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Mastering Planning: Strategies to Overcome Overthinking

Unlimitedpotentialllc

Growing up, there was a saying that was repeatedly drilled into me – “If you fail to plan, you can plan on failing.” Perhaps you have heard the same phrase or a variation of that phrase. Proper planning is the foundation for developing, increasing and moving forward in life. Everyone should strive to live every day on purpose and with a definite purpose. Planning is essential to living fully and fulfilling one’s purpose. Without question, it is imperative that we ready ourselves for opportunities BEFORE those opportunity arrive and planning accordingly assists us in this process.

A plan is an idea created in advance. Planning is the process of creating ideas in advance. You should think about a thing before you execute a thing. I’m sure if not from personal experience, all of us could identify people who, without properly planning, rushed out and made moves that they lived to regret. Had we (they) taken a moment to cultivate a strategy for sucessful completion in advance, a fair amount of grief, heartache and despair could have been/would have been aborted! However, there are so many of us, who, because we are gripped by fear and wanting everything to go “just right”, find ourselves in a perpetual state of planning, which becomes overplanning and the result of which, often leads to NOTHING changing, growing and leading us to the fulfillment and the success that we seek! How would you describe yourself? Are you a “reasonable planner” or a chronic “over planner”?

Actionable Steps: Three Ways to OVERCOME Overplanning

  1. Prioritize – Identify what matters the most to you, what needs to be done first or what will provide the most impact and then get busy serving those interests/needs FIRST!
  2. Time It! – Give your tasks time! I do this all the time. AND IT WORKS! Once you identify and place in priority the assignments that need to be done, give the task an allotted amount of time for the task to be completed. Some tasks may need an hour, some 20 minutes and some two days. Timing the task will keep you accountable for being focused and staying focused on completing your goal.
  3. Let it Go! – We tend to stay nestled in the safe cocoon of overplanning because we are afraid of what will happen if and when we actually take action. Let’s rip the band-aid off: some things will go great, and some things will go wrong. Okay! Whew! Now, take action. We will live. We won’t die. We will learn and grow – IF we choose to let go! Stop holding onto what has been meant for you to do/release/share! There is too much at stake for you to constantly be thinking about a thing and never doing the thing!

Don’t be rash and irrational. Do not jump into an ocean if you do not know how to swim. However, once you have thought through it and you have prepared, GO FORWARD! Follow through! Watch the growth, development and success you will enjoy as a result! Planning is great! Overplanning only invites grief!

Let’s go and GROW!

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Are You Present?

Unlimitedpotentialllc

There is an old adage that says, “wherever you are, be there!” In other words, be fully engaged in what you are doing and who you are with. Too often, the demands of our days, will rob us of our ability to focus on those persons who need us or on those projects that desperately need us. Being present, showing up suggests that you are committed to fostering an environment with your spouse, your children, your business partners, etc. that will eliminate any doubt that you locked in and totally concentrating on the task at hand.

Disengagement is a disrespect signal. Productive and thriving conversations, friendships and relationships on all levels require our ability to initiate and retain our ability and willingness to stay emotionally and mentally connected to and with those around us. One of the surest ways to communicate to someone that you are not interested in connecting with them, is to allow your cell phone, the television, electronic devices or the presence of others to own your attention.

You can eliminate disrespect signals and become a more fully present person by doing the following:

  1. Taking care of your business! Before engaging in a conversation or project with someone, make sure that you have handled or at least put a pause on anything else you were doing before engaging with someone. For example, if there is a very important email you need to read or write, read it or write it before you show up to your child’s school event.
  2. Set time expectations! If you know that you may only have thirty minutes or sixty minutes to devote to something or someone, before you start something or start a conversation with someone, set time expectations and limits accordingly. For example, when you get home from the office and you know you have a important Zoom meeting in and hour and a half, let your wife know that you definitely want to hear all about her day, however, you do have to attend a Zoom meeting in an hour and a half, so you can begin catching up now, but you will have to resume your conversation after the meeting. By doing this, you set the expectation that her day matters and you want to hear all about it, but you will have to meet an important obligation as well. Often, we fail to communicate our time constraints and others are expecting an unlimited amount of our time, not knowing that you do have important commitments that have to be tended to within a limited time frame.

No one has to feel left out or feel as though they don’t really have our full attention. It is important that we remove distractions and create the emotional environment that is conducive to cultivating healthy and thriving relationships and partnerships. Do everyone and everything that both demands and deserves your full attention and presence a favor and make sure you take the necessary steps to be present!

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#adversity #consistency #NOW #resilance #Showup #Bepresent #Removedistractions mindset personal-growth productivity self-improvement time-management writing

#adversity #consistency #NOW #resilance #Showup #Bepresent #Removedistractions mindset personal-growth productivity self-improvement time-management writing

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Resilience

Unlimitedpotentialllc

Resilience is the power or ability to return to original form or position after being bent, compressed or stretched. A fundamental characteristic of successful leaders, organizations and individuals, no matter what level they are on, is their ability to exude resilience!

