A return to the self story

Mark Ziniel worked construction all the way through college, then got a job as a manager with cargill. He hated it. Although he had to work long hours,  he felt that most of the time he spent was useless activity. He finally quit and went back to work building things. 

“I get immediate feedback from my customers and can see the results of my work,” he says, adding that he often hears highly paid professionals say they wish they could be doing his job instead of theirs. 

Create art. You may not see yourself as being creative or artistic. Most of us have these talents squashed flat under the steamroller of the three Rs. Re-inflate it. For a guidebook, read the artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to higher creativity by Jullia Cameron. The principles, tools and exercises will help you remove block to your creativity. They’ll also help you confront your own fears of being creative. Cameron wrote the book after she quit drinking, which she had previously used as a catalyst and crutch for her creativity. 

“The Idea that I could be sane, sober and creative terrified me,” she said, “implying, as it did, the possibility of personal accountability. ‘you mean, if I have these gifts, I’m supposed to use them?’ Yes.” 

Here’s another shibboleth about creativity that you must let go the nation of “art’s sake.” In her book the reenactment of art, Suzy Gablik says that art must be more than art. It can and should have purpose. Self-transformer, she says, cannot come from ever-higher material expectations; “it’s more likely to come from some new sense of service tho the whole from a new intensity and personal commitment.” 

Be truthful with yourself in answering this question: would you be happier living in a glorious big house paid for by your toil at a boring job you hate, or living in a small cottage spending your workdays creating something that is beautiful in your eyes because of it’s purposefulness in service to others? 

People who recognize their potential are constantly bridging the gap between inner and outer. Tjeu omvest the external world with meaning because they disown neither the world’s objectivity nor their own subjectivity. Anthony storr, Solitude: A return to the self.

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Managing your space Frederick Taylor

Frederick Taylor, who brought industrial engineering to our economy in the early part of the twentieth century, left a bitter legacy in some regards. But in at least one way, he was right on target. The better you organize your space to minimize wasted motion including the time you waste looking for lost items the more productive you’re able to become. 

Your space says a lot about who you are, and it may say things to others that you would just as soon they not perceive. Being from “the other side of the tracks,” living in “the boondocks,” having space that looks like “they city dump” can all label you in the eyes of others. 

More important, your space will inexorably begin to influence yourself image. Think carefully about the spaces in which you choose to live and work, and put love and pride into them. 

A telephone should never be more than an arm’s reach from where you intend to sit and do the bulk of your job search work. Max Messmer, Job huntine for Dummies

Before diving into the question of how your workspace is configured, raise the question of where it’s located. Are you spending unnecessary time on a commute when you could more efficiently be working from home? 

Could you be more effective relocating your office to be closer to key suppliers or customers? Are you operating out of one office when two would be more efficient or vice versa? 

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Consistent with your overall goals in life

About 2,500 years ago, Lao Tzu said in Tao Te Ching that the sage must be ruthless. Want to be a sage of financial management? Learn to be ruthless. When it comes to creating personal wealth, desire management it more important than financial management, whenever presented with an opportunity to spend money that doesn’t directly relate to one of your high-priority goals, Just Say No. write these three words down on a card and put them in your wallet next to your credit cards. There you have it: No Brainer Money Management. 

It’s imperative that you explicitly understand your philosophy of money. Do you see money as the source of great good or the root of all evil? 

Is work necessary drudgery, required to pay the bills, or the source of great future potential? Is the world in your eyes a place of poverty or place of abundance? Do you consider yourself by nature a spender or a saver? 

Write down in a sentence or two your philosophy of money. Is it consistent with your overall goals in life? Or could your ideas about money (which fundamentally boil down to whether you think you deserve it or not) undermine your ability to achieve your stated goals?

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Managing your Money

A penny saved is no longer a penny earned. With today’s tax structure, it’s more like two pennies earned. Studies show that people who are in control of their personal finance are more effective in their careers. There are lots of people interested in helping you spend your money, but only you are responsible for managing it. 

Many companies offer investment savings plans, and some allow you to invest as much as 10 percent of your income and will match part or all of your investment. If you own your own business even if it’s a small business in addition to an individual retirement account. At the present rate of savings, many employees won’t be able to retire in the style they expect. Don’t be one of them. 

