MYST 154: Nothing for Nothing

TANSTAAFL: There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

You get what you pay for.

My phrase: You don’t get nothing for nothing.  (Yeah. I know it’s poor grammar.)

The bottom line is if you don’t take the right actions, you won’t get anything. That applies to school, on the job, at home, and certainly as you try to lose weight. Why do I say “try” to lose weight? Because many (most?) people aren’t willing to totally commit, to be fully engaged, or to put their money where their mouth is.

How many balls must be hit before a golfer becomes great? Can you skip that step in attaining greatness?

Photo via Pixabay.com by MadsLiebst

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Music composed and performed by Jason Shaw, courtesy of Audionautix.com

Voiceover courtesy of Matt Young. Matt is a professional voiceover artist. If you have any need of voice-over

work, for your podcast, radio spot, or whatever, you can reach Matt by a variety of methods. He is on LinkedIn. On Twitter. And Google+. Follow his Facebook page to learn how to better use social media. Matt was also my guest on MYST 54. Give his story a listen!

All images are Creative Commons Zero.

MYST 97: Wrong Tools, Wrong Results

If you need to hang a picture on a wall, you need to first place a nail in the wall. You can use a frying pan (I know that it has been done) but a hammer will give you better results. Likewise, if you need to tighten a screw, you can use a butter knife or a screwdriver. Both will turn the screw, but one will be more efficient.

There are many ways to accomplish most goals. Not every method will be as effective as others. And sometimes you choose a tool–or method–that should work, but when you use it, you do not achieve the success you expect.

The failure might not be yours. It may be that the tool you chose was the wrong tool.

The Right Tool for the Right Result
The Right Tool for the Right Result

Photo via Unsplash.com, by Gregory Bourolias.

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Music composed and performed by Jason Shaw, courtesy of Audionautix.com

Voiceover courtesy of Matt Young. Matt is a professional voiceover artist. If you have any need of voice-over work, for your podcast, radio spot, or whatever, you can reach Matt by a variety of methods. He is on LinkedIn. On Twitter. And Google+. And you can read his really nice, contemplative blog. Matt was also my guest on MYST 54. Give his story a listen!

All photos published on Unsplash.com are licensed under Creative Commons Zero

MYST 85 Trevitorial: Success Without Total Effort?

Is he giving 100%
Is he giving 100%

Photo by Vincezo Di Giorgi via StockSnap

“Don’t put in half the effort, unless you are okay with half the results!”

What an excellent motto. I’m happy to say that I wrote it….well, I wrote it after reading it in a LoseIt Community group from another member. (Today’s show is not going to exclusively be about weight loss.)

I’ve mentioned this many times before (and I will continue to for as long as I run this show) but I am very active using the app LoseIt for weight loss. Actually, I am one of seven Ambassadors who work to help provide some guidance to the millions of members, and especially the newer members who may need a bit virtual hand-holding.

But not all guidance is from the Ambassadors. In fact, the amount of help we provide is trivial when compared to the hundreds—no thousands—of posts every day from experienced and successful member who only want to share their ideas and help others find success.

Theordora has been a LoseIt member since May 2015, and already she is an active and enthusiastic supporter of everyone around her. She is still actively working toward her weight loss goal, and so her words of wisdom are from the perspective of someone who still struggles day after day, and who victoriously emerges from the fight each day. Or…sometimes her victory isn’t as obvious, but she never quits and is always a positive influence.

“Don’t put in half the effort, unless you are okay with half the results!”

That applies to everything in life, not just weight loss. I mean, LoseIt is all about counting calories and finding a healthy weight, but for me, it is much more than that. LoseIt is a support system. It is a family of “virtual friends and neighbors” who are always ready to lend a helping hand, a few words of wisdom, or that gentle kick in the butt if needed.

I needed those words today, for a few reasons, none of which having to do with food.

My legs hurt today. Yesterday, I rode 120 miles to an incredibly exciting meeting for our school’s union (I am the local president). I am still not permitted to drive, so my vice-president drove me.) Two hours there. Seven hours sitting, trying to stay awake. Two hours driving home. I arrived home with legs as stiff as possible. And they are not much improved today.

And they hurt. Walking is painful. Sitting is painful. I realize it sounds like I’m whining—and maybe I am—but bear with me, I have a reason. I was feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t want to do anything but sit in my chair with my dog on my lap. I wanted to be at ease. I wanted to rest.

Ozzy

But how will sitting and resting help me fully recover from my knee replacements? (Answer: not at all!) I was acting like my students. They carry their books in their backpacks, but rarely open them, assuming that the knowledge will magically migrate from the printed page to their brains without any effort. Me? I’m hoping that if I rest enough, my strength and flexibility will return without the effort of exercises.

More specifically, without the pain of exercises. Pain hurts, you know?

