Learn, Relearn, and learn again.

Everything happens for a reason you can either choose to ignore it or ask what that reason is and try to learn from it.

I read this recently in the book "The Energy Bus." It caused me to sit back and think a little bit and how I do not do this enough. When something happens I just plow forward and keep going to the next thing then plow forward again and on and on I go. To get past this and actually learn from this you need to take the time to learn. It is essential that you learn from your mistakes and successes. I don't know what works best for you, but for me it has been journaling about what happened throughout the day and realizing why I was frustrated or why I was excited. I try to make note of what energized me, who frustrated me and why, and anything else I needed to do.
It is much easier to do this when you have the time and everything runs a lot smoother. Before spring I did a great job doing this but as the year went on it got worse and worse. Not because I didn't have time but because I didn't make time. The early victories were the thing of the past and I became too focused on what was in front of me than what was around me. Are you aware of everyone and everything around you more than you are what is in front of you? What is more important: your to do list or your people? Look back on a daily basis but also look back weekly, monthly, and yearly to figure out patterns and learn from them.

Waltonize your mind

Yesterday I went to many Garden Centers around the twin cities area looking at things to do and things not to do. In the past I have come back from these places and said we do this way better, we do that way better, they are overpriced. I would look at all of their warts and not focus on some of the things that they did good. A while back I read a story about the WalMart founder Sam Walton.
Walton went into a fellow discounter with another person. They went around looked at the whole store which was in disarray. When they got through the person with Walton said "can you believe how dirty and awful the whole store was." Walton couldn't stop talking about the pantyhose rack and how neatly it was setup. He got the information of the pantyhose rack, which was not real visible, and called the company and got that set up in Walmarts.
I go back to this story everytime I look at another place. Before I would go to a store and when I left I would beat my chest and say we are way better. Now I go in with a different set of eyes saying what one or two things can I use from this store to make mine better.
I have found myself doing that with people more and more to. Instead of looking at everybodies flaws I try to look at what they are gifted at or a quality they possess and compare it to how I am. When talking with people around me I try to make sure that their best gifts are magnified and they are working where they are most gifted.
Marcus Buckingham changed my thinking in his book "Now Break all the Rules." Saying it is hard enough to bring peoples strengths out so focus on doing that. There weaknesses will always be a weakness.
So when looking hard at things around you look hard for things that are positive. It may be hard in some places, but if you really want to maximize who you are and your company you owe it to yourself.

Adjustments with your Pearly Whites

I read somewhere 10% of life is what happens to us and 90% of life is how we react to it. In the last couple years I have come to realize it is more like 5%/95% split. We make more out of what happens to us by not controlling our thoughts. A couple of years ago I was miserable in what I was doing and I kept convincing myself of that everyday and that there was nothing I could do about it. So every morning I would struggle to get out of bed and dread another day of something I convinced myself “stunk.”

When situations happen you need to try remove yourself from the situation and look at it from above. Take your feelings out of it and understand the whole realm of the situation not from your perspective but from a 3^rd person perspective.

What gets me sometimes, and I have been just as guilty as anyone, is not feeling like doing something so I just don’t. You can never feel your way into feeling like doing something but you can do your way into feeling like doing something. I have found that over and over. Just buckle down and get things done.

The other day I had a case of the feeling sorry for myselfs again and dreading things. I decided that I was in control and that I needed to change my thoughts. I went back to all the things I read about being positive and tried to boil it down to a few things. Finally it came to me just stop complaining SMILE. The weird thing is the moment I did that it changed my outlook, even though it was forced. When you talk on the phone they tell you to smile it changes your tone of voice. This week why don’t you try smile throughout the week, people are drawn to people who smile and have joy.

Attitudes around you are contagious. Is yours worth catching?

See what happens when you smile for a day straight. It takes less muscles to smile than frown so what do you have to lose.