Why Try To Get Out Of Your Box, When You Can Use What's In It?
The pause allows the brain to process.
The pause enables us to respond, not react.
The pause gives others a chance to catch up or reflect or reach out.
Pausing allows us to keep our head on when everyone around us is losing theirs.
Pausing lets us evaluate if they’ll miss the work we’re doing if it were gone.
Pausing gives us a chance to soak up the magic of the moment (and to find it if it’s not evident).
Stay Positive & Pause Often
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The meetings you’re attending, would you miss them if they were gone?
The extra polish you’re putting on your project, would people actually miss it if it were gone?
The attitude you bring to the work and influence you have on others while there, would they miss it if you were gone?
The time you spend on busywork or TV or ways that you’re hiding from doing meaningful work, would you miss those things if they were gone?
Answering the question helps decide where the value is.
And the value is worth focusing on.
Stay Positive & We Miss What Matters
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You might not need to use the glue, but when you do, it’s nice to have it on hand.
As with anything, you don’t need it – and then you do.
It’s worth being prepared in as many capacities as possible as it relates to the work that’s in motion. (Obviously you’d run yourself rugged to prepare for everything in life. Nope. This is about zeroing in on the project in front of you.)
Not having glue on hand means that you’ll have to repair what doesn’t stick, spend time going to find the glue, paying for the glue when you thought you were done investing in the work and so on.
There’s a lot of work that has to happen when you don’t have glue on hand.
And in case it doesn’t go without typing, glue can mean a lot of things: Friends, care, supporters, feedback, polish, proofers, time, passion, tools, and maybe, just maybe, actual glue.
Stay Positive & Get The Best Glue
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We’re going to feel incompetent before we reach our next level. Our journey will always involve it. Incompetence and thus discomfort. And then, you know, “overnight” we’re there.
It’s a feeling of difficulty and frustration, but there’s inherent flow to it – we know that we’ll be better on the other side.
That’s still novice thinking, though. The pros know that once we’re at the next level, it’s time to seek out the incompetence and discomfort to get to the next.
And the next. And the next. And the next. All for the legacy of the change we’re seeking to make; for making something better for better’s sake.
Stay Positive & Work Hard At The Hard Work
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Pareto’s principle is only as effective as you shape it to be.
The fact that 80% account for 20% of the sales.
Or 20% of your core audience buys from you more frequently than 80% of your audience.
The same 80/20 goes for newsletter readers. Tippers. Supporters. And so on.
There’s a core audience there.
You can certainly keep delivering on your promise for them. Keep hoping they stay. Maybe give them a little extra love so they do.
Or you can enable them to help shape your future. To adapt, to grow, to be better.
You don’t need to poll the masses when you’ve got a core team right there willing to provide input.
The core cares. Why wouldn’t you leverage them?
Stay Positive & Engage The Core
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You screw up and make a mistake. “Yes, and next time I’ll do X, Y and Z differently.”
You want to show another person you care for them. “Yes, I do love you, and I’ll plan to show you that I do today and every day.”
You want to become a professional. “Yes, I am a writer, and I will write every single day to prove it.”
Anything less than “Yes, and” is a form of hiding; a narrative that blocks us from moving forward.
Stay Positive & Yes, And I’ll Be Writing Again For You Tomorrow
You can wait until the going gets tough to express your gratitude.
You can wait for a holiday or milestone.
You can wait until you get something out of it.
Gratitude works perfectly well in those situations.
But let’s not forget it works perfectly well in every other situation, too.
When things are going smoothly. When there’s no holiday or milestone. When it’s tied to a moment, not a receipt of something.
Stay Positive & Don’t Wait To Express It
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