Mmmmm. How do you think that will work? Tomorrow I see my physical therapist, Nick. He is going to measure my knee flexion. Resting is easier, but do you think that will give me much improvement?

No. All morning I was giving far less than 100%, yet knowing that tomorrow, I would be hoping for 105% improvement.

The same applies to this show. I’ll be honest (as if you don’t already know) but I am struggling with MYST. I still enjoy running a podcast. I enjoy the recording, and the transcribing, and the promoting.

But I am running low on enthusiasm. I’m running low on ideas. I want to have my show, but I am acting as if putting in 50% effort is enough for 100% performance. And we all know, that is not right.

What about you? Are you trying to write a book? If you are, you know that the words don’t magically appear. You need to sit down and write. And write. And then write some more. Is it fun? Probably not every day. (PT isn’t fun, but I still need to do it!) Choosing to walk instead of drive isn’t necessarily fun, and choosing to eat celery and peanut butter isn’t as desirable as a piece of cake, but that needs to be done if you want to change your weight.

The bottom line is this: if you want success, you need to do the work. There is no other way around it. Even if you fire someone to transcribe your notes, you still need to give your assistant the notes. If you don’t do the work, you won’t get the results.

Theodora is right. If you don’t put it 100%, don’t expect 100%. (I am going to use that line when I address my students at the beginning of the semester.) It might hurt. It might be difficult. It might not be what you really want to do right now.

But where do you want to be tomorrow? Our success tomorrow depends upon our decisions and actions today.

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Some links (but not all) within these show notes may be Affiliate Links, meaning that I may receive a small commission when readers click on them and then purchase something. This does not increase your cost at all, but it does help me cover some of the cost associated with this podcast. Thanks!

Music composed and performed by Jason Shaw, courtesy of Audionautix.com

Voiceover courtesy of Matt Young. Matt is a professional voiceover artist. If you have any need of voiceover work, for your podcast, radio spot, or whatever, you can reach Matt by a variety of methods. He is on LinkedIn. On Twitter. And Google+. And you can read his really nice, contemplative blog. Matt was also my guest on MYST 54. Give his story a listen!

MYST 66 Trevitorial: The Wasted Resolution

Spam edited

 

Resolutions are like Spam. When you first see the can (or say the resolution) it sounds great, but later, when you really get into it….it’s not as appealing.*

A resolution is a statement, usually made without a lot of thought, which almost inevitably get thrown away quickly after the holiday. A goal, on the other hand, is a plan that grows with you, and enables you to reach more than you thought possible.

We will talk more about goal-setting in upcoming episodes, but in this show, I share one of my goals for 2015. I haven’t mentioned this in detail before, and this is a large and someone intimidating goal.

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Music composed and performed by Jason Shaw, courtesy of Audionautix.com

Voiceover courtesy of Matt Young. Matt is a professional voiceover artist. If you have any need of voiceover work, for your podcast, radio spot, or whatever, you can reach Matt by a variety of methods. He is on LinkedIn. On Twitter. And Google+. And you can read his really nice, contemplative blog. Matt was also my guest on MYST 54. Give his story a listen!

Some links (but not all) within these show notes may be Affiliate Links, meaning that I may receive a small commission when readers click on them and then purchase something. This does not increase your cost at all, but it does help me cover some of the cost associated with this podcast. Thanks!

* The truth is, I really enjoy Spam. But it is the food that is easy to belittle, and it fit the situation perfectly here.

MYST 62 Trevitorial: Choose to Change

Today’s quote comes from Kara Counard, our guest from Episode 30. (Kara’s story is a powerful example of making tough choices, and finding greater success! If you haven’t listened to the episode, check it out.) Kara suggests that we need to change our minds about ourselves. What is she talking about?

We have control over very few things in our lives. We can’t control the weather.

We can train our pets (sometimes) but we really don’t control them.

Our kids? Please.

We can control the vehicles we drive…unless you hit a patch of ice here in Wisconsin, in which case you are being controlled by momentum.

We might have control over where we work, but my guess is that everyone who is listening right now has to answer to someone else for some part of your job. Even if you are a self-employed entrepreneur, you still need to be responsive to your audience so that you give them the answer to their problems.

About the only thing we can control with absolute certainty is our reactions to stimuli around us. That’s it.

I’ll cover this in greater detail in an upcoming show, but I recently had a student ask me why I don’t get upset when things go wrong. Sometimes a student will make a mistake. Or our assigned meeting room at the clinical site will be arbitrarily changed. Or weather forces a cancelation of class—after I’ve already driving 40 miles through a snow storm.

I don’t get upset because a) that won’t change anything, and b) how I react is my choice.  Why bother getting upset over a snowstorm? That won’t change anything except to make me angry, frustrated and disturbed. The snow will remain, unfazed by my emotional outburst. And I choose to not lose my temper over things that I cannot alter.

It, like so much else, is a choice. And we can choose to look at things in any way we want.

