DaveWitwicki.com

Yesterday on the way back from lunch I found myself walking alone through the skywalks. Normally I’m with a friend or two but things had worked out such that the friends I had lunch with went their separate ways back to work. The skywalks were busy with people heading to and from lunch and as I walked, I returned the glances of the folks walking in the opposite direction. More often than not, I sensed a feeling of loneliness, especially with those walking by themselves. There was also a hint of searching in their gazes, a longing to connect with someone. A glint of hope for friendliness quickly veiled behind urban coldness as they faded back into the crowd.

It’s sad to realize that so many people in society today have few, if any, really close friends. We live our lives on autopilot, going through the motions, doing what’s expected of us. Never taking the time to truly connect with the people around us. I can relate. I’ve been through this. In a sense I’m still going through this, at least some of the time.

There are those who’ve embraced online interactions as a replacement for face-to-face relationships. This does help fill the void but it’s not the same. Sure there are advantages. It’s easier to find like-minded people when you have a much larger pool to draw from. But our current technology only allows shallow facsimiles of true communication. In person interaction is such a high bandwidth channel encompassing all the senses, both known and yet to be discovered, that we can’t even come close to duplicating it. Maybe someday, but not today.

Despite being blessed with a good group of friends that have held together across five work areas in three different companies, I still feel the pain of loneliness from time to time. As we age, it becomes increasingly difficult to hold on to our friends. People change, times change, life goes on and people once close to you drift away as their interests and activities take them in different directions from yours. You find yourself trying to connect with people you see rarely and with whom you only have a tenuous commonality. Dare I say this is a curse of modern society?

I have no answers here, only observations. And a depressing awareness that I too, share this curse with the masses. It’s easy to wallow in self-pity or drown oneself in busyness in a vain attempt to forget. Maybe it’d be best to just accept this current state of affairs and find solace in the few relationships remaining. Embrace the fleeting interactions with neighbours and coworkers brought about by proximity. Celebrate the fleeting moments of true connection that occur oh so rarely and cherish the memories of the truly wonderful events of our lives, as few as they may be. I don’t know…

We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone. – Orson Welles

- Dave

Thought I’d give an update on how the two tier goal system I’ve started using is working out for me. I was expecting an improvement in focus, after all, why would I make a change if I thought things would get worse, but I’ve been amazed at what a difference it’s made.

As part of my planning process I wrote down all my goals on the whiteboard in my home office and then arranged them into primary and secondary. Since I see my whiteboard as soon as I walk into my office, it’s a constant reminder of what I should be focusing on and since all but one of my primary goals are lifestyle based (ie: they’re part of my daily life), it’s been really easy to focus on what needs to be done instead of getting sidetracked with browsing, email, twitter and video games. Because of this focus, I finally completed some coding that I’ve been putting off for months (for no good reason). The lifestyle goals have been working out well too. There has been many instances where I would have done things differently if I wasn’t focused on a singular goal in that area.

I really feel like I’m making good progress towards accomplishing the things I’ve identified as most important. As a bonus, I’ve also been able to make some progress on some of my secondary goals since I seem to be more effective. I think it’s because I spend less time deciding what to do and more time doing. I’ll definitely keep using this system!

Changing Beliefs

And now for something completely different. I had considered making this a separate post but I’m not fond of numerous tiny posts so I’m adding it in here. A recent article by Steve Pavlina on the Lefkoe Method resulted in me trying out Morty’s process. At first, I thought That was neat, I guess I feel a little better, but over the past few days I’ve really noticed a change in my belief patterns. It seems I never realized the distinction between rationally thinking one way while emotionally believing something else. It has definitely made a difference in my life. I suggest you spend an hour and go try it out. It’s free, you just have to “sign up”. Standard traffic building technique which I’m sure most of you are aware of.

That’s all I’ve got for now. If you do try the Lefkoe Method, let me know how it works out.

- Dave

A recent article by Ali Hale over at Pick the Brain really got me thinking about my goals. Previously, I had considered myself to have a reasonable number of goals. I had divided them into four major “streams” that were complementary giving me a handful of attainable goals. However, after reading the article and giving it some thought, I realized that I actually have way too many. Granted, four streams of accomplishment only yielded 5 major goals, but when added to the goals I have in other areas of my life like family and health, I realized I was easily topping a dozen goals or more.

