popping wow

How Will You Astound Yourself?

popping wowIf you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you know that I’m a big fan of quotes. I share one daily. I’ve been doing this for a couple years now, so I’ve developed quite a list of quotes. And on Monday I was browsing through and one jumped out at me:

If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves. – Thomas A. Edison

I replaced the quote I had planned for Monday with that one. The Edison quote didn’t hit me in the gut, it hit me in the heart.

Do written words ever do that to you too?

So, as I ponder what I’m capable of that I haven’t yet recognized, I invite you to do the same.

How will you astound yourself? This week? This month? This summer? This year?

Sit with it, journal with it, walk with it. Spend time with it however you best process new thoughts or ideas.

What new goals or projects might you take on as a result?

And, of course, I’d love to know what you come up with or what other questions it opens up for you. Share in the comments below.

Image courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Sign post with Failure and Success

Risk, Success and Failure

Sign post with Failure and SuccessI came across this quote last week:

Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they’re really not. They’re companions – the hero and the sidekick. – Laurence Shames

Interesting quote isn’t it?

I thought of it again over the weekend when I was given the topic of risk to discuss with the Jr. High youth group. The focus was on making your own decisions versus other people making decisions for you. So, we talked about risk, success and failure.

This week the speaker at an event I was at spoke briefly about taking risks and how some failures really set you up for your next success.

Sitting in the audience I was suddenly struck by how often the topic of risk, success and failure had come across my path in the last week.

Interesting.

If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, you don’t branch out, you don’t try – you don’t take the risk. – Rosalynn Carter

I searched through my collection of quotes, looking for ones about success, and this one stuck out.

You see, last week I set some pretty ambitious goals for myself in the coming months, but they are possible with time and attention. I wondered out loud if I was expecting too much of myself in too little time. Perhaps I am. Perhaps I won’t meet some of the goals I set. Perhaps I will fail. And perhaps in failing I’ll be that much closer to another opportunity. Perhaps I’ll still have accomplished more in the failure than I would have if I never tried.

But maybe, just maybe I’ll succeed.

Success and failure, hero and sidekick. I’d wager that success usually follows what looks like failure. We just don’t always hear about the failure. We’d rather hear about the success – the hero of the story, right? But the sidekick is there, quietly supporting the hero in lessons learned.

What does this mean to you?

  1. Risk, success and failure. How do those play out in your life? In your business?
  2. What topics or ideas seem to be appearing over and over again? What do they mean to you? Why are you noticing them?

I’d love for you to share your observations in the comments below.

And I’ll leave you with one last quote:

So fail.
Be bad at things.
Be embarrassed.
Be afraid.
Be vulnerable.

Go out on a limb or two or twelve, and you will fall and it’ll hurt. But the harder you fall, the farther you will rise. The louder you fall, the clearer your future becomes. Failure is a gift, welcome it.

There are people who spend their whole lives wondering how they became the people they became, how certain chances passed them by, why they didn’t take the road less traveled.

Those people aren’t you.

You have front row seats to your own transformation, and in transforming yourself, you might even transform the world. And it will be electric, and I promise you it will be terrifying.

Embrace that; embrace the new person you’re becoming.

This is your moment.

I promise you, it is now, now, not two minutes from now, not tomorrow, but really now. Own that; know that deep in your bones. And go to sleep every night knowing that, wake up every morning remembering that.

And then… keep going.

– Unknown (emphasis added)

woman sitting in kitchen planning/dreaming with sticky notes all around

Are You Acting Without A Dream?

woman sitting in kitchen planning/dreaming with sticky notes all aroundHave you ever started doing something and then wondered why you’re doing it? I’m not talking about walking into a room and forgetting why you’re there or checking your email and forgetting you wanted to send a note to someone.

I’m talking about having a plan and acting on it. You’re a few steps in and suddenly you wonder: why am I doing this, how did I get here? This isn’t helping me get closer to my goals.

Sometimes it’s the shiny object that distracted you, sometimes it’s a goal that you suddenly realize is actually someone else’s (and not yours), and sometimes it’s the fear that if everyone else is doing it you should be too. However you got there, you find yourself doing something that isn’t really moving you toward your goals.

So, what happened? You started planning and/or acting without your dream, your why or your goal. Maybe it was someone else’s, but it wasn’t yours.

Why is dreaming important? It gives you your destination, it informs* your planning and it gives you the point in the distance to focus on.

I shared this quote on Twitter/Facebook the other day:

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe – Anatole France

Three questions for you:

  1. Are you acting without your own dream?
    Be brutally honest with yourself. Are you working without a dream? from someone else’s dream? Or are you clear about what your dream is and acting from there?
  2. What is your BIG dream?
    Why are you in business? What is your dream that puts enthusiasm into your steps (or actions)?
  3. Do you believe it is possible?
    If you don’t believe it is possible, all the dreaming and planning in the world won’t get you where you want to go. Harsh, perhaps, but it’s also honest. Sometimes, you can use other people’s belief in you. If you’ve ever had a coach or mentor you might have experienced this. Your coach knows you are capable of your dream and you believe in their faith in you until you have enough faith in yourself.

I’d love to know your answers to any of these three questions! I invite you to leave a comment and share your insights.

*One bit of clarification, when I write inform I mean to give substance, character, and to inspire. So, “it informs your planning” is another way of saying it gives substance or character to and inspires your planning.
photo credit: Victor1558 via photopin cc