Compete in Where Things are Going
I have now lost the words of this blog twice.
Third time’s a charm, right?
You cannot count on technology in today's world and I will not attempt to re-create the two previous versions of whatever this is. I will also not let frustration take over.
We live in a world where immediacy is extremely important and redoing things can easily be considered a step backward but maybe doing something a second or third time is actually a good thing.
Do it Again
Maybe we should spend more time doing things over again and practicing what we care to be greater. The Impactmaker Movement is about being great and helping other people be great. The 147th edition of the E-Impact Blog will be about competing to be successful going forward. Ironically, we may need to slow down and even look back in order to be successful in the future.
Speaking of looking back, this practice tends to get a bad name in our society these days. I think it's because of two main things:
Are you going the right way?
Regrets - People think looking back is regretting. Regret is a choice but I don't believe looking back is that choice.
Complaining - We look back because we're unhappy with something and we wish it were better for us. We have high expectations for the things that happen in our lives because we believe technology should make them better and that simple mistakes are completely avoidable. Instead of looking back for one's own well-being, we should look forward for the well-being of all.
Instead of looking back for these negative reasons I have two positive reasons for you to look back.
Reminiscing - This is an excellent practice for bringing back great memories which are good for the mind body and soul. Two places that you can use reminiscing as a powerful force are in your family and your business. Think about that last great leisure time you had with your family. Maybe a more formal event like a big vacation comes to mind. There are a couple of things that might trigger memories. The first is pictures. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of taking pictures but that's different from pictures themselves. In fact, I find pictures to be a great thing to bring back memories and reminisce. This is why you hire a photographer for your wedding. You want beautiful pictures but you don't want to have to take the time to capture the photos. The other great tool for bringing back memories is a journal. I would encourage you to write things down, especially during those important events of life. You can stir up some good memories and put together great stories for people who may not have been there.
Lessons - I like to think of lessons as a great opportunity to improve oneself and deepen in one's impact going forward. It's truly a way of competing for the future. Instead of looking at your previous missteps as a drag on your performance, think of them as key points in your journey that are there for you to learn. Some of my greatest lessons in life have come from what I had believed to be my greatest failures. They say “No pain, no gain’ and this is absolutely true but there's also no gain if you don't remember the pain.
The future
Everyone has a different demeanor about time. Some, as mentioned above, are afraid of the past, others are afraid of the here now, and still, others are afraid of the future. I happen to have some fear for all of them. I think there's a healthy level in each of these states.
This entry is designed to use your fear in a positive way.
The concerns you have about the future can be a tremendous tool for impact as time goes on. You can't compete in tomorrow's event until tomorrow comes. You can't compete in yesterday's event because it already happened. You can only compete in today's event - what's going on right now.
Because you cannot compete in tomorrow's or yesterday's event you must be intentional about keeping the purpose in mind when competing today. The Impactmaker Movement will certainly encourage you to put forth your best effort in anything you do in the moment. In other words, work hard today. Push yourself to do great things for others. You know the result will be great things for all, including you.
Part of exertion and pushing yourself in the impact space is considering the lessons of the past and how they will be applied to new things in the future.
It's not always about pushing through tough times and willing things to be done on your own. Truthfully, the more you try to push things that just aren't meant to be, the more problems arise, the more frustrated you get, and the more strained your relationships become.
And we know impact is a relationship business.
Relationships
It's imperative that you hold your impact relationships in high regard, use past experiences to teach you how best to manage them, and consider what the future will bring to said relationships.
Have you ever gotten in touch with a long-lost friend? It's a pretty cool feeling when you connect with someone you haven't talked with in a while but feel like things picked up just where you left off. I'm sure there have been psychological studies on this topic but without going too deep I will simply say this means relationships matter.
Spoke Folk
I received a text message this week from my friend Ryan who with his wife (and also friend Allie) forms the Executive Director duo for Mrs. DePasquale's and my favorite mission organization.
Spoke Folk, which I've talked about many times in the blog (see E-Impact 59, 62, and 108), has provided me with my greatest friends in life. The reason for this is it's an extremely challenging 12-day trip we take every summer.
We serve. We bike. We worship. And we don't sleep much.
Technology has allowed us to stay in better touch than we used to when I first got involved. However, even now, most of our friends live a long way away. This means we don't always get to see each other.
There are often periods of years between gatherings (different people do different trips every year). We know this is the case and expect to say, “See you later” to our friends every year not knowing when we’ll see them again. I can tell you when those reunions happen, it's like we just saw each other the day before. Once again, the power of relationships shows.
I would consider Spoke Folk one of the impact projects that I work on consistently. I have multiple things going on in life like you and would imagine the most collaborative things stick out for you as Spoke Folk does for me.
Competing and the Future
What if we competed as hard as Olympians did for impact?
The two main things in the title of this entry are competing and the future. You may not think of collaboration immediately given those things out of this context. Yet, how can you not think about a community of people working together to make the next era of the world a better place?
If you competed by yourself to do something great in the world how would you celebrate if you were successful when there was no one else involved?
What do you think about the future if you are the only one there?
Is the next era of this beautiful earth filled with even more advanced technologies and opportunities for us as humans but only one person is available to use them?
I give a lot of credit to athletes in solo sports like tennis or golf. Yes, I did call golf sport (that’s not like me but for another entry). If you notice, these athletes always celebrate with their team of coaches, trainers, and family members. They took their lessons from previous competitions, applied them in the moment with their team, and had a plan of success for the future. The on-the-field, course, or court effort was strictly done by them but there was a whole host of people involved for the success to happen.
Application
Take a moment to think about the things in your life that you're working on right now. Ask yourself how you are improving in those areas.
Here are two more questions for you:
Am I giving my best effort toward improvement?
Am I using all the resources I have available to me to improve?
These are critical questions because many of us find it too easy to improve on a mediocre level.
The human mind is amazing and built for efficiency. It will easily develop pathways to help your decision-making in just about any situation that might arise. In other words, just by being involved in the process, you'll improve. But that baseline improvement can be deceiving. It makes you feel like you're making progress in the moment but it really doesn't press forward. It's not competing in where things are going. It's competing in where things are out of necessity.
Competing for the future takes extra intention and effort. It means you have a greater level of care than the average person about a specific thing (for you, something generous and of great impact).
I urge you to look back with positive intentions, anticipate where things are going, and combine the knowledge from those sources to put forth your highest level of competition in the present.