Threshold Consulting: It's Your Life, Own It!

Escape the Tyranny of Dead Ideas

As a nation, we’ve long been fascinated and driven by change; from its certainty to its acceleration, we see it as the tide that sweeps in promise as well as challenge. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the mantra of change that captured the hearts and minds of enough Americans to catapult Barack Obama to the White House. And with his victory come high expectations for the realization of new possibilities.

Still, it’s said that the more things change, the more they remain the same. This is also part of our cultural experience and as familiar as the lyrics to a classic song by The Who, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”  So, even as there is change in leadership, we don’t always have the satisfaction of seeing the dramatic solutions we may crave. Yet, at this point in history, we can ill afford solutions that don’t work. According to Matt Miller, author of The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity,  dubious ideas about how a modern economy should work make our leaders ill prepared to craft workable solutions to our problems.

So, what about you? Are you caught in the grip of dead ideas that leave you ill prepared to effectively manage your life and your career in the challenging times ahead? And how do you know if you are?

From my perspective, any idea that is self-limiting or self-defeating is a dead idea. When it comes to career and life choices, there are many. For example, you have a dead idea, if you believe:

• it will be impossible to find a new position because we are in the midst of record job loss;

• by simply handing out resumes people will come up with a job for you;
• there is such a thing as an “American” job and you’re entitled to one;
• personal branding is all about creating an image and relentlessly promoting it at every opportunity.

You get the idea.

Fortunately, you can escape the grip of dead ideas by seeking out and applying the many vibrant ideas that can spark success, satisfaction, and prosperity in your career and life. For example if you believe your own happiness is tied to the happiness you bring to others, you sow the seeds of wonderful new possibilities.

So, as you start this New Year, find and apply vibrant ideas that work for you. Real change can only happen when you do.  

Cross-posted at The Personal Branding Blog.

Need to Motivate Yourself? Choose Self Determination

What motivates you? If you’re like me, and most people, you probably find that some external reward is what it takes to get you fired up to get things done.  Well, at least most of the time. Sometimes it’s avoidance of negative consequences that does the trick. Still, I’ll bet you operate on a bit of intrinsic motivation as well. Well, at least some of the time. 

The reason I bring this up is that I recently read a great article titled “Unleash Your Potential,” in Men’s Health. Essentially, it covered the application of Self Determination Theory (SDT) to the choice of fitness routines, and it referenced the approach of Saint John’s University coach John Gagliardi, “The Winningest Coach in College Football History.”

Essentially, Coach Gagliardi does something counterintuitive in his approach: he avoids drills, laps, and calisthenics, allowing his players to practice for games by simply playing 90 minutes of touch football. As Tom McGrath, author of the article states, Gagliardi “… crated a football program powered not by his own threats or intimidation or screaming, but by the players’ natural passion for football.”

So, what are the elements of intrinsic motivation?

Ten Choices for a Happy, Healthy, and Wealthy New Year

As you know, a traditional sentiment at the start of the year is to wish others a Happy, Healthy, and Wealthy New Year. No doubt you’ve exchanged this sentiment yourself. Of course, as you made an effort to implement your new goals or resolutions, you probably didn’t give this exchange further thought.

This year could be different. In the spirit of this sentiment, I propose that you make ten choices, in addition to your other goals or resolutions, which will help you stay focused on happiness, health, and wealth.

The choices I’m recommending come from a changethis.com manifesto, titled 10 Unwealthy Habits  written by Alicia Castillo, interim CEO of the Wealthing Group. Each choice is actually what she describes as a “vaccine” against the unwealthy habit in question. The choices are: 

1. Be grateful. Focus on what is going well in your life, and avoid the unwealthy habit of feeling sorry for yourself.

2. Be free. Avoid the unwealthy habit of greed by giving freely and fairly for what you enjoy in life.

3. Demand the best of yourself. Pursue what you are passionate about and avoid getting stuck doing things you don’t like.

4. Control your own happiness. Regardless of your financial situation, find things that give you pleasure; avoid measuring happiness with money.

Some Perspectives on Goal Setting

Management guru Peter Drucker is credited with saying, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” Certainly this quote is applicable to goal setting because how you choose today can affect your life tomorrow. Most of us set goals that we hope will lead to what we want in the future. At times, we succeed brilliantly! At times, we fail; or perhaps we settle.

So, it seems like a good time, here on the cusp of a new year, to consider some perspectives on goal setting.

According to a guide to personal goal setting at Mind Tools, you should start with some idea of what you want to achieve in life, and then develop a 25-year plan of smaller goals. You then break these goals into progressively smaller units, ultimately leading to your daily to-do list. As well, at eHow, an article on how to set goals suggests setting lifetime goals and then, starting at 10 years out, establishing goals in progressively smaller chunks of time.

Talk about creating your future!

Setting Goals that Matter

As the year draws to a close, it’s time to reflect on the goals you reached and to choose new goals for the New Year.

By this stage of your life, you already know something about the mechanics of setting goals, translating them into action steps, and ultimately reaching them. In fact, if you’ve spent any time managing projects in organizations, you probably even know about SMART goals. The goals you set provide you with direction in life and are the foundation for your success. (Well, okay, maybe a few times you felt you were blessed with “stupid luck.” Certainly, I have!)

Still, as you pause to set goals, it may be worth asking yourself:

Am I setting goals by default, or am I setting goals that truly matter?

Enlightened Choices

In an earlier post, I raised the question of whether or not values-based choices, made in your own self interest, are selfish choices. Certainly to own your life takes, in large part, conformity to your own values. This, despite the vast philosophical literature on this topic is almost a no brainer. Act in conformity with someone else’s values or wishes and you give up some piece of life ownership.

Still, you need to deal with the issue of selfishness, for you live in a world where you not only need to own your life but also interact well with others. So, let’s start with a definition of selfish; a pertinent meaning is this: “concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others.”  So, a selfish choice is one that is made at the expense of someone else. These kinds of choices often lead to resentments in others.

It’s Your Choice

In owning your life you own your choices – all of them. Each and every day is fueled by the choices you make. Some choices are so ingrained they are habitual. Yet, all of your choices ultimately determine the degree of success and happiness you create for yourself and that you can bring to others. So, it’s important to make good choices. But what exactly is a “good” choice?

Well, since choices have results, we could say that a good result reflects a good choice. For example, having sorted through all the options in home décor, if you were happy with the look of a new piece of furniture in your home, you might say that it was a good choice. And the view that it was a good choice is validated every time you look at the piece furniture and feel good. Even if, over time, your feelings change with changing tastes, that piece of furniture represented a good choice at the time.

Well, this is fine for, let’s say a chair. What about your decisions in other areas of your life? Would it work equally well, to say you want to become a house painter, even though your decision to become a brain surgeon was a good one at the time?