Advice on Thinking at Higher Altitudes

[Bellaisa]

Hello - I am going to take a day off next week as just a personal day for myself - a "mental health" day so to speak.

I plan to spend some time that day doing some goal setting/thinking on higher altitudes - a 1 - 5 year time horizon.

It is hard to find chunks of time for this sort of thing, so I want to make the most of it. Do any of you have some advice/words of warning using this time?

[Rainer Burmeister]

Do any of you have some advice/words of warning using this time?
Bellaisa,

last weekend I tried to do the same and went through piles of notes and articles regarding mental and/or spiritual topics at home. And also a lot of "reading stuff" on goal-setting, time-management and project-management had accumulated over the last months.

After filing the papers into file folders (sorted by subjects) I noticed that I would not be able to read it all on one weekend. Then I decided to set up an "Areas of Focus" binder with the dividers

Hospital (work)
Hospital (misc)
Family
Finances
Health
Social (political party)
Social (misc)
Hobby (trees)
Misc #1 (Taoism, GTD)
Misc #2

Into this binder I put important notes, plans and articles. Working with and on this binder will be an ongoing project for the future. A single weekend is not enough for me to clear my intentions, effects and goals for these important subjects. There is still a lot of "someday / maybe" stuff outside the "area of focus" binder and inside the file folders.

Rainer

[Rainer Burmeister]

I agree with Coz. Whenever I have the time I spend a day or at least a few hours in the Palatinate Forest near the village where I live in south-western Germany. The trees, streams, rocks, caves and small waterfalls make me forget about the daily chaos, and standing on top of a rocky hill looking down to the vallies clears my head.

Waterfalls are really fascinating, especially in winter. I can stand there for hours in the cold near a pond into which the water falls down from an icicled rock and watch the icicles grow from the rim of the pond into the air.

While I watch the growing icicles in winter or the young trees soaring up in spring, thoughts arise in my mind, too. With the permission of the local forest ranger I dig up small trees from time to time, take them home and plant them in pots or in the garden. So the trees serve as reminders at home.

And a lot of that thoughts went into that "areas of focus" binder I mentioned in my previous post.

Rainer

[Busydave]

Watch the way your moods vary as the day goes on. For me, the first half of the day is the best time for imaginative thinking: with the day still new, there is a much stronger sense in my mind that anything is possible. I need a couple of hours to get to this stage where the finer nerve endings are all fully awake, so about 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. is my best time.

Use the afternoon for planning/compiling/organising/typing.

Before you start, read through some inspirational quotations.

Also, make sure you address all the main categories: health, family, financial, intellectual, social, professional, and spiritual. If you do good work in 4 or 5 of these areas, the other two will suffer and you will feel unbalanced in the weeks to come.

(Cosmo has some great posts on this type of integrity on the thread “is goal setting bad for you?” especially on the first page of that thread), see:

http://www.davidco.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=728&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=a sc&highlight=


Listen to the right music. Many people recommend listening to your favourite upbeat energising pop/rock music, but my feeling is that this can narrow your focus too much.

Many others including DA recommend Baroque music because of the way the mathematically accurate rhythm affects the brain’s workings.

Personally, I listen to background ambient music with transcendental ambitions (strictly no beat/drums!). My utter favourite is Stuart Dempster’s “Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel”. This type of music does not intrude on the delicate new thoughts you are having. Rather, it seems to carry them along the stream.

Most of all, try to identify what YOU want, and critically examine what others have said you must/should do.

Have a great day!

Dave

[Tspall]

This is a great thing to do sometimes to help get your priorities in order and develop a plan for the future.

Try to do this when you're at your best. If you're a morning person, start developing these plans in the morning. If you're best at night, a night owl, then wait until the evening. Wait until your personal energy is at its best.

Best of luck to you!

[Bellaisa]

Thank you! Great ideas. I live in beautiful Phoenix where we are currently having record breaking heat, so I can't hang out outside; however, but we do have some of the most lovely resorts in the country. I may get something wonderful from the coffee bar and plant myself in the lobby - hopefully looking out on a fountain of some kind.

Another idea for a location for this sort of thing is a university campus - they are often very pretty and are designed for people to hang out and think.

[Ambar]

Jason recently mentioned the book _Your Best Year Yet_ in his blog. I'm about half-way through it and would recommend it as a source of ideas for your high-altitude thinking, which is what I was looking for.