Clearly, when I consider everything, that’s way too many. But I actually want to accomplish all this stuff so what could I do? Sure, I could put some of those goals on hold but I’m a big believer in at least trying to lead a balanced life and putting a subset of goals on hold would cause me to become majorly unbalanced.

Two Tiers for Clarity

I decided to use a two tier system of goals instead. Basically, I’ve picked one or two primary goals from each of the major areas of my life: Family, Health, Personal/Spiritual, Career/Financial, Recreation and Social. This list is a little different from what most people use but it works for me. The four streams I mentioned earlier focused primarily on Personal/Spiritual and Career/Financial and it’s in those areas that I have also specified secondary goals resulting in a two tier system. What that means for me is when deciding between two (or more) activities that work towards a goal, I can easily determine which is more important by whether it advances a primary goal or a secondary goal.

For the most part, I now have one goal per area except in a couple areas where it would be counter-productive to choose one over the other. For example, in the family area, I think it would be bad to focus on the relationships with my children over the relationship with my spouse or vice versa. Those two goals need to be on equal footing. I suppose I could combine those goals into one simple goal of working on relationships with all my family members but each aspect requires different actions and I find it easier to balance them if I think of them separately.

Does It Work?

I’ve only recently re-examined my goals and re-prioritized them so I don’t know how this is going to work out in the long run but I’ve already seen some positive effects. Last night, instead of getting flustered by all the career goals I have and deciding to work on goals in a totally different area (which happens way too often), I focused on building my tech career. To that end, I set up another blog to deal specifically and only with technology related material. In the past I’ve waffled over whether to write about tech stuff here or maybe start another blog or just not write about it at all. By picking just one of the career/financial streams, I have been able to focus on the actions that will allow me to accomplish that particular goal more quickly.

Your Turn

If you’ve been having trouble getting focused, I suggest you give some thought to which goals in any particular area are the most important to you and/or provide the most value and work on those first. How do you handle too many goals? What other strategies have you found useful?

- Dave

A couple weeks ago, I decided to take a timeout and live my life like the masses do. I stopped working on improving myself, I discarded all my life-changing habits and lived purely in the comfort zone. I spent my days doing the bare minimum necessary to get by and succumbed to the daily drudgery of doing only what was expected of me and nothing more. I wasted my free time watching TV and playing video games. In short, I started sleep-walking through life. This lifestyle was so seductive that the one week I had planned to do this for stretched into two.

By taking a timeout I discovered many interesting things about myself. I discovered that I actually like (and missed) a lot of the self-improvement habits I’ve developed over the last 6 months. I like getting up early and reading first thing in the morning. I like eating healthy. I like reading personal development blogs. It seems that once you’ve taken the red pill there’s no going back.

I also found a few things that surprised me. First, TV really sucks these days. Sure, there’s a few shows I enjoy but most of the content is crap! And the news isn’t much better – full of sorrow and suffering. Second, some of the habits I’ve developed have become so ingrained that it’s actually harder not to do them now (I actually had to force myself to go back to sleep a few mornings). And finally, it turns out I still have a passion for technology. I thought I’d lost that somewhere along the way but not so.

All in all, this was a very worthwhile exercise and I highly recommend this for anyone who’s interested in making quantum leap improvements in their life. In addition to a renewed focus on taking my game to the next level, I’ve also found it necessary to rework my five-year plan to reflect the changes in my thinking. Even though I was making good progress before, experiencing the profound difference between a “normal” life and a life of growth has rekindled my passion for being the best I can be, living on the edge, and making a difference both in my life and the lives of those around me. How do you feel about your growth these days? Is it time for you to do a hard reset?

- Dave

I’ve been working on a post about fears as a followup to the book review I posted last week but it’s taking considerably more thought and time than I expected so I thought I’d “cheat” a little and dig out one of my Dad’s poems.

Reach For The Top

There is a time to be born,
There is a time to die -
Between these times,
Lives you and I.

What you shall do,
What you shall be -
It’s up to you,
And not to me.

For greatness comes,
With work and strain -
Heartaches, sadness,
Disappointments and pain.

