It’s so easy to let the routine things of life blur or even block out what is not urgent, but important. Prioritizing intentions takes advantage of teachable moment opportunities when they arise.
I’m pedaling up a hill, see a dad mowing the lawn up the same hill.
Dad’s goal: nice lawn, finish quick, have a beer! Dad is unaware his little boy is mowing behind him with a toy mower.
Cycling or mowing, time is short. Routine tasks disguise profound lessons.
With no prior intention, teachable, aha moments are easy to miss.
Doing a Goals search gets more than 1.5 billion hits on Google.
Should you choose stretch, long, medium, short, SMART, formal, distal, proximal, learning, or performance goals?
Once identifying the system, is it best to aim, stack, eliminate, meditate, or marinate the goals?
“Yes!” to all the above! Bottom line is use what works for you!
Some systems work, some don’t. Key is to go deeper.
Did dad miss a teachable moment? Nothing is lost if the little boy has no interest, but a huge opportunity arises if he is engaged in observing dad.
Dad could have the intention to:
Exhibit a good work ethic, do quality work, have a great attitude
Have discussions before, during, and after the grass is cut
Not only was the son engaged, he was emulating dad – this one is a gold mine! A golden father-son moment to:
Praise the little boy’s effort
Be proud of him
State how dad love’s working with his son
These are the goals-behind-the-goal.
Can mundane things – paying bills, car maintenance, grocery shopping – be opportunities?
Story of a mom grocery shopping with two pre-school boys. Initially in the store, from the boys perspective, this was a place to run around, touch things, and eat stuff.
Mom is ready to pick another day to end the chaos, but decides to reframe.
She challenges the little boys with chivalry, responsibility, and manhood: “You need to be strong, protect mom like dad, and help her with heavy stuff because you are strong.”
Miraculously, the boys settle and stay with mom, protecting and helping her the remainder of the time in the store.
These are not the exact words of mom, but you get the gist. Will this continue to work? Unknown, but understand the underlying concept. Moments like this are special and the more times intentional Mom gets creative, the more frequently teachable moments occur.
This is a big time goal-behind-the-goal!
Any system needs proper motivating factors for the implementers.
Goal-behind-the-goal does that. The “yes” answer at the opening of the video was not being facetious.
Consider many goal methodologies. There are lots of great ones, but understand the system concepts are relatively the same so really, there is nothing new under the sun.
People change. Seasons of life, tragedies, challenges, and situations make life a moving target of problems to be overcome.
A perfected formula to make life easy does not exist.
Generate pure motive, take time to think, dig deeper, get out of the norm and be intentional about all things. Look for and find the goal-behind-the-goal.
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The good part about selective attention is Elon Musk having so much focus that Tesla is revolutionizing the auto industry. The bad part is getting hit by a silent electric Tesla due to staring at a smart phone.
You may have seen the 1999 Selective Attention test.
CHECK IT OUT IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT BEFORE READING FURTHER.
Conducted by Daniel Simons & Christopher Chabris.
Six people dressed in black & white shirts are weaving in and out with each other while passing a basketball.
Counting the number of passes, did you see anything strange? Congratulations either way. Seeing nothing else means you can focus. If you saw the invisible gorilla seeing the big picture at times is okay too.
Path of purpose / mission can be like that gorilla! Many times it’s in plain sight, but we miss it because our attention is focused elsewhere.
This is usually being caught up in the urgent but unimportant.
Even having a mission, we must be intentional to not get sidetracked like Disney-Pixar’s Dug the Talking Do who in the middle of a conversation can’t help but look at the squirrel!
Clarification of things that have been covered:
Vision answers why we do the things we do and is the emotional aspect of motivation.
Mission, path/statement of purpose is daily action taken to accomplish what you are trying to do.
Core values – guidelines and principles for an ethical and fulfilling business/life without regrets.
In an ideal world, everything in life is under the umbrella of vision-mission-core values. If not, that can be resolved with effort. Otherwise, distractions by the squirrel are much more frequent!
I chase a bunch of shiny objects so need to intentionally reject vision drift, mission bush-wacking, and core value compromises! In other words, staying on track to get what we really want in life takes work. Simple, but not easy.
To keep our attention and sustain purpose or mission, it must be fun, exciting, part of your dream, fulfilling, – most or all of the above with your own adjectives added!