[marcia]

I have recently used the Best Year Yet book. I enjoyed going through the book and thinking about the ideas it presents. For several mornings I took the book and a notebook to a mountain stream in the woods near my house and worked on it while my dog played in the water. We both enjoyed the time :-) I worked through each question as I finished reading a chapter rather than reading all the way through first and then doing the forms in the back -- I don't know which is best but that worked for me.

[Jason Womack]

Do any of you have some advice/words of warning using this time?

One resource I've used a LOT in the past 5 years:

Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain.

She's written books, and created audio programs, about how to use the creative imagination to kick up dreams, goals, wishes and then do very real, very physical things to bring them into reality.

Also, I'm re-reading Napoleon Hill's stuff this week. I got a CD of some of his speeches...highly recommend those as well.

[moises]

I have recently used the Best Year Yet book. I enjoyed going through the book and thinking about the ideas it presents. For several mornings I took the book and a notebook to a mountain stream in the woods near my house and worked on it while my dog played in the water. We both enjoyed the time :-) I worked through each question as I finished reading a chapter rather than reading all the way through first and then doing the forms in the back -- I don't know which is best but that worked for me.

Jason recommended Best Year Yet on this board a few months ago. I resisted doing it but a nagging voice told me it would be good for me.

I started it one Saturday morning and finished it the next Saturday morning. Today is June 7 and I have completed one week of my June 1, 2004 to May 31, 2005 Best Year Yet plan.

I have done 1-, 3-, and 5-year plans before so I thought I didn't need to work through Ditzler's program. But I did find it very helpful. It has definitely affected my behavior this past week as I faced some of those decision points where I could choose A or choose B. I start to move along the path of least resistant and then I think of the guidelines and focus of my Best Year Yet plan and I change direction and work on my long-term goods at the expense of short-term hedonism.

There is a very fine line in this field between the wheat and the chaff in my opinion. As I see it, the chaff encourages magical thinking by telling people that thinking something makes it real. "If wishes were horses beggars would ride," is the proper response to that. I can make all the affirmations I want about the shape of my nose or the height of my hairline. But that really is not a good use of my time.

On the other hand one is more likely to achieve realistic goals that one has set for oneself if one writes them down, reviews them, considers what qualities one needs to attain those goals, and affirms that one has those qualities.

[CosmoGTD]

I harmed myself with Shakti's stuff years ago, as i Visualized, but i did not take the needed Action, and did not deal with life's ugly Adversities properly, which were not part of my Visualization.

I think that stuff is a bit dangerous if a person is a Procrastinator/Avoider. Its pretty tempting to Visualize something, put a pink bubble around it, and then "let it go, and turn it over the the universe".

Don't waste a lot of time Visualizing, and waiting for things to happen!



[quote]

One resource I've used a LOT in the past 5 years:

Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain.

She's written books, and created audio programs, about how to use the creative imagination to kick up dreams, goals, wishes and then do very real, very physical things to bring them into reality.

Also, I'm re-reading Napoleon Hill's stuff this week. I got a CD of some of his speeches...highly recommend those as well.

[Anonymous]

Coz

You have just written a 117 word account of why goal setting did not work for me, (hence my thread "Is goal setting bad for you?").

I remember the first time I read Anthony Robbins. I brainstormed, wrote lists of goals, and visualised like crazy. The result? Years of profound, life wrecking frustration. I had done exactly as I was told, but when I reached out to claim what I truly believed was mine, I found myself doing the same old wrong stuff, and falling flat on my face.

(In his defence, I will acknowledge that Tony Robbins also brought the phrase “massive Action” into my life. But the apparent magical powers of goal setting seemed to imply that he had found a way around the drudgery of massive action. After all, wasn’t this a revolutionary new approach to achieving personal success?)

The whole self help industry is just an exercise in rebranding. There were always people who did things, and people who didn’t do things. It was NOT the case that the doers had discovered the magical formula of goal setting. I believe the difference was that the non-doers were befuddled with self doubt, confusion, inferiority complexes, unworthiness, complete inability to make decisions, (or the inability to defend a decision once it is made), and a whole host of other mental crap that keeps us rooted to the spot.

You can teach these non-doers the steps and stages of goal setting, but they will probably fall at the first fence by insisting to themselves that they have not earned the right to decide on a new course of action for their own lives. (Admit it, how often have you returned from a book or seminar or tape with fire in your belly – then you go to for that thing you have been putting off for ages, and the very first thought you have is: “well, before I do that I’ll just …” and you are right back where you were – back in your own skin, because very very few of us can change who we are).