‘Tis they who put forth
Full effort in the struggle -
Who reach the top,
And break the bubble.

Eddie Witwicki (1927 – 2004)

Although I’ve been aware of Max Lucado’s work for quite some time, I’ve not had a chance to read any of his books until now. As part of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Blogger program I had the opportunity to read his latest book before release. Fearless : Imagine Your Life Without Fear addresses a subject many people are familiar with.

This book takes you on an emotional and spiritual journey by exploring over a dozen possible fears facing everyone today. Each chapter examines a specific fear using a good combination of personal stories and scripture. I found each of the stories to be both relevant and moving and the large selection of scripture used to provide proof against the fear was astounding. Many times while reading, I had to pause and reflect on the words and their meaning both personally and in the larger context of the world.

From the personal development perspective, this book is light on the intellectual analyses that underscore the typical books of this space. Is that a bad thing? Well, that depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for concrete, actionable steps to deal with fear, then you’ll need to look elsewhere. However, if you’re looking for something to uplift your heart and soul, then you’ve found it.

Also included at the end of the book is a comprehensive discussion guide suitable for use in small groups and book clubs. I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick read and went well beyond my expectations. I’ll definitely be checking out more of Max Lucado’s work in the future.

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

- Dave

A common tool in the personal development toolbox is affirmations. I’ve been working with affirmations on and off for the past six months and I’ve seen some positive results from them.

What Are Affirmations?

So what exactly are affirmations? Affirmations are positive, present tense, specific statements that are repeated to oneself regularly. The idea is that the subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction. It’s sort of like the “fake it ’til you make it“  principle. As mentioned, affirmations should be present tense. Stating things that you’d like to see in the future tends to convince the subconscious mind that you should not have those things now. Affirmations should also use positive wording and descriptive emotional adjectives such as confidently and joyfully. The subconscious mind cannot distinguish between positive and negative statements. Lastly, affirmations should be specific. Affirming for something vague like more money or being happy is akin to wishing and does not provide clear direction for the subconscious mind to act upon.

So, for example, if you would like to use an affirmation to get out of debt, you’d want a positive statement such as “I confidently enjoy a positive net worth in excess of $100,000″ instead of something like “I am joyfully debt-free and pay all my bills in full and on time”. Even though both may seem positive, the second one still subtly focuses on debts and bills while the first one focuses on abundance. Most importantly though, your affirmation needs to be somewhat believable to yourself. Trying to affirm a billion dollars for yourself when you’re in debt probably won’t work so well.

How Do You Use Affirmations?

Typically, you should use affirmations for a period of at least 30 days to cement them into your mind. Thirty days is generally recognized as the period of time needed to form a habit although, depending on who you talk to, you may be able to get away with as little as 21 days or it may take longer. One key thing to keep in mind is that you need to repeat your affirmations daily. Apparently, in a NASA study done on the ability of the eye to adjust to adverse conditions, a group of astronauts were required to wear glasses that inverted their vision. The study found that after 25-30 days, the astronauts’ brains would adjust the incoming signal so that everything appeared normal despite the inversion effect of the glasses. Even more interesting, they also found that if the glasses were not worn for even a single day in the 30 day “adjustment” period, the process was reset. That is, they had to do 30 days consistently without exception or all progress was lost.

Some people will recommend that you use your affirmations upon waking and just before going to sleep as this is when the mind is most receptive to suggestion. Personally, I state my affirmations at the same time that I watch my Mind Movies in the morning and evening.

Another consideration is whether it’s sufficient to state your affirmations in your mind or if you need to state them out loud. I normally state my affirmations internally only since my dogs get all bent out of shape if I speak when it’s quiet in the house; they seem to think I have something for them. However, if you can state them out loud, I suspect this is preferable as you’ll be getting the message of the affirmation through two channels instead of just one.

Another technique that can be used is writing out your affirmations by hand much like doing lines in school. Or, you can write out your affirmations on 3×5 cards which can be carried with you and read (out loud) whenever you get a moment. I’ve tried this during my Midday Timeouts but find it a bit awkward in public places. Still, this may be a useful technique if you can use it.