Dr Dan’s mission / purpose? Guide students to be smart about higher education and live a life that matters.
Mission isn’t:
Vague goals – get an education, learn, be a better person
Creating a life of ease without problems
Curl up on the couch. Watch a good movie – all the time!
Avoiding fear & confrontation, stress free
Mission is:
Looking for a problem that your skills and passion can solve
Elon musk – revolutionized cars, going to live on Mars!
A sloth – sleeps 20 hours/day, lives to eat and get ate.
Lean toward Musk, but be aware that any strength overused turns into a weakness.
Realize family can “mess up” a mission to Mars! You can do it all if prioritized and knowing there is no balance! Be unbalanced for the most important things in life at particular seasons.
The good thing about most students is fewer obligations to make mission focus easier.
Summarizing Mission or Path of Purpose, just as in Vision:
1) Find your sweet spot or flow – beyond bored, short of overwhelm.
2) Stick to your core values
3) Be accountable to others
4) Have fun!
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Everyday begins with an indication of the status of a person’s vision. Whether in thought or vocalized, the following expressions set a course for the day: “Do I have to get out of bed?”, “Got up on the wrong side of the bed!”, or “It’s a brand new day!” The expression that begins the morning usually rules the day.
This is a story about three views of vision,
Which one to choose is your decision.
The first one is nose-diving and that isn’t good.
But wouldn’t people turn that around if they could?
Includes lots of mourning, weeping, and sadness,
No easy solutions to get out of this madness.
The second one is surviving, just keeping afloat.
Who cares how many leaks are in this boat?
Predictable irrationality is to be expected,
But excuses for mediocrity are to be rejected.
The third is thriving with a life of meaning.
This is not all eating, drinking, and laughing.
But with authentic vision, quite the contrary.
Meaningful living can make one weary.
The thriving vision is living a life that matters.
Taking action to help others, not just idle chatter.
“Do or do not, there is no try” says Yoda with the Force.
Nose-dive, survive, or thrive in your vision – decide your course.
The seemingly harmless expressions noted at the beginning are a mindset that is part of bigger picture. Everyone has a vision for life. Acknowledging it is one thing, but ignoring it becomes a bigger problem failing to realize the power aimless wandering wields.
Nose-diving is filled with ideations of “never good enough”, “who am I to think I could ever fill in the blank”, or general negative self-talk. People reiterating these phrases or some variation of each more than likely think they have no vision, but this is a big part of the nose-dive.
Lack of direction is like flying with vertigo. The pilot has no sense of up, down, or the direction the plane is heading. Failing to follow any course in life at best ends up like an airplane that runs out of fuel, rendered useless. The worst case is a crash that did not have to happen.
Surviving might include phrases like, “don’t worry, be happy,” “go with the flow”, or “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” The deceptive part of the surviving is there are times this mindset is appropriate. The problem is embracing mediocrity without ever stepping out of the comfort zone.
Taking time off for recovery might be considered as surviving. The reason for the recovery has a lot to do with surviving or thriving. Many people retire only to take it easy. Without purpose, retirees become sedentary and listless. The shame is that the multiple gifts and talents of these people to help others in a different capacity go to waste.
Thriving visionaries take time to recover knowing a renewed energy is essential to doing meaningful things. They are in a sweet spot that is the right combination of being excited about the task at hand with the capability of performing well in doing it. The Yerkes-Dodson Law suggests that performance and arousal are directly related. Understanding how the combination is consistently optimized is thriving.
An example of optimization to thrive in accordance with the Yerkes-Dodson Law is in a basketball game down to the final shot to win or lose. The nose-diving person doesn’t even want to be on the court for fear of making a mistake. The survivor is on the court, but does not want to touch the ball. The thriving visionary player wants the ball to take the shot and is upset if that isn’t the play called.
Can everyone thrive all the time as a visionary Superhero? Of course not. Does an occasional nose-dive or time-of-survival become part of a person’s life? Certainly. Hard work, focus, and even suffering is required to maximize time in the sweet spot of thriving. The Yerkes-Dodson Law research identifies the relationship of performance and arousal. Each person has to determine where to live the majority of a visionary life – nose-diving, surviving, or thriving.