It is cruel and deliberately insensitive to tell these people they do not have the guts to get out of their comfort zones. They are imprisoned by years of negative conditioning. Even worse, they simply just might not be doers in the tunnel-vision way doers are defined in goal setting literature. Is an artist a doer? Does an artist need to be a great team player and/or leader? Does he need great persuasive or presentational skills to get his best work done?

No.

An artist is someone cast into life with one layer of skin missing – hyper-sensitive to the nuances and the currents and under-currents of life. Think of a radio telescope pointing at the sky waiting for what ever touched its surface and you get the idea. (Put an artist in a typical corporate scenario and he will start jotting down character sketches of the people he is meeting with).

What happens to an artist if he starts to believe that he needs the typical tools that goal-setting gurus tell us we need? He will believe that the first thing he has to do is smother his sensitivity, and the second thing he has to do is take life by the scruff of the neck and kick its ass. The result? He ceases to be an artist.

(It’s their agents who need the typical goal setting stuff!).

Sorry about the ranting, but I too am going through the painful process of waking up from the Robbins/Waitley/Magic Lamp etc etc etc dream. There is nothing new under the sun. If you want to do something, then you either are or are not capable of doing it. It’s as simple as that. I have not moved one inch along in my life despite shelves full of “life changing” books. In fact, I put aside a lot of the things I used to love doing because they did not fit the corporate goal-setter formula (and let’s face it, most goals setter writers have their eye on the big prize: the major corporations. Look at how Daniel Goleman swerved into championing teams as the ideal social unit for a better future).

Now I feel that I have to get through all of those books in order to make sure my life is sufficiently in order so that I can start doing again the things I used to do eight years ago before I heard of any of this stuff!

If we feel we have to read goal-setting literature in order to get the things we desire, then that is a sure sign that what we really need is a major overhaul in the way we think about ourselves, and in the way we make our way though the days and weeks of our lives. Just learn how to get stuff done, and then add on the rebranded common sense if that helps you to focus.

DFE

[awebber]

I guess, just being me, that for myself I have to disagree that you shouldn't set goals or targets. (I am also biased being the strategic planner and performance architect for a federal agency) This past weekend I took the time to really reexamine my life over the past two years and found myself lacking. I wasn't accomplishing my goals and targets at nearly the rate that I was before I switched completely to the GTD system (I also discovered during my review that a Palm makes a great tracking tool and a really poor planning tool, but more on that in another post). It seems like I am getting a lot more little stuff done, I am just not making the good intuitive choices that this approach requires. So I am going to go back to a hybrid system between FranklinCovey and GTD.

Given the syncronicity of the universe, I also discovered a website with the following advice that I would like to repost here.

The 6 Hidden Secrets About Personal Marketing, Branding, Personal Development, and Self-Help

SECRET NUMBER 1: THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING NEW.
So don't waste your time looking for it. And don't wait for it either. Everything that you need to be everything that you want to be, already exists. In fact, you probably even already know most of it. Don't you?

SECRET NUMBER 2: LEARNING IS FOR LOSERS.
Don't learn it. Don't study it. DO it. Where would your life be right now if you had simply done everything you already know?

SECRET NUMBER 3: YOU CANNOT DO ANYTHING YOU WANT TO DO — OR BE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO BE.
But you can do a lot more — and be a lot more than you currently are. It's called "get real." Have realistic goals. Your mind is smart enough to know what is in your realm of possibility and what isn't. If you're not hot, don't have a goal of being a super model. If you're short, you'll never be in the NBA. If you're tall, you'll never be a jockey. And — sorry — but you'll probably never be a billionaire.

SECRET NUMBER 4: IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU'RE HEADED, YOU'LL NEVER GET THERE.
Don't dream about "what if." Pick a target and go after it. Relentlessly.

SECRET NUMBER 5: IF YOU DON'T START RIGHT NOW, YOU NEVER WILL.
Procrastination is the leading cause of failure. Shockingly, "never getting started" causes people to never get started. I'm not trying to get inside your head... based on sheer mathematical statistics of experience and probability - I already AM inside your head.

SECRET NUMBER 6: 90% OF EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER BEEN TAUGHT ABOUT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SELF-HELP IS CRAP.
Pardon my French, but there's really no more eloquent way to put it. If even half of that stuff really worked, I would be writing this pool-side aboard my own private space shuttle. And I'm not. Having said that, there are TONS of fabulous ideas that you should put to use. But keep it in perspective - you still have to do the work and make the changes. Obsession is the only shortcut.