Complementary Techniques

Affirmations are similar to, and can be used in conjunction with, a vision board. Although I haven’t created a full-fledged vision board myself, I have made a bit of a vision board around my affirmations. They can also be used with visualization and/or meditation. I have not tried either so I can’t really say whether it helps or not.

Keep ‘Em Fresh

I’ve been using one core affirmation for the past 40 days and I’ve definitely seen results. However, it occurred to me today that maybe I need to switch things up a bit. My current core affirmation is seeming a bit stale and it’s become difficult for me to work up the associated positive emotions that help power it. So, I’m going to try a variation for the next 30 days and see how that works out.

In addition to my core affirmation that I have been focusing on, I have several additional affirmations that I try to use regularly. I have found that having too many affirmations tends to dilute my focus but you may want to have a few instead of just one. You could develop an affirmation for each of the areas of your life that you wish to work on. For myself, I have one specific area that seems to need more work than the others so I’ve concentrated on that.

Finally, you may wonder whether you should share your affirmations with others. You may have noticed that I have not shared my current affirmation. Personally, I prefer to keep them to myself since my affirmations tend to be very specific and somewhat of a stretch for me. You may wish to share them with those you trust and who are close to you but I’d say don’t make them public. If you really need to share with the world, restate your affirmations as goals/plans and share those instead. Of course, if you’re affirming out loud it may be a good idea to let your loved ones know what you’re doing so they don’t think you’re crazy.

Have you tried affirmations? Have they worked well? Or not so much? Let me know what you think.

- Dave

“Can’t see the forest for the trees” is an old adage that unfortunately is all too true for many people these days. It’s generally used to describe someone who’s focused on the small details to the detriment of a larger plan.

Lately, I’ve been finding myself focusing on the details a little too much and it’s causing me to lose sight of the big picture. This actually came to me while I was doing dishes. How ironic since I find there’s nothing more mundane and “small focus” than daily chores. Of course, these things need to be done but the key is not to get lost in them.

Levels of Focus

I see there being four broad levels of focus in life:

1. Daily “maintenance” tasks : most obviously, these are things like dishes, laundry and cooking. But I also include less obvious things such as the daily commute and status meetings at work.
2. Goals : these are the immediate actions you need to take to improve your life such as daily exercise, meditation, self-development reading and recreation (yes, I’m saying recreation is a worthwhile goal).
3. Dreams : these are the bigger picture things that you derive your goals from. Time-wise, they may be near term (90 days) or longer distance (5 years) but overall, they represent a milestone that makes your life better. This level includes such things as being healthy, having financial freedom and doing something difficult like rock climbing the Eternal Flame route up the Nameless Tower.
4. Life Purpose : this is what you long for and strive towards. It gives meaning to your existence.

Each level supports the level above while, ideally, deriving context from that level. So, your daily tasks are done to allow you to work on your goals which give progress towards your dreams which ultimately fulfill your life purpose. There’s much to be said on the details of each level but I’ll save that for future posts. Today I want deal with techniques for keeping yourself mindful of the higher levels of focus while dealing with the lower levels.

Techniques

I use a variety of techniques to keep things in perspective. All of them require time and that seems to be the thing in short supply when you lose sight of the higher levels. I really have to wonder if lack of time is a cause or effect of this short-sightedness. Anyway, here’s some of the things I do:

• Morning Meditation : I like to spend at least a half hour in the morning working on my mental state. I use a variety of different activities here including Mind Movies, meditating, reading, stating affirmations and quiet contemplation. Whatever activities you choose to use, the key is to mentally see and emotionally feel the power of living your life purpose. Then, let these images and feelings trickle down and infuse your dreams with energy.
• Bedtime Journaling : I end my day off by writing in my journal about how my day went, successes I experienced, written affirmations and anything interesting that happened. I generally exclude anything negative as that’s not something I want to pay attention to right before sleeping. This helps put perspective on my day and remind me of the bigger picture.
• Midday Timeouts : These are just quick 5 minute periods where I extract myself from daily living and enjoy some quiet contemplation. On the weekends, I’ll go find an empty room or step outside and listen to an uplifting song. During the week I’ll go for a quick walk around my office building or go hide in a bathroom stall (kind of strange, I know, but it works). This keeps me from drowning in the deluge of daily “stuff” that flows my way and allows me to remember that there’s a higher purpose to my actions.
• Mobile Motivation : Whenever I’m engaged in solo level one tasks, I put on my headphones and listen to either great tunes or motivational audiobooks. If I’m mentally alert and/or doing a task that doesn’t take much of my attention I’ll choose audiobooks otherwise I’ll use good music. This helps keep me from being negative about the activity I’m doing and puts me in a better state of mind.

