Good Friday morning to you. As I awoke this morning I decided to write the post that you are reading today from my bedroom. The theme this week was one that I undertook as a growth idea for me. I am working on growth in my personal life, working on the direction I’m taking this company. So today when I woke up I wanted to get started immediately, but as I was re-reading the notes I had made to write this today, I decided to take the post in a different direction. Let’s see if I can get both ideas in.
The first Idea I wanted to talk about today was compromise or trade-offs in change. When we decide we are going to change our mind we are going to have a trade-off or two to face in the process. A few years ago I was reading the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. In it the writer tells the story of the two men who helped form his view of money. I am reminded of the man that he called his Rich Dad, who was actually the father of his best friend. He was a business man who invested his money to build his family a better life with a business system that outlasted him. In the story, the author tells how this man traded off luxuries that many in today’s world believe are necessities. But the truth is they are luxuries. So to change your mind you will have to make a few trade-offs to make success yours.
To make anything work in your life you will have to make a trade-off. At times you will have to invest your time, or money in places that are needed for growth. To make your dreams come true what are you willing to give up that is not needed to get you through to reach your purpose, to achieve that dream? Take out a paper and write down the luxuries of your life. What is it that you could do without to invest in your dream?
Let’s take the trade-off to another level. How much chaos do you have in your life? Now, I know that after talking about trade-offs you would expect me to tell you that sometimes you have to trade off time at home to keep working on the projects to make your dream come true. Well here is the part of what I wanted to change about today’s post.
If you are living with chaos in your life, it usually means that some area or many areas are out of balance. We have to have a balance in life to make the successful climb a time of joy. If you keep building anything while moving your life out of balance then you are only creating chaos in your life.
Let’s take your life and divide it into the two most common areas we divide life into: work and home. For this purpose today, let’s define the two areas so we can work on them. First let’s define the work area of life. We are going to include in the work area all of these things: time spent at your job, time spent serving for your local charity, time spent serving on the boards that you serve on, the committee that moms serve at their kids’ schools. All these things combine into work life.
In the category of home life we are going to put these things: time we spend in personal activities, time at the gym, time when you go out with the guys to watch the game at a local bar, time when we go golfing, or bike riding, and the time we spend at home with our family.
So now that we have the two areas separated in our lives, do a review of them. Look to see how you can simplify that area. At work you can do some of the following things to make your life better: arrive at work and spend a few minutes in a break to have coffee and plan your day. Separate your personal things and do them at home, or on a designated break time, keeping your time at your job focused to get more done. Eliminate all distractions to make your day go faster. Now as you move from time at your job to those other things we put in the work side of our life, once you have simplified you job to get more things done in less time you will open your life to make time for those other job things, like building your dream. When you have those meetings you go to for your other events in the job category, you can now ask the question: “Does going to this meeting accomplish my purpose?”
Now take a look at your personal life. What are the things that you could do to make your time at home quality time? When you are with your family, make that time count. Don’t be focused on what you need to be doing at work. A few years a boss of mine gave me some great advice: “wherever you are, be there.” So let things like the cell phone sit and wait, cut your television time down. Pick an amount of time that you will spend watching your TV shows each week. We have the technology of TiVo or recorders now so record the shows you want to watch and view them on your time, not the TV program times.
In your personal time, balance those things that you can remove from your life. If your leisure time away includes doing events that you don’t like then stop it. Many years ago friends would ask me to come to a weekly event. Everyone would meet at a local club to play video games. If that is your thing that is great, for me it was not fun. It seemed like a waste of my time. So I kindly said “I’m sorry. I have a few other things to do.”
Take a look at your life today, if you need to make some trade-offs to get to the place of your dreams in life, start making those to achieve the dream life you wanted. If you cannot find the place, look at your life and see where the chaos is and learn to balance that area of your life and remove the chaos. You can start right now and have a great weekend.
I’m Tim Gillette the Rocker Life Coach. It’s time to live the life you always dreamed about. Love what you do and those who you share life with. Let us help you become the RockStar in your world.
