Monday, March 19, 2007
Consistency - Parent of Progress, Cornerstone of Success
Copyright 2007 by Donovan Baldwin
In his book, "Awaken the Giant Within", Anthony Robbins has the following to say about achieving success:
"In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently."
Remember back down the line where someone told you that if you put a little bit of money in the bank every week or out of every paycheck, after a while you would have a large chunk of money? Made sense, right?
Or how about if you take a walk every day, or at least several times a week, you will lose weight, get fitter, go down a dress size...whatever! Do you remember that?
Okay, how about brush every day? I know you've heard that one!
So, what the heck do all these things have in common?
No peeking! You actually have to read the article.
Oh, okay. We all know and understand that simply taking the occasional swing at changing our lives or improving them or losing weight or making more money isn't going to work. It's the exercise done regularly and often over time that improves our bodies. It's the money put into the bank out of every paycheck that mounts up to enough to actually invest in something expensive. It is brushing our teeth every day that helps keep tooth decay in check and keeps the dentist off our backs.
That little Austrian kid, what's his name, probably did have some good genes going for him. However, Arnold Schwarzenegger never would have made "Pumping Iron", got discovered, made a lot more movies, married Maria Shriver, and become the governor of the state of California if he had only visited the gym once or twice and then quit...or only showed up every other Wednesday.
Like so many successful people, Ahnald (sorry, couldn't resist) visualized a goal for himself, figured out what steps were needed to get him there, and then was willing to spend the time and effort necessary to perform those steps regularly and religiously.
Raining and cold today? Got to get to the gym. Don't feel like working out? Got to get to the gym. Not only that, if something he tried wasn't working, he tried to figure out what would work and started over.
Was every step along the way perfect? Of course not. Just look at some of Arnold's movies, and you will see that some would definitely NOT remind you of the future governor of California...or of Gregory Peck, Charleton Heston, or Gabby Hayes, for that matter. What did matter was that he kept swinging...er, lifting, and did not give up.
Same with Ronald Regan, by the way.
Or how about that young black woman born in the segregated city of Birmingham, Alabama in the mid 50's? Who would have thought that she ever would have a chance to become anything. I grew up in the South of the 50's. I remember what she faced. It wasn't just two water fountains (white and colored) and three bathrooms (men, women, and colored). That's almost just an inconvenience compared to being considered by a large part of the population to be less than human and not being allowed to even dream of following the paths to achievement open to those who did not have skin the same color as hers. However, she too had a goal and never quit working at it despite the obstacles, and the almost certain times that she must have felt that her goal must be impossible to obtain.
Today, Condoleezza Rice is one of the most famous, most respected women in the world. Her name will go down in history because she had something to work towards and realized that just taking a casual swing at it once in a while would not get her where she wanted to go.
By the way, it was another person with skin the color of hers who would not give up and quit either. Partly because of the sacrifices of people like Martin Luther King, not only did the extra water fountain and bathroom go away, but so did a lot of the obstacles that little girl faced. He didn't quit trying either, until he could try no more...and that decision was not his.
Pick somebody successful. It doesn't matter if it is Tiger Woods, Thomas Edison, Donald Trump, or Tony Robbins. Heck, Edison even said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." How many of us would have quit after two or three tries?
How about that unemployed ex-secretary in Britain. Thought up some silly characters and wrote a book about them. Twelve publishing houses rejected her story before one decided to take a chance on it. Even her good friends were telling her to give it up and get a real job when the first Harry Potter book by J. K. Rowling hit the stands.
An old story I remember from a bazillion (my spell checker says "kazillion" doesn't exist) years ago was about a sports writer watching a famous golfer sink a difficult putt. A man beside him snorted and said something like, "I wish I had been lucky enough to be born with his talent." The sports writer didn't say anything at that time, but he thought to himself of all the times he had seen that same golfer practicing putting over and over between rounds when he could have been resting.
Yeah, we all have different levels of skills and talents. Our parents may or may not have been able to help us out. Our genes, or the circumstances of our birth and heritage, may or may not have made it easier for us to accomplish this or that. However, again and again we can see that the winners...those who succeed, are not always the most talented, those born rich, or those whose genes made it easy for them.
So many times in life's race, the winner is the one who simply did not quit running.
Donovan Baldwin is a Texas writer and a University of West Florida alumnus. He is a member of Mensa and is retired from the U. S. Army after 21 years of service. In his career, he has held many managerial and supervisory positions. However, his main pleasures have long been writing, nature, health and fitness. In the last few years, he has been able to combine these pleasures by writing poetry and articles on subjects such as health, fitness, yoga, writing, the environment, happiness, self improvement, and weight loss.
