you can focus on value, you can start today. If you are focused on important things, you will be elevating value. If you begin working on things that matter, you will be growing, and this is the start that will end in valuable results.

Just like farming, in everything you do, plant today, harvest in the future. Planting daily has great results. Trying to find perfect harvests is much harder than planting.  Plant and the harvest will come. Don’t be like the farmer who waited and now sees everyone with a successful crop. Plant today!! Start Today!!

 

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How do you build?

How do you build?
by Carlin Day

There are all kinds of things to build. You can build a business. You can build a house. You can build a fortune. You can even build muscle.  A person will use all kinds of different tools and an assortment of different materials, yet the process of what is happening is the same. Something is being built. Two questions come to mind when I think about something being built. Do you know what materials you are using? Do you know how to build?

What materials are you using?

Believe it or not, a person is always building something. They are using one day after another and stacking all the days up. The finished process is the life that has been built. During those days, they are also building other things (actual individual projects).  Everything that you think, listen to, and talk about, is building you! These are the materials that you are using.

How to build?

My kids can build incredible things out of legos and blocks. What’s funny is that sometimes they decide what it is after it has been built. This would never happen when a builder builds a house. The builder looks at the completed house and says “Well, not really what I was going for.” No, the builder has exact plans. There will be small changes, but the finished project will be very close to the original plan. When a person builds a sand castle, there is usually not a plan. One bucket of sand goes here. One bucket of sand goes there. In the end, you may add a flag or a lookout tower. A person then steps back and says, “It looks pretty good”. I always say “I sure am awesome. Kids, this is how you build a sand castle” Even though I can build a great sandcastle, very rarely is it incredible.  I also never use plans. When there is a big sandcastle contest, the winner most definitely had a plan. Going back to the question on how to build – the answer is that if you want it to matter, and if you want it to be of value, you use a plan. If it is something that does not matter, you probably do not need a plan.  You can just have fun and understand it is just a sandcastle or a block tower. The ocean tide or some playful kids will destroy it.

Take Away

If you are always building, you are always using some kind of planning. Valuable things require planning and things that are of little value require no planning. Start planning and start doing things that matter. Do you want to be a better friend? Start planning ways to do it. Do you want to start a business? Start a real business plan. Here is a question to leave you with.

What is something small you can build, that will create enormous value?