This, along with a lot of other great information on personal branding, can be found at http://www.gregfisk.com/

[moises]

DFE,

Nice post. There are a lot of charlatans out there preaching "you are what you think." This is crass idealism that does little good and much damage.

The point of goal-setting, reviewing, rewarding, punishing, and affirming is to change one's thinking and behavior by forming helpful habits and eliminating harmful habits. The point is to build consciously new associations so that one is more likely to act in accordance with one's plans. I understand your point that either you have it or you don't. I won't be a major league pitcher in this lifetime. But if I sit down and say that I want to become more athletic I can then create a plan for doing that. I can give a friend $1,000 and tell her that if I fail to spend 1 hour in the gym three days a week for the next 3 months, she is to shred the money. If I do spend the requisite time in the gym she is to return it to me.

That won't get me a million dollar baseball contract but it will move me closer to my goal of increased athleticism. (Assuming that losing $1,000 would be a highly aversive event for me.)

I am sympathetic to your critique of modern corporate culture. I have my doubts about your romantic view of the "artist" opposing the corporations. Artists are just as co-opted by corporate dollars as self-help gurus.

There is a deeper critique. This is the claim that these attempts to control our own thoughts and our own behavior are actually subtle forms of oppression (see Adorno and Horkheimer, among others). We have at least two selves (as DA, among others has pointed out in GTD Fast) and one of them is dominating the other. The liberationist critique says that human freedom is diminished when we try to dominate our desires for short-term hedonism.

This is a critique not of corporate capitalism but of Western Civilization and, one could argue, of civilization overall. As I said, I am sympathetic with the critique of corporate capitalism. But I am sympathetic with the enlightenment/rationalist strands of Western Civilization.

I do think that it makes sense to work to find a better model of human flourishing. Human freedom will consist in developing technologies which reduce the need for human drudgery and increase the opportunities for us to achieve our long-term goals. Typically, people's long-term goals consist in creative self-expression and forming close personal bonds with other people. We could have an interesting debate over whether people find it important to dominate other people.

The larger point is that I believe that consciously changing the world is the what civilization is about. We can't really go back. We can destroy ourselves but we can't wipe out all of human history. So let's do what we can to set goals and then create the conditions that make it possible to move in the direction of achieving those goals.

[Anonymous]

Moises

I agree with everything you say.

My post was meant as an attack – preferably a left hook – on the “industry” that sold me the "you are what you think" snake oil. I still can't BELIEVE I fell for it!

I fully agree with what you said about artists being in thrall to the corporate world. It’s not a new thing, art galleries are full of the works of those who snagged the best patrons, and the commissioned works usually reflect something favorable about the patron.

I was referring more to the psychology of the artist. There is an old semi-serious gag that for every great book there is an unhappy childhood. If we “cured” artists by feeding them self –help material, would the work dry up? Can you walk through a crowd, listening for the signs of universal angst, and at the same time scout it for potential employees? A bit simplistic I know, but I used to dabble a little in poetry, and that was the first casualty after I discovered self-help books. Due to the commercial direction a lot of the books take, I very quickly categorized poetry as worthless and dropped it.

You’re right, we can develop good habits and get good stuff done through the use of self discipline, schedules, and measured targets. But the magic lamp claims that some guys make is just crazy. One website even warns us to against putting any limits on our imagination: as far as I remember it said that building a time machine was a goal worth considering. (OK, the reality is that someone might commit to a life time of study and in fifty years time have placed the first stepping stone on a path to some future possibility of a time-machine ; but why not SAY that?).

Thanks for the insight in Adorno and Horkheimer, neither of whom I have read. When you have young kids, you really being to notice how often people say things like: “he knows how to work the computer mouse: he’s going to be a computer programmer when he grows up”; or “he’s so expressive, he will definitely be on the stage when he grows up” … people just think up jobs for kids all the time. Are we just raising good employees? Or less constrictingly, do we instinctively look to see how our kids will become good contributing members of society (civilization)?

There are some snappy ripostes to Adorno and Horkheimer around the web, usually along the lines that you cannot have true freedom unless your have strong self discipline – I suppose they mean freedom from short term gratification, which enables you to get your hands on more substantial stuff.

You present a level headed attitude towards goal setting. It’s nice that we can say, for example, that it would be a good thing to develop a cure for Alzheimer’s. This is a clear need for the good of mankind, and it can be stated without all the goal-setting hoop-la. We already know most of the things that are worth doing, worth spending our time on. A quiet hour and a GTD mind dump will get most of them down on paper. You don’t need to imagine it’s Christmas morning in order to know you need to lose 20 pounds.