Learn how you can save hundreds of dollars with do-it-yourself legal forms and software at http://www.legal-forms-supermarket.com/ .
In his book, "Awaken the Giant Within", Anthony Robbins has the following to say about achieving success:
"In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently."
Remember back down the line where someone told you that if you put a little bit of money in the bank every week or out of every paycheck, after a while you would have a large chunk of money? Made sense, right?
Or how about if you take a walk every day, or at least several times a week, you will lose weight, get fitter, go down a dress size...whatever! Do you remember that?
Okay, how about brush every day? I know you've heard that one!
So, what the heck do all these things have in common?
No peeking! You actually have to read the article.
Oh, okay. We all know and understand that simply taking the occasional swing at changing our lives or improving them or losing weight or making more money isn't going to work. It's the exercise done regularly and often over time that improves our bodies. It's the money put into the bank out of every paycheck that mounts up to enough to actually invest in something expensive. It is brushing our teeth every day that helps keep tooth decay in check and keeps the dentist off our backs.
That little Austrian kid, what's his name, probably did have some good genes going for him. However, Arnold Schwarzenegger never would have made "Pumping Iron", got discovered, made a lot more movies, married Maria Shriver, and become the governor of the state of California if he had only visited the gym once or twice and then quit...or only showed up every other Wednesday.
Like so many successful people, Ahnald (sorry, couldn't resist) visualized a goal for himself, figured out what steps were needed to get him there, and then was willing to spend the time and effort necessary to perform those steps regularly and religiously.
Raining and cold today? Got to get to the gym. Don't feel like working out? Got to get to the gym. Not only that, if something he tried wasn't working, he tried to figure out what would work and started over.
Was every step along the way perfect? Of course not. Just look at some of Arnold's movies, and you will see that some would definitely NOT remind you of the future governor of California...or of Gregory Peck, Charleton Heston, or Gabby Hayes, for that matter. What did matter was that he kept swinging...er, lifting, and did not give up.
Same with Ronald Regan, by the way.
Or how about that young black woman born in the segregated city of Birmingham, Alabama in the mid 50's? Who would have thought that she ever would have a chance to become anything. I grew up in the South of the 50's. I remember what she faced. It wasn't just two water fountains (white and colored) and three bathrooms (men, women, and colored). That's almost just an inconvenience compared to being considered by a large part of the population to be less than human and not being allowed to even dream of following the paths to achievement open to those who did not have skin the same color as hers. However, she too had a goal and never quit working at it despite the obstacles, and the almost certain times that she must have felt that her goal must be impossible to obtain.
Today, Condoleezza Rice is one of the most famous, most respected women in the world. Her name will go down in history because she had something to work towards and realized that just taking a casual swing at it once in a while would not get her where she wanted to go.
By the way, it was another person with skin the color of hers who would not give up and quit either. Partly because of the sacrifices of people like Martin Luther King, not only did the extra water fountain and bathroom go away, but so did a lot of the obstacles that little girl faced. He didn't quit trying either, until he could try no more...and that decision was not his.
Pick somebody successful. It doesn't matter if it is Tiger Woods, Thomas Edison, Donald Trump, or Tony Robbins. Heck, Edison even said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." How many of us would have quit after two or three tries?
How about that unemployed ex-secretary in Britain. Thought up some silly characters and wrote a book about them. Twelve publishing houses rejected her story before one decided to take a chance on it. Even her good friends were telling her to give it up and get a real job when the first Harry Potter book by J. K. Rowling hit the stands.
An old story I remember from a bazillion (my spell checker says "kazillion" doesn't exist) years ago was about a sports writer watching a famous golfer sink a difficult putt. A man beside him snorted and said something like, "I wish I had been lucky enough to be born with his talent." The sports writer didn't say anything at that time, but he thought to himself of all the times he had seen that same golfer practicing putting over and over between rounds when he could have been resting.
Yeah, we all have different levels of skills and talents. Our parents may or may not have been able to help us out. Our genes, or the circumstances of our birth and heritage, may or may not have made it easier for us to accomplish this or that. However, again and again we can see that the winners...those who succeed, are not always the most talented, those born rich, or those whose genes made it easy for them.
So many times in life's race, the winner is the one who simply did not quit running.
