I don't have 'rules to live my life by' and I am not massively goal focussed. I used to be. And I've read book after book with theory upon theory. Ultimately I am left bewildered by the range of options for what is essentially a simple problem: how to spend my time.
You can dress this stuff up as goal-setting, beliefs, values - but the bottom line is, these guiding principles will enable you to differentiate between doing A and B. Even if its: intend to do A, tell yourself to do B, no B do B, not A, oh and then feel bad because you should've done A and your boss is ringing you asking why it isn't done.
What is the relevance of this rambling on an "About Me" page? Because frankly these pages are hard to write. It's a 500-word window into my brain and who I think I am. Or who I want to tell the world I am. That's a bit grand... It's me telling the three people who look at this site who I am... oh and they know me anyway.
End of page?
Well no. It's not that simple.
What if someone else logs on, wonders who I am, clicks and sees an empty page. Disaster!
Well that's why my rambling about goals is relevant...
I think, who I am is a function of what I do and why I do it....
So what drives me? Well its a simple and short list thats taken me a few years to figure out... Friends & Family, Fitness, Photography, being the best Business Consultant I can be. This stuff makes me tick.
Those are, to quote Leo my "Big Rocks". Get some of that good stuff into my day and I'm happy. If I don't: not a happy bunny.
For the last few years I've done some goal setting exercises to work out what I should achieve in that year.
Don't get me wrong, it always worked, but I've now moved to a more holistic approach. It's not goal-less, but its not micro-managed task-by-task goal setting either.
I guess they're guiding principles. Pushing forward on larger projects or ideas each month, doing a little more each day. No guilt, no opportunities to beat myself up... but each week I do a little more of every single one. And I'm a happy bunny.
What are they? Well that'd be telling! But.....
- I want to see my friends and family as often as I can: to make the most of my time with each and every one of them and maybe take a few snaps along the way for this website.
- I want to be healthy and fit enough to take whatever life throws at me. Not as fast as Lance maybe, but happy and content to be as fit as I can be.
- I want to develop a great style of reportage photography;
- I want to be an insightful professional and experienced Business Consultant who helps a variety of clients achieve business change through hands-on analysis and an active coaching approach.
And the rest? Checking my social network pages, making sure google picked up all the keywords in those links, watching TV, reading magazines, ... I don't know, they were there, but I don't miss them.
I guess it's like anything, when you get the balance right.... you don't miss the stuff that was there when it wasn't really right.