Doris Lessing writes beautifully about how we change from wildly optimistic kids into baffled and disillusioned adults in her novel “Shikasta”. Her explanation is imaginative and elegant, but at no point does she suggest that the process can be reversed. The charlatans would have us believe otherwise.

DFE

[CoachMike]

I really think that those people out there who preach "you are what you think" would disagree with your assessment of their approach. In fact, I think the point of the statement is missed entirely if you don't believe it to be true. I've met countless people who changed their lives through such a philosophy. As a Christian, I was always suspicious of such things, but find that it aligns with my biblical values quite well. The Bible says "Seek and you shall find" and that's the same thing as "you are what you think" if you ask me.

I started this year by purchasing the Jim Rohn One Year Success Plan. That is what brought me to the GTD methodology. Jim's program talks about the importance of having a methodology for getting the job done. I searched around and found DA's book. I've been going through the Rohn program for 5-1/2 months now and I see a profound difference in the way I approach life. I used to be very negative and, in fact, overbearing. Jim Rohn's program taught me that great ideas come from the most unexpected places. Consequently, where I used to be thinking of my reply while the other person was speaking, I now listen and absorb what is being sent and only reply when it is my turn in the conversation. I've found that this makes me much more productive--at work, at home, at church, at the hockey rink, anywhere.

The second month of the Rohn program was on goal setting. I had dabbled with goal setting in the past, but missed the major point, which was that without active follow up, written goals are nothing more than words on paper. Thus, I incorporated my goals into my GTD system and I've noticed that they come to mind much more often (at least weekly during my weekly review). By keeping them (my goals) in front of me at all times I've been able to make some major decisions that have helped me towards different goals of mine.

Yes, if you sit back and think "gee, all I have to do is think it and I'll be it" you are going to be disappointed. However, none of the people I've read would accept this as being what they teach us to do. They all (without a one) teach that we can think things, but we must also take action and that's what GTD is about--being able to take action on the many things that bombard us in life.

Just had to add my .02

Mike

[CosmoGTD]

DFE:
The frustration you experienced is VERY common for people who go overboard making unrealistic and even impossible goals, and then making them MUSTS.

As far as "Massive Action", to me that is not a defense. It actually creates more problems. If we frame it in our mind though, as MASSIVE ACTION, guess what?
STRESS, FRUSTRATION, OVERWHELM, ANXIETY.
If we "waste time" on top of this as well with dozens of Massive Goals that we MUST achieve THIS YEAR, then guess what we get to experience?
"Years of profound, life wrecking frustration".
Also, a person can get into Self-Downing, Self-Loathing, and Depression. What you experienced is VERY COMMON and the Goal-setting Salesman know it, and exploit it. These folks in that kind of emotional state NEED more products and services. Its a ruthless business.

Cognitive Theory states our Emotions, Behaviors, and Somatic effects stem from our Cognitions, which can occur automatically in a tenth of a second, and which assign Meaning to the external and internal events in our lives.
Cognition includes everything from Images, Internal Dialouge, to Automatic Thoughts, Assumptions, Rules, and at the most fundamental level, our Schemas (core Beliefs). So our brain almost instantly assigns meaning to an Event that happens, and then this creates the Emotional response, which creates the Motivation/Inhibition for our Behaviors, which creates the Results we achieve.

We can get into these automatic cognitions, and MODIFY them, by slow, deliberate relearning.

Now this is totally different than the metaphysical idea that our Consciousness creates our Reality by some type of mystical connection to the Universe.
BUT, if one uses those words in the terminology of Cognitive Science, then our consciousness IS creating our internal emotional-behavioral-somatic responses, which is literally our personal reality.

The main difference in these two approaches is the "New-Agey" idea that our Consciousness can somehow "effect" the external world through some type of "mystical" or even Magical connection.

At this point, i have to say i don't think so. I don't see the evidence for that. (big subject!).

I USED to be a big believer in what is called "New Thought" which is partially where Shakti Gawain and others ideas come from.
But after many years of research, i have to say that New Thought is wrong.
There is a grain of truth in it, but there are enormous errors as well.



Coz

You have just written a 117 word account of why goal setting did not work for me, (hence my thread "Is goal setting bad for you?").

I remember the first time I read Anthony Robbins. I brainstormed, wrote lists of goals, and visualised like crazy. The result? Years of profound, life wrecking frustration. I had done exactly as I was told, but when I reached out to claim what I truly believed was mine, I found myself doing the same old wrong stuff, and falling flat on my face.