Donovan Baldwin is a Texas writer and a University of West Florida alumnus. He is a member of Mensa and is retired from the U. S. Army after 21 years of service. In his career, he has held many managerial and supervisory positions. However, his main pleasures have long been writing, nature, health and fitness. In the last few years, he has been able to combine these pleasures by writing poetry and articles on subjects such as health, fitness, yoga, writing, the environment, happiness, self improvement, and weight loss.
Learn how you can save hundreds of dollars with do-it-yourself legal forms and software at http://www.legal-forms-supermarket.com/ .
Labels: achieving goals, goal setting, goals, motivation, self improvement, success
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
The Importance of Finding Yourself
Copyright 2007 by Donovan Baldwin
Two vignettes from sometime in the 60's.
In the first, I am a teenager sitting in the living room with my father. We are watching television. Someone is being interviewed. I cannot remember who it was, but he has just said, "I am trying to find myself."
My father's response, "Hmmph! You're right there. What's so hard about that?"
Being a teenager, I naturally thought that was an excellent remark, although I never would have let my father know that. Yet, at the same time, I was in a quandary because I too was trying to find myself and wasn't sure where to look.
In the second, , I am driving around Pensacola, Florida, my hometown. I am listening to one of my favorite radio commentators, Earl Nightingale, whose motto was, "We become what we think about."
A listener to his program has asked the question, and I will get as close as possible to the question and the answer as I remember them, "I am about to enter college. How do I choose the career and course of study that will bring me success and the most wealth and pleasure from life?"
Earl Nightingale's answer, "Find what you love to do so much that you would do it even if nobody paid you, and make that your life's work. You will be happy to go to work every day. Your love of what you do will make you become the absolute best at doing it. People will see this and soon see you as someone who cares and is knowledgeable, and this will further your career more than anything else and you will rise each day eager and anxious to get to work."
Two vignettes and now a story.
In Pensacola, Florida in the 60's, a young man who wanted to write and who loved literature and the flow and sweep, mystery and mastery of words, wanted to know the same things. His advisors told him, "The money's in accounting. If you want to be successful and wealthy, go into accounting." So, he got an accounting degree.
Back to the present. The ex-accountant, ex-optical lab manager, ex-soldier, ex-restaurant manager has, after 45 years, "found himself". Oddly enough, his father's remark was on the money. He was right there all the time, but he went looking everywhere except within himself. Earl Nightingale's advice fits in as well. The ex-accountant who wanted to write, but only wrote instruction manuals, reports, and business letters, now gets to write every day...and loves it!
Rich? Not as some people would judge it, but every day, I get up looking forward to putting down the words rattling around in my head. When do I work? I am never quite sure, because when I am doing something that does not appear to be "work", I am absorbing, enjoying, stroking, and massaging all that happens around me. It all becomes a part of me and may eventually reappear as a story, a poem, an article, a comment, or as a thought in an email to my friends or family.
Now let's talk about reality. My father, 4F in World War II because of an eye injury, was a masterful concert violinist. When he married my mother, he was faced with a choice of earning a living and supporting a family, or making beautiful music. He was unable to find himself, that man who could support his family with his music. He chose one, support his family, over the other. He did a good job of it, but it wasn't unusual on a Sunday to find him wistfully playing recordings of beautiful music. He never touched a violin again.
I wish he could have done the thing he loved rather than bending over a table at Pensacola Naval Air Station for 30 years, repairing aircraft instruments. I wish he could have played the violin or conducted an orchestra for all the years of his life, rising each day to do what he loved rather than putting on his Archie Bunker hat and going to the Navy base with his carpool.
I am proud of my father. He had his faults, like any man, but he tried to do the right things for his church, his community, and his family. However, I wish that he had "found himself" and lived up to the desires and dreams of his heart.
My life has proven that, until the end, at least, it is never too late. Maybe the other lives I have lived were necessary to prepare me for this incarnation as "writer". I don't think so. As much as they have given me, I think my life would have been happier and more productive had I done the thing that I so longed to do rather than following paths which went places I really didn't want to go.
We only have this one life to live and there are no guarantees but one. It is best to choose to make your world what you want it to be before you have no choices left.
My father was right. We don't really have to go very far to find ourselves. We just have to look inside and find out what we really want to be. Not "have". To be. Once you know what you want to be, then work to become that and one day you will turn a corner and "find yourself" right where you were all along.
Donovan Baldwin is a Texas writer and a University of West Florida alumnus. He is a member of Mensa and is retired from the U. S. Army after 21 years of service. In his career, he has held many managerial and supervisory positions. However, his main pleasures have long been writing, nature, and fitness. In the last few years, he has been able to combine these pleasures by writing poetry and articles on subjects such as health, fitness, yoga, writing, the environment, happiness, self improvement, weight loss, and pets, of all things.
