Use "Wasted" Time

Most of us waste time, me more than ever. This came about as I was not clear of my goals and objectives. We waste time standing in queues, waiting in traffic, chatting on-line, sms'ing, surfing the net aimlessly, etc........ I call all these time wasters, diversions or distractions. We fail to use all of our time productively or even pleasurably. We jump from one diversion to another without enjoying any of them. We get irritated about matters beyond our control. The cause, we fail to plan well, causing negative consequences that could be easily avoided, for example we could use our travelling time to read or listen to personal development materials rather sitting, standing around or just purely listening to music. I find reading in the toilet useful as I am in an alpha state where absorption of information is at its highest. :-)

You could use these questions at the end of the day to evaluate your strengths and weakness:

• When did I do my worst thinking today?
• When did I do my best thinking?
• What did I actually think about today?
• Did I figure out anything?
• Did I allow any negative thinking to frustrate me unnecessarily?
• If I had to repeat today, what would I do differently? Why?
• Did I do anything today to further my long-term goals?
• Did I do what I set out to do? Why or Why not?
• Did I act in accordance with my own expressed values?
• If I were to spend every day this way for 10 years, would I, at the end, have accomplished something worthy of at that time?

Source: Critical Thinking, Richard W. Paul & Linda Elder

Take a little time with each question and reflect. It would be useful, like a daily journal to record your observations so that you are forced to spell out the details and or bad habits. Be explicit in what you recognise. As time passes, you will be able to look back and search for patterns in your daily thinking, habits and in your observations and assessments of that thinking.

Participation or Failure

My experience with people has been that even before they start on a project or on what they want to do they start with quitting in their mind, sort of a back door. If it does not work I can quit. The back door mentality. I remember when I met my wife (girl friend) in my early 20's we decided to have a relationship and test the waters if it does not work we could call it quits. Wrong start! At that time I had a friend staying with me temporarily from Malaysia working in Singapore, and I sought his counsel as he was a few years older than me. This was his advise, he said that there is'nt Mr or Miss right out there. If you start anything make a decision and work at it, to make it work. Love is a decision and not a infactuation. I did not understand that at that time now after 21 years of marriage, wisdom indicates that we work on our decision on a daily basis. In other words you participate 100% in your decision. The only failure in your decision is not participating 100 percent. Yes we have challenges that we face constantly and things don't work out the way you want it to be. So than why these challenges? Challenges makes us stronger as we figure out how to covercome these challenges. The magic word put on your thinking cap and figure out solutions. Albert Einstein once quoted: " Thinking is hard work thats why very few people engage in it". Even if you do fail in the process temporarily, the journey is more important as you have participated 100 percent and the experience is the amount of mistakes we have accumulated and learnt from it. One process I use is this debrief process which I hope will help you figure out your solutions; take some time to pencil down your thoughts to these questions

Debief Whats The Challenge?

1. What Happened?
2. Why?
3. What did you learn from this challenge?
4. What corrections are you willing to make?

The Key word is "What corrections are you willing to make" thats where true learning takes place.

The Only Failure is your Failure

to Participate 100 Percent