(In his defence, I will acknowledge that Tony Robbins also brought the phrase “massive Action” into my life. But the apparent magical powers of goal setting seemed to imply that he had found a way around the drudgery of massive action. After all, wasn’t this a revolutionary new approach to achieving personal success?)

DFE

[Anonymous]

I believe that there are very successful systems out there. But they are not simplistic in nature. They have enough legs and arms to ensure that they work well across most facets of day to day life.

GTD is a prime example.

Another example is visualisation as part of athletic training. I think DA says on Getting Things Done Fast that visualisation makes up about two thirds of a top athlete’s training time. What the charlatans do with this information is break off that fact from the overall picture and try to market it as a self contained system. You can just hear the earnest tones: “Through the power of visualisation he became the fastest man ever over one hundred meters”; or: “at school he couldn’t make the athletics squad, but through the power of visualisation, he took home two Olympic gold medals.”

I fully agree with the concept that visualisation can make a strong contribution to progress when it is PART OF a broad and rigorously executed plan of action. It can even be a critical part of success if it is replacing a previous strong negative self image.

I’ve always believed that top college graduates are top college graduate from the age of three – it’s just an accepted fact around their house that their success is inevitable. The trick is to introduce this type of “inevitability” into our own lives. To quote DA again, on GTDF he give the example of looking for al examples of red in a room, and the surprise you feel at how much red there is.

I often look at politicians and wonder – how do you learn to be a politician? But to a politician, politics is life, it is all they see, it is the air they breathe. They see everything in terms of politics and persuasion. I agree that if you place a goal in front of you and look at it every day you will start to see where the ingredients for this goal can be found in your day to day life, and accumulate the knowledge and experience you need, and gradually turn your ship to its new course.

DFE

[Anonymous]

seems to me that some folks are in danger of slipping into the either/or false dichotomy when contrasting the effectiveness of visualisation with taking action (whether "massive" action or GTD bite-sized next actions).

From my own experience (similar generally to DFE's), its (now) clear that

1. visualisation alone won't work (where "work" means being satsified with progress towards meaningful goals)

2. just "doing" without some sense of where you want to go, who you want to be (a.k.a visualisation) does not "work" either.

I think we all need a blend of visualisation and next action to feel fulfilled (and systems to support each activity). The GTD system is focussed on the runway and 10K ft. level (projects and next actions) but the whole GTD philosophy is informed by deep thinking and reflection on the higher altitude stuff. The system is the best I've encountered for drilling down high-altitude thinking into "what now" thinking and taking action.

So go do the high altitude stuff (but don't forget to make it real).

[Busydave]

Coz

I saw a two part documentary on UK’s Channel 4 last year called “Soul Searching” which dealt with consciousness.

It featured the idea that all our knowledge is packaged in the form of little narratives, or stories: that’s just the way information hangs together for us.

The most intriguing theory was that consciousness and “self” are also just stories by which the brain explains to itself what it is doing. Even though we are “inside” our minds, we really cannot give much of an account of all the stuff that’s going on in here.

So, a short hand account of all that activity has evolved, and that is what we call self/consciouienss/my mind: but there is no actual separate “self”.

Dave

[cris]

This is certainly not true for me. Much of what I do begins with learning. Learning math, learning how to throw a party, learning a language, etc. First I learn, then I do. I wouldn't have been able to go to France and speak French with the people there had I not sat down for half an hour to an hour every morning for five weeks and read about how to speak French from a book. "Just do it" wouldn't have worked for me in this case. Maybe it works for the person who wrote those rules, but not for me. I wouldn't be writing computational geometry software had I not studied math in college for four years. I read the DA book before I started collecting, processing, and organizing in a way that transformed the way I carry out my mundane tasks. Etc., etc., etc.

Obviously from the rules you get the idea that for this guy "loser" has something to do with material circumstances, and in that sense I'm no loser, though thinking about my life in terms of "winning" or "losing" seems completely irrelevant. Everybody is different. I think these methods and books we're discussing can all be subtitled, "The System That Works For Me." This is fine if you have something in common with the author. I've just searched until I found those authors.

Cris



SECRET NUMBER 2: LEARNING IS FOR LOSERS.
Don't learn it. Don't study it. DO it. Where would your life be right now if you had simply done everything you already know?

[dsueiro]

What happens to an artist if he starts to believe that he needs the typical tools that goal-setting gurus tell us we need? He will believe that the first thing he has to do is smother his sensitivity, and the second thing he has to do is take life by the scruff of the neck and kick its ass. The result? He ceases to be an artist.



