Stop yourself with an alarm 3 to 4 times a day. Ask yourself at that moment, are you doing the most important thing possible to get you to your Values, Dreams and Goals? That is are you doing the most important thing you can do? Could you stretch and do more? Is this part of your plan or is this an adjustment? That is you have a value or idea to express. You came up with a project, goal or objective. You created a strategy and plan to make it happen. You prepared, trained, practiced and initiated the plan. You made note of the result and noticed you were on the road to success (abundant failure and little wins, hung onto and compiled into a success).Is that what’s on our mind when we are looking at the next thing to do in our life? That’s a lot to be thinking about.
Wait, we are creatures of habit. We just do what we do. We can’t have all that conscious, focused effort. We need to live our life, just be ourselves and do what we do, don’t we? Most of our day is on automatic, we aren’t thinking really. That’s right, most of it is just us on automatic, running habit machinery. No thinking, just doing, being, living my life naturally. This is good, because we are creatures of habit and it is supposed to be that way.
Now, we are just going to set some alarms and we will check to see if we set up the habits or habit machines properly. Are we automatically, naturally doing the most important thing possible? We just set the alarms at random times and see what is happening, what automatic are we in the middle of? What are we just doing. Now for the check. We are going to look at our Values, Dreams and Goals and ask if our automatics are doing the most important thing or could they be improved. Do we need some training?
One of the trainings that is highly recommended is setting up a “Captain”. The “Captain” is just a trigger. It’s really just you, but when you address your Captain, you want to train the activation or triggering of your Values, Dreams and Goals. You want to also trigger: observational machinery, analysis machinery, acceptance machery that checks to see if you are doing the most important thing possible or what you might do in a specific situation to stay on target. “Captain!” and you trigger all that machinery working all at once.
“Captain!” indicates you have some Values, Dreams and Goals. Do you? What ever you have, get them written down and clarified, so they can pop into your mind when you trigger “Captain!” We might have goals and we have to dig back and back and back as to “why” they are important to us. The “Why?” will be more helpful, than just the goal. These “whys” are the values. Values clarified will stabilize and reinforce a good goal. Dreams are the more fluid picture. Dreams have lots of Value anchoring many key aspects or characteristics. “Captain!” should trigger these clarified Values, some Dreams to express these values and some active objectives or Goals.
If you have failed at many dreams or goals, they can be demotivating. Pick a smaller, more doable expression of a value and start there. The Values, Dreams and Goals need to be motivating. Too big, the big hairy audacious goals (BHAG) are fine, if they are motivating and you are constantly pursuing them! If they are demotivating, painful to think about, make you feel like a loser, then take on a smaller project and build from there. Your “Captain!” call should make you excited. It should trigger things that are motivating. If you are not excited or motivated to action, you need to scale down the project so you can scale up the motivation, …… and action!
We are going to mechanically initiate the check on your automatics with an alarm and then move it into a “Captain!” call. This “Captain” habit needs to be “highly intrinsically driven”. That is it powers itself. It won’t be a habit you are forced to do. It will be one of those machines that is a pleasure to run and you become addicted to it. You like checking out your goals, how you are doing and the challenges that you need to find solutions for.
Balance is very individualized, yet balance is important. In our life and even with the working of your habit machine spiritual, community, family, business, personal, health and recreational all have their place. We are very social creatures, live with other people in a world many relationships. Each of the aspects of our lives interact and affect the other. We also have levels of doing, thinking, feeling and experiencing. All of these need to be addressed and balanced as well. Many of us have not considered the balance that is right for us. The result may be a very accomplished life with no satisfaction or feeling or sense of being alive or some other seemingly unbalanced sense.
Most education and self help books or how to do it books, focus on the doing. The balance of thinking, feeling and experiencing is missing. Education may focus on money and friends, but family or values may be missing and make the monetary victory hallow. Balance, pay attention to see what is right for you.
Fears or lack of success in an area, doesn’t make it less important to you. Just because you are not socially skilled, doesn’t mean people and relationships are not important to you. It just means that you need to find ways to fill that need or balance that part of your life. Facing your fears is one of the important machines that will allow you to live a balanced and fulfilling life.
Getting these “important”, but missing aspects of your life in your Values, Dreams and Goals. Get your Captain in charge of keeping your habit machine balanced for you you. This is a training of your Captain.
The main point is none of this will happen by accident. Your balance and Values, Dreams and Goals need to be put under a control trigger like “Captain!”. We just naturally are on automatic, just going through the day doing what we do. We can only modulate our habit machine slightly with our conscious control. Mainly our lives, the life we live is directly related to the person or creature of habit we are. That is the habit machine we have built or trained determines the life we live and experience. When we control our habit development, we control the life we live.
When we train an exciting intrinsically driven “Captain!” we activate that habit machine often and take charge of connecting to our Values, Dreams and Goals, our balance, the analyzing, strategizing and planning a better me. It won’t happen by accident. Building something requires drawings, blueprints or some sort of picture such that a contractor knows what to build. Our life is more like a movie or story. It has dialog, doing, feelings, thoughts, experiences, interactions, ….. And so much more that is important to you. We have to develop this picture, this story and play it often when we call “Captain!” to keep us on track.
There are always limits, restrictions and challenges. One thing will affect another. We may not be good at creating the picture or plan, yet. We will only get better with practice. But when we call “Captain!” this blue print, picture story need to pop up and guide us. We may not know how to do everything, yet. We can find out how and train ourselves as it becomes necessary. Make the picture only big enough to be motivating. It can always grow. The key is get started and be motivated to grow and keep going.
Small projects or pictures
One page paper
Model airplane, car, puzzle
Clean room, house
Wash and clean car
Mow and maintain yard
Cooking dinner
Laundry
Lunches for the week
Meeting, agenda, involvement, rules or guidelines
Budget
Proposal
Morning routine
Evening routine
Larger Projects or Pictures
Bought a fixer upper house, limited time,$ and skill
Starting College, medical school or law school
Starting a business
Present (prep/outline/present) Seminar, Class, workshop
Building a house or commercial building
Training for ironman or 10k
Getting married and starting a family with kids
Planning a wedding, family thanksgiving
One or two week vacation
Learning a language in 6 months in the country
Moving to a foreign country
Some Balance Areas for other Goals/Projects/Pictures
Spiritual
Community/Country
Family
Health
Business/Financial
Personal
Recreational
Developing a self training
Physical Health
Exercise
Sleep
Diet and eating
Educational Skills
Speed reading
Memory
Note Taking
Brainstorming
Organizing and relating
Analysis
Prioritizing
Application
Creativity
Teamwork
Social Skills
Meeting
Connection
Networking
Teamwork
Sales
Leadership
Projects
Values clarified
Value or ideas convert into expressible form
Strategizing and planning
Funding ($,time, energy, commitment)
Scheduling and managing
Initiating
Maintaining Focus
Completing
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