Prosperity starts with an idea. Become convinced that it’s available, persuade yourself to obtain it, and accept it as it arrives it. Then, if you’re positive about it, you breathe life and form into it. “Mark victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, Dare to win. 

If you need no other reason to be on top of your finances, a study of performance by sales representatives conducted at the Cox School of Management of Southern Methodist University in Dallas found that sales reps with greater financial independence achieved higher sale levels. The study’s authors conclude that the financially independent group had a greater sense of freedom because they were not so worried about losing the job. 

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Give yourself measurable goals

Motivational speaker and author Anthony Robbins says that most people overestimate what they can get done in ten years. Be patient – even superman spent most of his time as Clark Kent. 

Give yourself measurable goals. More important, measure your progress toward completing them, for example, if your goal is to make 100 networking calls in a week, each day summarize your progress so that you don’t find yourself with 89 calls to make on Friday afternoon, just as the people you want to reach are getting ready to go to the country for the weekend. 

Brain Tracy is a highly successful author and speaker specializing in development of the human potential and personal effectiveness. His story illustrates the up-font time commitment sacrifice and patience required to achieve excellence. As he told sharing ideas magazine: 

In my first three years, I had liquidate all of my savings, sell my house, borrow from my friends and relatives, and move into rented premises with my young family in order to continue giving seminars. Gradually, like a plane in a nosedive, I managed to pull up, level off, and begin to climb…. I was in my seventh year of full-time speaking before I began to really be successful. 

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The Guide to better decisions

Jesus was a man who got things done, yet he always seemed to have time for people. In her book, Jesus CEO: Using Ancient wisdom for visionary leadership, Laurie Beth Jones describes some of the ways that Jesus made time. One of the most important was that he guarded his energy.

He did not waste physical or emotional energy on judging others, negative self-talk, argumentation or procrastination. Over the ages, many people have tried to emulate Jesus in order to be better people; Jones shows how you can emulate Him in order to be better time manager.

Understand how your self-image and self-esteem influence your time-management skills. People with low self-esteem often waste lots of time agonizing over whether they even deserve the favorable outcomes that would come with getting something done. Indeed, low self-esteem can be a sneaky disguise for laziness (“I don’t deserve a job like that, so I won’t even apply”).

If you feel stuck, spend some time every day creating a visual mental image of yourself as a winner, a caring and deserving person whose success will help not only yourself but the many others you care for.

I use my head by asking myself a practical question, and I consult my heart by asking myself a private question. Then, after I listen to myself and others, I make a better decision and act on it. (Spencer Johnson,M.D. “yes” or”No” )

Many of us feel guilty for “doing nothing,” for just sitting and thinking, or just sitting. But it’s often when you just sit and think that the important questions arise, and it’s when you just sit that the answers to those questions come to you.

Is patient, Rainer Maria Rilke written in his sonnets to Orpheus: In spite of the farmer’s work and worry, He can’t reach down to where the seed is slowly transmuted into summer. The earth bestows.

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Time is the one true equal opportunity employer

Time is the one true equal opportunity employer; we’re all blessed with the same 24-hour day. Yet virtually all successful people share one characteristic: they’re extremely conscious of using their time effectively, and rely on organized systems to help them do so. There are many different systems on the market to help you organize projects and manage time more effectively, ranging from simple paper and pencil calendars and system you use is less important than your willingness to discipline yourself to use one.

We often try to cram in so many activities that we don’t give ourselves enough time to enjoy any of them. (jeffry J. Mayer)

In the well-known children’s story, the velveteen rabbit was obsessed with becoming “real.” When do we become “real” as people? What is it that makes us real? It’s our work. The work we put into forming our habits and character; the work we put into building relationships; the work we put into serving others; the work we put into making the world a better place for ourselves, our families and humanity. 

Are you real? Make a list of all the things you did in the last month at your job. How much time you did you spend on real work- meaningful work that makes a difference in the world? And how much did you spend on busy work, pretend work and make work that creates nothing and leaves no legacy? Do you need to wake up, change your priorities and get real? 

In Thomas Cleary’s Translation of the book leadership and strategy: lessons of the Chinese Masters, one reads that, “The affairs of sages are limited and easy to manage. Their requirements are few and easy to satisfy.” Be ruthless with your time, concentrating it on those things that matter, and you’ll be amazed at your productivity. And there you have secret formula for No-Brainer Time Management: just say no to tempting distractions.

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