Overall, I find the morning and bedtime activities are important and I strive to do them regularly while the timeouts and mobile listening are good maintenance techniques. I find it interesting that I’ve been staying up late this past week which has led to me sleeping later (never scrimp on sleep, that’s bad) which has led to my morning routine being shortened and I’ve really noticed the difference. It’s been hard to keep perspective on my dreams.

Give some of these techniques a try and let me know how it works out for you. Or, if you have some techniques of your own that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear about them. Stay focused my friend.

- Dave

I’ve decided to check out twitter. Twitter seems to be one of those things that either you get it or you don’t. Honestly, I don’t get it. However, I think I should. In hopes of understanding, I installed UberTwitter on my Blackberry and I’ll try tweeting once in a while to see what happens. If you’re interested in following me, my twitter name is DaveWitwicki (I know, how imaginative). I plan to integrate twitter into the blog at some point but I’m considering a theme change so I’ll hold off for now.

I’ve also added the sociable plugin to the blog. It’s the “Share and Enjoy” thing at the bottom of the posts. I see it everywhere and figure it might encourage people to share my content. Is that a good thing? I don’t know but I’m willing to try it out and see what happens…

- Dave

I’ve been doing a lot of personal development work lately in some of the key areas of my life such as health/fitness, family/friend relationships and work/career. I’ve set ambitious goals for the work/career area but have found that pursuing those goals could potentially risk the well-being of my family. This has created a conflict between my familial responsibilities and my personal needs.

When attempting to resolve conflicts like this you need to consider what areas of your life are impacted and what the priority of those areas are. Personally, I put myself first, then my family, then work, and then everything else. If you think that sounds selfish, consider the classic example of the instructions the airline gives when discussing the oxygen masks. You need to put your own mask on first before helping others with their masks because you can’t help anyone if you can’t breath. Similar concept here when it comes to taking care of needs. If your own needs are not met, how can you possibly meet the needs of others?

Here’s where it gets interesting. Based on the above reasoning, you could say that it’s more important that you take care of yourself by transitioning into a fulfilling career even if it means risking the well-being of your family. After all, didn’t I just say that you should put yourself first? And doesn’t that imply that your well-being takes priority over your family’s well-being? Well, you could use that reasoning and I suspect many success-driven folks do indeed follow that line of thinking. For example, while watching the premiere episode of Shark Tank the other day, one of the entrepreneurs admitted that he’d mortgaged his home twice, spent his retirement money and kids’ college funds and had nothing left to invest; in essence, he put his well-being ahead of his family’s. One of the “sharks” responded with the admonishment that you need to take care of your family first regardless of your business aspirations.

So, the question becomes how do you balance responsibilities against needs? We’ve established that a typical chain of responsibility should be Self > Family > Work > Everything Else (if God is a part of your life then the chain is God > Self > Family > Work > Church > Everything Else). When considering needs, I find Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to be a good model to work from. Basically, needs at the bottom of the hierarchy should be fulfilled before working on the next level up. The needs from bottom to top are Physiological > Safety > Social > Esteem > Self-Actualization.

Mapping responsibilities against needs results in a fairly straighforward method of determining which is more important. For each need in Maslow’s hierarchy, you should cover off each area of responsibility before moving up the hierarchy to the next need. So, in the case of pursuing a more fulfilling job vs the well-being of your family it becomes clear that your family comes first since Safety in all areas is more important than your personal Social/Esteem needs.

I am certain there are numerous criticisms possible of both Maslow’s hierarchy and the chain of responsibility outlined but I believe it’s important to have some sort of relatively objective framework. There are also gray areas in this model. A big one that comes to mind for me is friends. Where do they fit in? Life is messy and objectively compartmentalizing all aspects of your life may be difficult and/or inappropriate. Ultimately, you need to consider your choices and do what you feel  is best. Models like this merely provide some food for thought.

- Dave