Ok, artists might need different ways of structuring their work, but I'd like to share a quote from a great game programmer who basically says that sometimes lack of inspiration might be, in some cases, procastination in disguise:

"Putting creativity on a pedestal can also be an excuse for laziness. There is a lot of cultural belief that creativity comes from inspiration, and can't be rushed. Not true. Inspiration is just your subconscious putting things together, and that can be made into an active process with a little introspection.

Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren't sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better." - John Carmack

[Bellaisa]

My oh my! I didn't realize what an interesting conversation I'd be starting when I posted my seemingly simple question! Thanks so much for all these replies. They gave me a lot to think about. I had the much-awaited day-off yesterday and thought it might be a good idea to circle back around and tell how the day went and what I learned.

This has been such a landmark 12 months for me, so taking some time to do this was especially valuable. To put it mildly, my life looks quite different than it did a year ago. During the past year I had my second baby (in late spring actually - just thrilling), managed working full time plus motherhood (challenging), dealt with an increased work load while being down one key staff person for a good part of the year (stretching), sold a home and bought another home (rewarding), my husband was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer (frightening) and my then two year old daughter was diagnosed with autism (devastating). It's been wild - so slowing down to get some perspective was great.

Here are some random thoughts -

1) I did take the advice of using Your Best Year Yet. It isn't the kind of book I would ordinarily buy, but the questions she uses provided a nice structure for what I was wanting to do. She has great clarifying questions. So thank you for the recommendations. I think it would be interesting to develop my own set of personal questions to use each year.

2) Best Year Yet recommneds looking back over your past year and reflecting on your accomplishments/dissapointments. Somewhere along the line, I remember DA saying something the similar. Don't throw away your projects list!! I printed a list of projects that I'd completed during this time frame and it was very, very powerful to read through them. I came away profoundly grateful for getting through some tough things fairly intact, but also with a more clear picture of what areas of my life need more attention.

3) I took the advice about getting out of my usual routine and spent the morning in a part of the city I had never visited. I just "happened upon" the perfect little cafe where I could sit by a window and look out onto a fountain, eat breakfast and write. This was great for the more big picture, reflective, creative thinking - it kinda shook things up - and it was fun!

4) I found however, that when it came time in the afternoon to organize these thoughts into more concrete actions, I instinctively wanted to head home. I wanted to be able to kick off my shoes, use my computer, play music of my own choosing and not be distracted by things/people coming in and out of my environment. I tried going to a coffee shop in the afternoon and that just didn't work - too many conversations going on too close to me.

5) Looking back over all that had happened made me realize more fully the value of the weekly review. Any one of the things I mentioned that happened over the past year had the power to be completely all consuming - and of necessity, there were times when I had to put a lot of focus in certain areas and let other areas slide. However, the weekly review kept reminding me on a consistent basis of all that I am am committed to so that I didn't get sucked too far into just getting run over by these things.

6) My major mistake - I tried to cram too much into one day...I wanted to also make it an R&R day, so I scheduled a massage at the beginning of the day and getting my nails done at the end....a treat like that is great, but one of those things would have been plenty. I was actually really tired when the day was over. Doing something like this for downtime is a nice thing though - and I think best at the end of the day - going to the driving range and hitting a bucket of balls, whatever suits you to let your mind decompress. Basically, what I need is a good vacation - coming soon!

7) What I think I came away with is a much clearer understanding about what is important to me and what part of my life needs to most focus along with a few solid, actionable ideas that I think will make a difference. I'll pop them into my projects, next actions and weekly review checklist and see how it turns out!

In short, it was extremely valuable, and I intend to make it an annual event (got it written down :-) ).

[Anonymous]

Bellaisa,

Thanks so much for your very inspiring post!!!

I've been implementing GTD for half a year now but am still avoiding thinking in higher altitudes.

I would much appreciate if you could explain how you "translate" your goals / higher altitude projects to the 20 k and 10 k altitudes.

[Bellaisa]

hmmmmmm, boy, I wish I could say I was an expert on this, but I avoid thinking on higher altitudes too! I'm much more of a nitty, gritty clikc things off your list type of person. If fact, the goals I've been using for my weekly review were written in July 2002. So I was working with yearly goals that were well over a year past due. :oops: Not all of them were done yet, so perhaps that was OK.