The reality is that leading and serving does not always get any easier. Look at the current conditions of our communities, our nation and the state of our global community and you can quickly conclude that leading and living and serving will almost certainly involve a significant amount of bending. Any given day, week, month or year, the seen and unforeseen challenges, circumstances and events will be many. Resilient leadership and resilient service providers understand this and are gifted in making the oft needed adjustments to continue providing exceptional leadership and services. Leaders, there are at least two what I call “resiliency traits”, that you must employ when you, your organization, your family etc. encounter bending moments and stretching seasons:

1. You must be consistent! You must be firmly fixed and passionately persuaded that you will hold fast to your principles. Conviction less leaders and organizations will always break under the pressure to cut corners. While the easiest way can provide a measure of satisfaction, ultimately it will only prove itself to lead to a credibility dead end.

2. You must be ‘can do’ oriented! Resilient individuals, organizations and leaders never dabble with or deal with the thought of what cannot be done! The resilient believe that all things are possible. Failure is not an option – catch this – even if they fail. The resilient are endowed with the ability and the power to reimagine and reframe what most consider failures. You must turn failure, mistakes and setbacks inside out – own it, wear it and and set your sights on the better way – the bigger way an even more audacious and auspicious way to get through the finish line of life!

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Leading Alone

Unlimitedpotentialllc

There is nothing wrong with being alone. Often, the best leadership is cultivated and refined in places and spaces of solitude, seclusion and silence. Every leader should spend time away from all of the outer influencers in order to really get to know and to hear from the one who seeks to enlighten, inform and uplift a leader from within.

Greater understanding and more knowledge is obtained when leaders withdraw to a place of quietness and sequestration. Quite frequently, choices are selected and decisions are made that have not been properly vetted and thought through because leaders are not emotionally or physically in an empty environment. Cluttered environments, crowded confines are the fertile grounds upon which leaders sacrifice and surrender their capacity to properly ingest and digest their thoughts and feelings. And when this happens, leaders suffer and those whom they serve suffer the most.

Leaders:

1. Find a place and a space to be physically alone. This should be a comfortable space. Not so comfortable that you find yourself sleeping, however, you shouldn’t have to spend all your time alone in your alone place struggling to get comfortable. The goal should be to enter int a space where you can rest your mind and your body.

2. Let your thoughts flow. I suspect that many leaders resist being alone because they don’t trust their own thoughts. Do not judge your own self. Just think. Pray. Leaders need to know that their time alone is not a time to judge or criticize what ever is coming out in the form of their thoughts.

3. Lastly leaders, chronicle your time alone as often as you can. Some of your best ideas will begin to pour out of you when you become intentional about spending time alone. What you capture has the potential to bring about very fresh vision and the changes and opportunities that had been needed personally and perhaps for the institutions and organizations that you serve.

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That’s Mine!

Unlimitedpotentialllc

When I was a child, I used to play a game with my friends called – “That’s Mine”.  We would sit on the porch and as nice cars drove by, whoever claimed the nicest car first by saying, “that’s mine”, that car would belong to that person. We would turn the pages of certain magazines and whenever we saw a beautiful home on the page, whoever claimed the house first, by saying, “that’s mine”, that house would belong to that person. 

What’s sad is that as we grew up, we stopped playing that game!  We stopped believing, we stopped claimimg, we stopped dreaming, and we stopped hoping! And the same with of you. It seems as though to “grow up” means we have to “dream down”. Many of is lost our creativity and our capacity to imagine. Becoming grown ups has radically impaired our ability to look for the BEST in life and lay hold of it. I like what K.T. Written had to say about dreaming: “Your dreams do not have expiration dates on them. Take a deep breath and try again”

How true!  The only reason you stopped claiming “that’s mine”  is because you decided to buy into the notion that dreaming big, thinking big, hoping big and having big faith is for children or for lazy people or for people who will never amount to anything in life!  This sad and untrue! As we teter on the conclusion of one year and tip toe on the precipice of a new year, I want to encourage you to begin to exclaim and proudly proclaim – that’s  mine!  Joy – that’s mine!  Strength – that’s mine! Better physical health – that’s mine! A deeper relationship with God – that’s mine! Impacting my world – that’s mine!

Get excited again. Begin searching out how you can best make a difference and be a blessing to someone and claim that as your way of service – it’s yours!  Use your imagination in the new year approaching and don’t place your own vision under arrest again! Pardon and parole your God given creativity, face forward and DON’T STOP UNTIL YOU ACHIEVE WHAT YOU CONCIEVE!  You have greater in you! There is POWER already worming within you!  But you must decide what’s yours and go after it like your life depends on it!

Because it does.

Be encouraged!