Category: self-help

Gratification and impact

FabrizioLeave a comment

When you pick up the phone while you are driving, you are choosing a short-term gratification (reading the message you just got) over a long-term impact (the attention you need to drive safely).

When you speed up to pass the car in front of you, despite the continuous line, you are choosing a short-term gratification (the impression to be able to get to your destination faster) over a long-term impact (the care and patience you need to drive safely).

When you click on the notification that pops up on your screen while working, you are choosing a short-term gratification (being on top of what is happening) over a long-term impact (delivering your work with consistence).

When you scream in the face of the person in front of you, you are choosing a short-term gratification (a rush of power, or letting go of your stress) over a long-term impact (building a relationship of trust, or training your capacity of not reacting).

When you skip your daily training, you are choosing a short-term gratification (an hour or so of available time) over a long-term impact (being in good shape and health).

You get the drill.

Most of our small, daily choices are a trade off between gratification and impact. Of course, we do not pay much attention to most of them, because that is not the way we are wired.Yet, we tend to forget that the long term is but a succession of short terms, not something magic that will spark out of nothing at some point in time.

Be intentional about what you do.

Envy

FabrizioLeave a comment

When you stop looking at others as threats to your own success, they will automatically turn into a possibility to learn, into someone who can enable your next project, into people you can help in their own journey.

It is just a matter of perspective.

Agent of change

FabrizioLeave a comment

It is not so difficult to agree that change needs to happen. It is much more complex to agree on what change adds up to and act on it.

So, if you are an agent of change, there are two things to keep in mind.

First, small wins are wins nonetheless. You do not have to achieve everything at once, and even small changes in the right direction are something to be proud of. Building blocks that can support larger wins in the future.

Second, not giving up is part of the package. You might be tempted – you WILL be tempted – to give up once things do not look exactly how you had planned. That is precisely when you have to take a deep breath, buckle down, and reinforce the message around the need for change.

Keep going.

Difficult times

FabrizioLeave a comment

Sometimes it feels like banging your head against a wall. And sometimes it feels like that for most of the things that make up our days.

In these times, the importance of a practice cannot be overestimated. Getting back to doing, sitting down to deliver, adding a “+1” to whatever streak matters to you, can help immensely in keeping sane.

Practices can be developed in good times, and it is in difficult times that they save you.

Hide and run

FabrizioLeave a comment

What do you do when you forget to get back to a colleague, when the day ends without you returning that call, when the follow up you promised on that matter does not happen, when you postpone that conversation you were supposed to have?

The truth is, most of the time, we just go down a path that takes us further away from the right thing.

And so we avoid the colleague, we silence the phone, we build excuses around the promise, we postpone the conversation until it gets forgotten. We hide. We run from a mere oversight until it spirals into a complete failure. This is how much we hate admitting we did something wrong.

Of course, all of the process of hiding and running takes a lot of resources. Energy and time that will be better employed once we find the courage to say “my bad, let’s move on”.

How much more could you achieve if only you would learn to say “I am sorry”?