At any rate, I think what I allowed myself to do when I set some time to think about this was tune into my "inner in-box" - and I think daily reviews and weekly reviews do the same thing. We have our email, voice mail, meeting notes, etc - but periodically we need to let our minds and spirits give us input on what we need to do. On an earlier post on weekly reviews, somone gave the advice of "pray before you start" which I think is absolutely right and is important for the daily review as well- you need to activate this side of yourself. It is just as an important part of doing our work as attending meetings, processing our in-box, etc.

Back to your question.... what I realized in doing my big picture thinking that a big thing I need to focus on in my life in general - at more of the 40,000 foot level is ask for more support from people - my staff, my husband, etc. Focusing that issue on say, my daughter's autism, I came up with the goal/focus for this year of "put together the best possible support team for daughter's autism - family, school, medical professionals, etc.". Which is important, but not very actionable....but I'm putting projects around it that are very actionable - for example, find an easy to understand article on autism to give to family members to educate them and make this less scary, come up with 3 activities that grandpa and grandma could do with daughter to help (i.e., rolling a ball back and forth is excellent for building interaction), call people in my network to find a referral to a better developmental pediatrician. For right now, I think I need to keep those projects down to things that could be done within about three months; otherwise my sense is that it could become too ominous.

I hope that helps. I am a big newbie at this element of GTD - in fact, I'm kicking myself at not tuning into this part of it sooner.

Oh well, we learn things in layers.

[Anonymous]

thanks so much.
I will give it a try

[Scott_L_Lewis]

4) I found however, that when it came time in the afternoon to organize these thoughts into more concrete actions, I instinctively wanted to head home. I wanted to be able to kick off my shoes, use my computer, play music of my own choosing and not be distracted by things/people coming in and out of my environment. I tried going to a coffee shop in the afternoon and that just didn't work - too many conversations going on too close to me.

Interesting post, but I'm curious about one thing. In retrospect, did you find that your impulse to head home was rooted in a desire to procrastinate organizing your thoughts, or was it rooted in a need to let your thoughts incubate for a while before organizing them further?

[Bellaisa]

Interesting comment! Hmmm. I don't think I was procrastinating because I was really motivated to work on it; however, I very well could have needed a break and time to incubate and the drive home gave me that. But I think overall, I just needed a place that was quiet and comfortable -- being in a new scene was invigorating in the morning when I wanted to be creative, but distracting in the afternoon when I needed to focus/organize.

Alicia

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I don't come around all that often, but I just read through this rather long thread, which has been of great interest. What I especially wanted to respond to was the comment by DFE about self discipline and freedom:

There are some snappy ripostes to Adorno and Horkheimer around the web, usually along the lines that you cannot have true freedom unless your have strong self discipline – I suppose they mean freedom from short term gratification, which enables you to get your hands on more substantial stuff.
[/quote]

I have spent most of my life as a ballet dancer (I am now moving on to a career as a writer), and I spent a lot of my teenaged years rebelling against the conformity and perfectionism of my art. I absolutely loved dancing, which is why I left home at 15 to persue it whole heartedly. But I had a deep internal conflict with the conformity and perfectionism my art demanded. I craved the sense of freedom that accomplished professionals obviously had with their bodies - their expression, their range of movement, their sheer artistry - but I wanted it ASAP, and I didn't understand that the actual daily process of conforming and perfecting were exactly what was going to get me the freedom I so craved! I thought I just wasn't good enough, that my personality wasn't cut out for it, that I would never be like them (none of this was true.) I would quit for months at a time, and then feel a horrible sense of grief, go back and do it all over again. Eventually I committed heart and soul to my art - I married it, gave it everything it asked, sacrificed, quit questioning, like a monk in a monastery. One of the greatest milestones in my life, the thing that I feel so priveledged to have experienced, was that exact freedom I so desired. One day in class, I realized I had no resistance, I was able to do everything the teacher asked in a very difficult class with complete ease, my heart was full, and the music played off of me like never before. Freedom. Absolute bliss.

It really comes down to the Yin/Yang of the universe: constrict to release, dark before light, ect. In some great irony, the complete discipline of self (for me, in this one aspect) leads to infinite freedom of that same self in exact proportion to the discipline given.

Knowing our goals, and seeing and feeling them clearly, is what gives us the capacity to commit in such a way. For me, I had to clear out a lot of cobwebs that surrounded my true goal. Getting a job with a national company was a carrot that I thought was the goal. Eventually I realized that freedom (of movement, of expression, overcoming the limitations of my body) was my only goal as an artist and that had nothing to do with external achievement. It was only once I understood what I truly wanted that I could give everything. Knowing what I wanted very clearly was the linchpin of the whole experience.