Do You Keep a Positive Outlook When Reflecting?

We all can get frustrated by events not happening the way we want. But it takes action on our part to prevent ourselves from being dragged into a world of negativity.

Last week I attended Gen Con along with 60,000 other people. Gen Con is one of Indiana’s largest convention, and trademarked as “The Best Four Days in Gaming.”

The four days are filled with nearly all types of gaming. There are card games, board games, miniature games, role playing games, and countless tournaments. Beyond gaming, Gen Con hosts a very large writers symposium, art shows and related activities, an independent film festival, and of course you can find people in all kinds of costumes.

I greatly enjoyed the convention. Although after it was over, I wished I had taken in more of the diverse activities available. Nevertheless, I was dead tired by the end of the weekend.

This week I have been reading comments from other attendees. Like me, there were many who really enjoyed their time. But I was disturbed to read all the complaints from people also.

Not everything went perfect for me, but I have no complaints about the weekend. I am already looking forward to August 17, 2017 when Gen Con returns. For those that had a list of complaints, I would imagine they have chosen to focus on the negative rather than the positive.

A positive outlook, a positive attitude, and a positive reflection of the events can make all the difference. Keeping a positive attitude results in a much more enjoyable time. 

I find that if I take time to complain, then I am missing out on opportunities. I know any frustration and anger I might feel in a stressful situation is within me. It is a reflection of my attitude and my environment. All I have to do to change the environment is change my attitude.

How do you keep your focus positive when you are faced with a situation you initially perceive as negative?

 

The Same Old Thing Is Not the Answer

It was a Wednesday evening. My wife and I had just returned from our church. Elliot, our Cocker Spaniel, usually greeted us at the door every time we came home, but tonight he didn’t. We found him lying on his bed, and we could tell immediately something was not right.

I checked the house to see if he had gotten sick, or for any clues about why he was not behaving normal. I found nothing.

We could tell Elliot did not feel well, but did not know why. He wasn’t injured. So we assumed, that he probably ate something that he should not have. We let him rest and kept our eye on him.

About midnight, he started having problems breathing. You could tell he was in pain. We didn’t think it warranted an emergency trip to the vet in the middle of the night, so we just tried to comfort him the best we could. Eventually, he went to sleep, and so did we.

The next morning my wife left for work, and I was left with Elliot. He seemed to be getting better, but was still moving very slow.

Day by day he improved and after a couple of days we thought he had recovered. Then he had a relapse. Then after a few more days he recovered again. Then another relapse.

We finally decided to take him to see a doctor. They kept him for several hours, and ran multiple tests and x-rays. They found a slight injury to his back, and prescribed pain killers, and rest.

Let me tell you, it it hard to get a dog to rest. Yes, dogs rest all the time. Their energy comes in blasts. It was difficult to keep him quiet, when he was ready to play.

It took a few more weeks, but eventually Elliot fully recovered. We will never know what caused his injury. We think he must have fell from the sofa when he was sleeping.

Before he went to the doctor, the weeks we spent trying to let him heal himself were ineffective. Every time he started to feel better, he would become active and aggravate his injury.

There are many situations in life that I find the same. When we are not succeeding, and we keep trying to solve the problem the same way, we end up making the situation worse. 

For Elliot there was a simple solution. For most of us, sometimes the change we need is not so obvious. But we know if we keep doing the same thing, we are not going to solve our the problem. Many times we need to get outside help, just like Elliot did.

Utilizing the Perspective of Time to Achieve More

Rarely do I have a day that goes perfectly. I doubt that the perfect day really exists. When I am having a really bad day, I sometimes examine my actions from the perspective of time to see if I can get back on track.

Here is what I mean, and three simple ways to look at your day.

Utilizing the Past – We achieve more by utilizing knowledge, experience, lessons learned, and from the performance of others. The question I ask myself is, “Am I taking the time to learn from the past, and applying those lessons effectively?” If we don’t take the time to learn from our history, the path for success will be very long.

Utilizing the Present – There are days when my focus of the moment is not as precise as I would like. Do you ever feel like your routine is just that, a routine with no purpose or effect? That can be a feeling I have if I am not paying enough attention on the actions I am performing. When we lack focus, we lose the effectiveness of the present moment. It is a moment that we can never get back. So the two questions I like to ask myself are, “Am I being intentional in my action? What is distracting me from being focused?”.

Utilizing the Future – I have always believed that it is difficult to achieve a future that you cannot visualize with a high level of detail. If your dream for the future is fuzzy, it helps to spend time bringing clarity to your goals. Only then can you be sure you have the right daily actions defined to to move you closer to achieving your longer term objectives. The question I like to ask myself is, “What specifically do I want to be different tomorrow compared with today?”

When I am struggling to meet my goals, normally I discover that I have ignored one of these three time perspectives in the plan for my day. Once I recognize where I am failing, I can adjust to make sure I have considered all three. It amazes me how quickly this exercise can get me back on track.

When you find yourself falling behind, what triggers you to adjust your day or week?

P.S. – If you want to read some interesting analysis on time perspectives, here is an article by John Boyd, An Overview of Time Perspective Types.

One Key Lesson in Effective Goal Setting

Lean manufacturing drives improvement through continuous data driven analysis, experimentation, and problem solving. It is a never ending process. Two of the main targets for manufacturing improvement are cycle time and cost.

One example, from my manufacturing history, was the discovery of a new cleaning process for a lens on a laser welder. This lens required replacement after a fixed number of production cycles, and it was expensive. Through a development process, we were able to implement a new cleaning routine that extended the life of the lens. It also proved to improve the weld reliability by reducing variation in the process.

Another example, was a nylon fixture used in a punch press operation. Nylon was used for specific characteristics, but it wore quickly in the process. The base of the fixture needed replaced at least every month. It was not expensive, but we had multiple machines and fixtures. To reduce cost we were able to redesign the base so that it could be reversed and used on the opposite side after the first side was worn out. Effectively we doubled the life of the base, and cut our monthly costs by 50%.

Goals at work can be very clear. Usually they are data driven, measurable, and have financial impact. Goals at home are quite different.

If I were to apply work goals to my house, I would vacuum my furnace filters every week so I could use them longer without replacing them. Would it work? Sure, but why would I spend my time doing that?

At home, cost effectiveness and efficiency are important, but they are not the most important.  What is my point?

We can accomplish great things. We have minds that are creative and imaginative. We have a human spirit that perseveres hardships and obstacles. But if we don’t have a clear sense of what we want to achieve, we are going to waste our potential.

My big lesson in making a goal more effective came through understanding the perspective through which the goal was set. 

When is the last time you evaluated your goals? For me, it is an exercise worth completing every six months.