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Bobby informed everyone that would listen that he did not rappel – before the event, during the drive, and incessantly at the rappel site.
Like Bobby, many in the adventure-based program were regularly being put out of their comfort zone.
The program was designed to challenge boys to overcome fear of heights, caves, water, academics, hard work, etc.
Participation was not optional. Without realizing it, the boys gained confidence over past emotional traumas to last the rest of their lives.
Their perceptions were being changed with the incentive to get out of the program based on effort and participation with a weekly evaluation.
Change is inevitable, growth is optional.
Everyone has a seemingly unconquerable fear or way of thinking that cripples them.
Self-efficacy is a percieved capability.
In bobby’s mind the perception of
Rappelling was an emotional nightmare.
When emotion battles logic, it always wins.
A rappelling site setup that is facilitated by qualified people is extremely safe. Many redundancies in the system to minimize accidents.
Change for the good is hindered by false perceptions.
Self-efficacy is harder to change for older people. Some areas of low self-efficacy are not a problem because they are not critical lifestyle survival skills. For example, Noodling (google it!) is not an important aspect of life to most people.
But, fear of water is a big problem. A parent that never learned to swim has a child that has not been taught either. The parent will jump in the water to safe the child and they might both drown.
Fear of heights, flying, needles, dentists all are low self-efficacy items with future consequences of robbing people of a high quality of life.
What happens when leaning into fears and improving self-efficacy?
Bobby’s success! Crying at the top of the cliff turned to exuberance at the bottom and a future void of the fear of heights. He ran to the top of the cliff and rappelled again!
What if people “stepped over the cliffs” of their lives?
Could be as simple as learning names, complex as Dr. Albert Bandura leading therapy group to overcome fear of snakes in one day!
Many problems are not this simple, but what about working on the ones that are?
Defeating one relevant false perception after another – it adds up.
Self-efficacy does shape reality!
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Young man with a dream job was traveling the world, eating in the finest restaurants, staying in world-class hotels, and experiencing and learning about many cultures.
However, he let his integrity be compromised on reporting expenses due to others’ influence.
Had to admit the cheating to the manager who confronted him, but I (the young man) learned a valuable lesson to not let that happen again.
Maintaining integrity is a simple process, but not necessarily easy.
Years later I was supervising a weekend program working with delinquent teenage boys that did overnight trips to DC. At a campground that was ideal for this trip, the boys got up in the middle of the night unknown to my staff and vandalized and stole things out of cars. Only on the return drive was it discovered what had happened.
My staff called me and asked what to do. We did not have to report that we were to blame and knew if we did, the privilege to stay at that place would probably be revoked and it was.
This made the trip much more difficult and we had to do a lot of work to find another place that was not nearly as nice. There is a price to pay for doing the right thing, however, the long-term gain is the benefit of keeping one’s integrity.
The example was made to the boys in the program at that time, that our organization does the right thing. For years afterward, we as youth leaders could look boys in the eye and tell them we don’t lie to them and will always try to do what’s right. Until the day I die, I have the satisfaction of knowing my integrity remains intact.
Two TV show examples:
Survivor – participants lie, cheat, steal, backstab to win the million dollars. Integrity is considered foolishness in the “game.” In the end, the voted out participants usually vote the winner based on the one they like the best – usually the one that exhibited some principled behavior. The little integrity that was present on the island, was the “winner” after all.
Undercover Boss – CEOs of companies get made-over to be unrecognizable to employees. The CEO gets exposed to what employees really think of him, the company, and how things are actually running. Good and bad employees arise, but what really touches the CEOs is how dedicated many of the employees are the integrity they exhibit. At the end of each show, the CEO’s identity is revealed and they usually customize some combination of monetary compensation, career choices, advancement in the company, scholarships, medical assistance, etc. to reward the employee.
The employee did not “turn on” integrity, it was in their heart and they were rewarded for it. The good guys and gals win here with integrity as the reason.
Establishing virtuous core values at an early age is the ideal, but anytime is a great time to work on integrity. A key part of integrity to start with is honesty. Your word is the only thing you can both give and keep. Be faithful and honest in little things and people will trust you with bigger things.
These simple, but not easy core values serve society well and lead to a conclusion. Integrity is not only a priority, but a necessity that cultivates authority and authenticity as well.
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