Taking time each day to think
Today I found myself serendipitously providing ad-hoc mentoring to three different individuals, each at different stages in life. One is a student considering options for a future career, another somewhat battle-hardened through a failed start-up venture, and yet another a seasoned leader forging a change in direction.
Amongst other more specific advice particular to their needs, I found myself recommending to all three that they take time each day to think. Not to simply set goals, dream dreams or meditate — rather to strategize and consider their intent for the day ahead. To consider how that day contributes to their longer-term life impact. To formulate how they plan to play the game and whether the way they are currently playing is working.
Not to in any way encourage Machiavellian manipulation or dark ambition in keeping with “House of Cards”; merely that so few of us actually take real and precious time to seriously consider what we are trying to achieve. As Abraham Lincoln famously said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
We are often-times carried along by our to-do list, or the pressures of deadlines, paying off the mortgage, planning our next holiday, taxiing our children too and fro, or trying to balance our income and lifestyle.
Taking time to develop a strategy for your day, your week, your year or your life, already creates an advantage over anyone who simply allows life to happen to them. The goal is not competitiveness or even achieving more than those around you; rather ensuring that you are living the best version of your own life. Of course, you are not in control of everything that comes your way — indeed that is what makes life so wonderful. The devastating lows and the ecstatic highs are all part of the experience, along with the learning that helps you to cope with each — eventually leading to wisdom.
Ironically, when I was a child at school, the teacher would sometimes punish me in detention with the task of writing lines on the chalkboard or in my exercise book. The one phrase that most imprinted on me (through repetition) turns out to be some of the best advice I was ever given: “I must think before I act. I must think before I act. I must think before I act”.
“I must think before I act.”
These words remain inscribed on the tablets of my memory; however, it is only now in my advancing years that I realise the full implication of this advice for everyday living.
So, I recommend that you block some time in your diary for tomorrow before the day takes hold. Thinking time. There is nothing to feel guilty about. It will be time well spent. Time to strategize and plan your next move. Time to help you be who you are and to ensure the choices you are making are keeping you true to the core of what makes you, well you.
That is what I intend to do.