Save hundreds of dollars by using do it yourself legal forms. Learn more at http://legal-forms-supermarket.com/.
Two vignettes from sometime in the 60's.
In the first, I am a teenager sitting in the living room with my father. We are watching television. Someone is being interviewed. I cannot remember who it was, but he has just said, "I am trying to find myself."
My father's response, "Hmmph! You're right there. What's so hard about that?"
Being a teenager, I naturally thought that was an excellent remark, although I never would have let my father know that. Yet, at the same time, I was in a quandary because I too was trying to find myself and wasn't sure where to look.
In the second, , I am driving around Pensacola, Florida, my hometown. I am listening to one of my favorite radio commentators, Earl Nightingale, whose motto was, "We become what we think about."
A listener to his program has asked the question, and I will get as close as possible to the question and the answer as I remember them, "I am about to enter college. How do I choose the career and course of study that will bring me success and the most wealth and pleasure from life?"
Earl Nightingale's answer, "Find what you love to do so much that you would do it even if nobody paid you, and make that your life's work. You will be happy to go to work every day. Your love of what you do will make you become the absolute best at doing it. People will see this and soon see you as someone who cares and is knowledgeable, and this will further your career more than anything else and you will rise each day eager and anxious to get to work."
Two vignettes and now a story.
In Pensacola, Florida in the 60's, a young man who wanted to write and who loved literature and the flow and sweep, mystery and mastery of words, wanted to know the same things. His advisors told him, "The money's in accounting. If you want to be successful and wealthy, go into accounting." So, he got an accounting degree.
Back to the present. The ex-accountant, ex-optical lab manager, ex-soldier, ex-restaurant manager has, after 45 years, "found himself". Oddly enough, his father's remark was on the money. He was right there all the time, but he went looking everywhere except within himself. Earl Nightingale's advice fits in as well. The ex-accountant who wanted to write, but only wrote instruction manuals, reports, and business letters, now gets to write every day...and loves it!
Rich? Not as some people would judge it, but every day, I get up looking forward to putting down the words rattling around in my head. When do I work? I am never quite sure, because when I am doing something that does not appear to be "work", I am absorbing, enjoying, stroking, and massaging all that happens around me. It all becomes a part of me and may eventually reappear as a story, a poem, an article, a comment, or as a thought in an email to my friends or family.
Now let's talk about reality. My father, 4F in World War II because of an eye injury, was a masterful concert violinist. When he married my mother, he was faced with a choice of earning a living and supporting a family, or making beautiful music. He was unable to find himself, that man who could support his family with his music. He chose one, support his family, over the other. He did a good job of it, but it wasn't unusual on a Sunday to find him wistfully playing recordings of beautiful music. He never touched a violin again.
I wish he could have done the thing he loved rather than bending over a table at Pensacola Naval Air Station for 30 years, repairing aircraft instruments. I wish he could have played the violin or conducted an orchestra for all the years of his life, rising each day to do what he loved rather than putting on his Archie Bunker hat and going to the Navy base with his carpool.
I am proud of my father. He had his faults, like any man, but he tried to do the right things for his church, his community, and his family. However, I wish that he had "found himself" and lived up to the desires and dreams of his heart.
My life has proven that, until the end, at least, it is never too late. Maybe the other lives I have lived were necessary to prepare me for this incarnation as "writer". I don't think so. As much as they have given me, I think my life would have been happier and more productive had I done the thing that I so longed to do rather than following paths which went places I really didn't want to go.
We only have this one life to live and there are no guarantees but one. It is best to choose to make your world what you want it to be before you have no choices left.
My father was right. We don't really have to go very far to find ourselves. We just have to look inside and find out what we really want to be. Not "have". To be. Once you know what you want to be, then work to become that and one day you will turn a corner and "find yourself" right where you were all along.
Donovan Baldwin is a Texas writer and a University of West Florida alumnus. He is a member of Mensa and is retired from the U. S. Army after 21 years of service. In his career, he has held many managerial and supervisory positions. However, his main pleasures have long been writing, nature, and fitness. In the last few years, he has been able to combine these pleasures by writing poetry and articles on subjects such as health, fitness, yoga, writing, the environment, happiness, self improvement, weight loss, and pets, of all things.
Save hundreds of dollars by using do it yourself legal forms. Learn more at http://legal-forms-supermarket.com/.
Labels: happiness, self improvement, writing