Let me give you an example:

Last April, very early in spring, the ground still snow-covered, I was driving home on an interstate highway, with a posted speed limit of 65mph / 105Kph. As I drove, with no other traffic around me, the left front ball joint of my wheel snapped. One minute, I was driving carefree and then suddenly BANG! I was sliding. I steered to the right to get off the highway, and in doing so, slid about 20 feet down an embankment and crashed through two stout fence posts before coming to a stop.

from a distance

The offending wheel!  close up, resized and highlighted

It was the most exciting 3-4 seconds of my life. It was 3-4 seconds that lasted about 18 lifetimes while it was happening.

When I came to a stop, my first reaction was laughter. I could not believe what happened and that I was completely unhurt. The car? Totaled. Then I called my auto insurance agent, and a local tow-truck service. I was dialing the local Sherriff’s line when I saw one of the deputies carefully walk down the embankment.

I got out, and we talked. He determined based on skid marks on the highway that I was not driving recklessly, and he also did not smell alcohol on my breath. So we waited for the tow truck and then he drove me to a restaurant to call for my son to pick me up.

That was scary. And I was sad, because I really liked that car, and I knew that the insurance company would declare it a total loss. But I was sooooo happy.

My wife wasn’t driving the car. Nor were my sons. That would have made me so worried. When it happened, there was no traffic around me. Suppose a car had been tailgating me? Or one had been driving in the lane to my right? If this had happened 5 seconds earlier or 10 seconds later (I later timed it), in both cases I would have not slid down an embankment, but rather been pitched off the roadway, down to another road 20 feet below. What if I had taken my alternate route home (which I do about half the times)? It is a lonely county highway, little traveled, with steeper embankments going down to small rivers?  Or, most likely, if this had been a normal year, the snow cover would have been gone and the ground soft and soggy. Instead of sliding, my wheels probably would have dug in, and made my car roll. And at 65mph (ish), it would roll many times.

So many worse things could have happened. Instead of being upset at breaking my car, I was happy and overjoyed that nothing truly bad happened.

When was the last time something bad happened to you? Something unexpected? Did you react with anger, frustration? If you did react like that, did it make anything better?

What does that have to do with changing our minds about ourselves?

How we feel about ourselves, about others within our life, about our situation in life, all of those feelings are a choice. And if our current choice is not working for us, we need to change.

We need to change our reactions, our thoughts, our feelings. No one can change that for you. Do you dislike your manager? Maybe so. Does having those feelings result in any positive change? Probably not.

So what can you do? You have two options. No, three. You can change your reactions to you manager, you can change your thoughts about your current job and look for work elsewhere, or you can stay where you are and keep thinking your current thoughts and remain miserable.  (Oh, and in case you don’t know, everyone around you knows that you are miserable. Including your manager.)

You need to make a choice about making a change. And all changes begin mentally. When I am having a bad day, I ask one question (and it is a simple one): “Is there something that I can do to directly change my situation?” In my broken car, there was nothing I could do to change the outcome. So I didn’t worry about it. When my wife told me that her car was handling poorly on the snowy roads, I could do something. I first checked the treads, and then I ordered the best snow tires I could get for her car. Expensive? Yes. But would I rather pay that, or always worry when the roads are snowy and slippery (about 4 months a year in this part of Wisconsin)?

“Can you do something that will change your situation?” If yes, then do it!

If no, then accept your situation. In blunt language, “Suck it up, Buttercup” and live with it. Whining won’t change it, and no one wants to hear that! Having a tantrum won’t change it. Accept it. Deal with it. Learn from it to (hopefully) prevent it from happening again.

Choose to change.

It is a powerful ability. And not everyone will take this advice. It looks much more passive than some people want, but it is really “active-passivity”. You are not passively accepting your fate, but rather, you are choosing to not fight a useless battle. Save your energies and ammunition for a fight that is possible.

You all know people around who fight everything, every time. They never win. No one takes their actions and words seriously. And then you may know that one person. Quiet. Gets along with everyone. Adapts to changes easily. Oh, he/she might grumble, but they don’t put up fights, and the grumbling is short-lived.

Until something big happens. And then, suddenly, they change. The quiet, peaceful, get-along person becomes vocal, forceful and stands their ground! And they usually win, right?

What will you do? How will you change?

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Music composed and performed by Jason Shaw, courtesy of Audionautix.com

Voiceover courtesy of Matt Young. Matt is a professional voiceover artist. If you have any need of voiceover work, for your podcast, radio spot, or whatever, you can reach Matt by a variety of methods. He is on LinkedIn. On Twitter. And Google+. And you can read his really nice, contemplative blog. Matt was also my guest on MYST 54. Give his story a listen!

Some links (but not all) within these show notes may be Affiliate Links, meaning that I may receive a small commission when readers click on them and then purchase something. This does not increase your cost at all, but it does help me cover some of the cost associated with this podcast. Thanks!