Ignoring the Good

An unknown woman’s life changing words

Ignoring the Good

I’ve been busy over the last three weeks putting my business plan for the coming year together.  It’s a good annual exercise to take a look at where I’ve been and where I want to head into the future.  Every time I’ve done this before my focus has been on what I didn’t do as well as I should have and then set goals to do the best I can do to shore up areas of weakness or failure.  When I started the process this time it was going along well until an important thought struck me.

“I haven’t taken enough time to concentrate on what’s really going well in my business; what it is that comes naturally to me.  What has been coming easily to me over the last and previous years!”

So, I started to think long and hard about how this would impact my planning and goal setting process.  It’s been eye opening to say the least!   And, it is changing the way I approach life. (That alone is very unsettling because it opens new horizons for the future; horizons that are vast and unknown.)

What is known is that we live in a society that spends every waking hour being critical of everyone and everything.  I clearly remember honing this skill to a fine art while in graduate school.  At some sad point it expanded from a habit of focusing on how to improve my work and situation to a sort of sport to see if I could “one-up” every other person in class!  At the time I thought I was simply becoming smarter, more intellectual, when in reality I was simply becoming more “smart-mouthed.”

I had no idea how much this habit had invaded my life until years later when I was standing in a food line with my Brad Bertoch and the clerk didn’t something to annoy me so I made a sharp, cutting remark.  I felt smug and had a broad smile on my face until a kind and gentle lady behind me said, “You know, you need to be nicer to people!” 

Luckily, as soon as her life changing words hit my ears I knew she was right, so when I turned to respond all I could say was, “You know, you’re right!”

Now I’m taking her significant words to the next logical step.  I’m finally beginning to apply them to myself in a new way; as a future shaping principle.  So, as I am working through my business planning over the next few weeks I’m beginning from a new perspective; what is going right in my business and how can I make it even better?  Then, I’ll take the next step and apply the same logic to the other areas of my life.  I’m new at this, but the mental change has already begun to make a huge difference to me.

Focusing on the good has allowed me to at least double the level of my gratitude.  It’s brought new warmth to my heart as I’ve really taken notice of all the wonderful people and things that surround and support me.  I’ve been able to identify causality relationships in my business systems that I’ve never noticed or have simply ignored in the past; confirming that ignoring the good has consequences.

Focusing on the good also has consequences, but it will change the relationship between you, the result and the cause.  I invite you to try this path as well.  Look inside and see what those changes might be and mean for you.