Imagine that every human is born a featherless bird. Every bird has a dream to fly, nay, “soar” like they know deep inside they are truly designed to do. Dreaming of soaring and deserving the flight are two different things. So many people expect to take flight in life without first earning their feathers. Consistent discipline is the key to accomplishing things we desire. How do we earn a feather? How do we collect enough feathers to be able to take to the skies of the good life; to achieve our dreams? Assume one feather represents one action item we commit to take each and every day to bring us inch-by-inch closer toward our dreams and goals and what is important to us. We can’t change our lives until we change something that we do every single day.
Let’s make the act of soaring in the sky the analogy for something that we deem to be important in our life such as our health, our family, our income, our job, etc. Next, let’s determine what we must do every day to make it possible to earn our flight. Each deed we “must” do each day represents one feather. Because it is easier not to do something than it is to do it, we earn our feather each time we give ourselves our very best and actually do the deed we committed to. It is often painful to always give our very best. Let’s assume every time we do give our very best we earn the opportunity to jam a feather into our skin. I use the word “jam” because it sounds painful and giving our very best when there are a number of easier options available especially when no one else is watching us is often painful. Conversely, for every deed we do not do and create or accept some excuse, we must yank a feather out and that too is painful. Even the word sounds painful. Not delivering on a promise to our self is very painful indeed. Unfortunately the pain is not immediate and is instead a gradual decline in our energy, self-confidence and sense of purpose. Our posture diminishes, our demeanor changes, and even our speech inflection is affected. This phenomena occurs because we are no longer impressed with ourselves; no longer proud of ourselves and it affects our life, our plans, momentum and puts this lack of internal leadership on display for everyone around us. It is here that the most important factor rears its presence, accountability. Without accountability for our own adherence to our commitments or the lack of we often allow ourselves to slip slowly into the way of life that was once abandoned for something we believed to be a better life; a better way; to take flight and soar! But for many of us, an all too common result is we end up frustrated and aggravated with our progress asking “Why are we not in flight”? Interestingly, if we were literally keeping track of our “daily” actions of whether we always gave our very best and did the deed OR took the easier route and forewent it, we could have some insight as to why we have not achieved what we set out to do. We could learn why we are not soaring in that big beautiful sky and doing aerial acrobats. For many of us, it is quite revealing when we look back at our actions over a period of time. If it were a runway would we see the runway littered with feathers that were once in our power to earn but were instead not done to our very best or at all?; remnants of an internal conversation that occurred in your brain that no one else could here and a decision was made to do the deed or not; to give that extra oomph or not. If it is revealed to us that there are more feathers on our runway of life than on our body we have our answer. Because most of us do not pay attention to our own actions and I mean actually “document” our performance on a daily basis we often don’t realize when we have missed a week or a month or even longer. Because it is not front and center in our mind by doing the act of writing it out each day, we lose track and days and weeks pass. Yet, when we realize we are still not taking flight, we get angry with the results. It’s actually comical but it’s not funny.
A simple act of actually documenting what you do every day to work toward what is important to you in your life accomplishes at least two things: 1) It keeps what is important to us front and center in our “daily” life and 2) it makes us accountable to ourselves so we don’t live in that place often referred to as delusion. Are you better than that? Do you deserve the flight you desire? Do you want to remain a featherless bird at the bottom of the tree of life making excuses for not having the “gift” of flight? Or do you want to truly feel the wind beneath your wings powered by feathers you earned?
The question is will you take the time to document your daily life performance and become keenly aware of your actions?
I am willing to wager that most people have spent more time writing their resume than they have writing out a plan for their life. The irony is that a job is something “IN” your life. Your existence and how we actually feel about yourself “IS” your life. It takes about 30 seconds each day to mark a series of X’s on a calendar or a spreadsheet to be accountable to yourself. This effort will inevitably translate into you getting what you want, you becoming who you want to be and you becoming part of an exclusive club in the sky called “Birds of a Feather”.
P.S. I use a tool called Streaks on my iPhone. It is easy to maintain and use. There are many habit type applications available for most mobile devices and even more for PC’s.
Let’s make the act of soaring in the sky the analogy for something that we deem to be important in our life such as our health, our family, our income, our job, etc. Next, let’s determine what we must do every day to make it possible to earn our flight. Each deed we “must” do each day represents one feather. Because it is easier not to do something than it is to do it, we earn our feather each time we give ourselves our very best and actually do the deed we committed to. It is often painful to always give our very best. Let’s assume every time we do give our very best we earn the opportunity to jam a feather into our skin. I use the word “jam” because it sounds painful and giving our very best when there are a number of easier options available especially when no one else is watching us is often painful. Conversely, for every deed we do not do and create or accept some excuse, we must yank a feather out and that too is painful. Even the word sounds painful. Not delivering on a promise to our self is very painful indeed. Unfortunately the pain is not immediate and is instead a gradual decline in our energy, self-confidence and sense of purpose. Our posture diminishes, our demeanor changes, and even our speech inflection is affected. This phenomena occurs because we are no longer impressed with ourselves; no longer proud of ourselves and it affects our life, our plans, momentum and puts this lack of internal leadership on display for everyone around us. It is here that the most important factor rears its presence, accountability. Without accountability for our own adherence to our commitments or the lack of we often allow ourselves to slip slowly into the way of life that was once abandoned for something we believed to be a better life; a better way; to take flight and soar! But for many of us, an all too common result is we end up frustrated and aggravated with our progress asking “Why are we not in flight”? Interestingly, if we were literally keeping track of our “daily” actions of whether we always gave our very best and did the deed OR took the easier route and forewent it, we could have some insight as to why we have not achieved what we set out to do. We could learn why we are not soaring in that big beautiful sky and doing aerial acrobats. For many of us, it is quite revealing when we look back at our actions over a period of time. If it were a runway would we see the runway littered with feathers that were once in our power to earn but were instead not done to our very best or at all?; remnants of an internal conversation that occurred in your brain that no one else could here and a decision was made to do the deed or not; to give that extra oomph or not. If it is revealed to us that there are more feathers on our runway of life than on our body we have our answer. Because most of us do not pay attention to our own actions and I mean actually “document” our performance on a daily basis we often don’t realize when we have missed a week or a month or even longer. Because it is not front and center in our mind by doing the act of writing it out each day, we lose track and days and weeks pass. Yet, when we realize we are still not taking flight, we get angry with the results. It’s actually comical but it’s not funny.
A simple act of actually documenting what you do every day to work toward what is important to you in your life accomplishes at least two things: 1) It keeps what is important to us front and center in our “daily” life and 2) it makes us accountable to ourselves so we don’t live in that place often referred to as delusion. Are you better than that? Do you deserve the flight you desire? Do you want to remain a featherless bird at the bottom of the tree of life making excuses for not having the “gift” of flight? Or do you want to truly feel the wind beneath your wings powered by feathers you earned?
The question is will you take the time to document your daily life performance and become keenly aware of your actions?
I am willing to wager that most people have spent more time writing their resume than they have writing out a plan for their life. The irony is that a job is something “IN” your life. Your existence and how we actually feel about yourself “IS” your life. It takes about 30 seconds each day to mark a series of X’s on a calendar or a spreadsheet to be accountable to yourself. This effort will inevitably translate into you getting what you want, you becoming who you want to be and you becoming part of an exclusive club in the sky called “Birds of a Feather”.
P.S. I use a tool called Streaks on my iPhone. It is easy to maintain and use. There are many habit type applications available for most mobile devices and even more for PC’s.
