​Patience (and Tolerance)
 
My dad used to joke that he could never be a doctor because he had no patients.  I deliberately misspelled patience to convey the word play because it is really difficult to tell a joke one dimensionally.
 
Okay, moving on before you lose patience with me.  
 
Patience is tricky for me. At best, I am a conditionally patient kind of guy and those conditions are often only known to me.  By this, I mean that I believe that patience isn’t simply practiced, it is also earned.  I will do my best to explain using real life examples, but I am not going to promise that you won’t lose patience with me before I do.  Here goes.
 
I have patience for student drivers and for kids who have recently obtained their license.  I have no patience at all for people who hold up traffic, driving 20 miles under the speed limit in the fast lane while texting.
 
I have patience for employees who show up every day ready to learn something new and to challenge themselves.  I have no patience at all for an employee who asks not what he can do for the company, but what the company can do for him.
 
I have patience for anyone who exerts an earnest effort, but falls short of his or her goal.  I have no patience at all for those who set no goals and demonstrate no ambition, but expect the world anyway.
 
I have patience when a contractor calls to tell me that he will be late or postponed.  I have no patience at all for the contractor who delays my project with no advanced notice or any explanation.
 
I have patience for great causes that may take some time to find their way and gain traction even if it means that I spend more time working on behalf of them.  I have no patience at all for poorly thought out, unorganized efforts that go nowhere, but waste time indiscriminately.
 
Basically, I find that I have all kinds of time for people and causes that are genuine and not so much for those that aren’t.
 
I look at it like this. My time has always been precious to me and I am judicious with it accordingly.  For the most part, I have become adept at assessing a person or a cause and then determining with accuracy whether I should be patient and invest some of my time and energy.  I think that skill has helped me to derive more enjoyment from my time than I otherwise would have if I simply offered my patience unconditionally.  I also think that practicing this skill has made me a better decision maker.
 
In the spirit of full disclosure, however, I can tell you that I am not always patient with myself and I absolutely react too impatiently to certain situations.
 
I am a horrible handyman, but I still approach every household project as though it will only take a few minutes and when that turns out not to be true, I immediately get frustrated.  Along those same lines, despite having a very limited toolbox, I still somehow expect to always have just the right tool for the job only for my unfounded optimism to turn to instantaneous ire.
 
I love animals and I full well know that pets are a lot of work yet when our dog is in our backyard for two minutes and somehow comes back to the door filthy, it often is a true test of my patience.
 
So, I guess what I am saying is that even though the concept of patience is obviously something I have given a lot of thought to and have gone as far as to categorize it, even I can’t fully explain how I apply it.  I think this is because somewhere along the way my patience or lack thereof intertwines with my tolerance.  This then leads to the question of whether a person can be patient, but intolerant or impatient and tolerant at the same time.  I think the answer is yes, which really starts to create some confusion!
 
Clearly, patience can and often does go hand in hand with tolerance, however, the opposite is far more interesting to think about.  Using my previous example, I am apparently patient with our dog, but intolerant of the mess she creates.  Similarly, I consider myself to not only be tolerant of, but interested in the many varied opinions of the people I interact with on a daily basis, but if one of those persons takes too long to state that opinion I may grow impatient with him.
 
In these instances, I need to be careful not to convey the wrong message.  I want our dog to know I love her and that she is not in trouble just because she goes out and does what dogs do.  I also need my long-winded acquaintance to know that his opinion is just fine with me even though he may not be as concise as I would like him to be when sharing it.
 
If I think of myself as patient and tolerant, but my pets and friends don’t receive that message, then the virtue of my patience and tolerance is completely lost because when it comes to matters such as these, the only reality is the perception of those that you care about.  The challenge isn’t to make myself more patient or tolerant.  The challenge is to make sure that I convey whatever level of patience and tolerance I feel in a clear and appropriate way even when I am the only party involved.
 
I am going to continue to work on my own patience and tolerance and hopefully improve upon it, especially the way in which I convey it to others.  I value self-awareness in others and I need to make sure that I practice it myself.  In my opinion, anyone who comports himself in a manner that indicates he knows who he is, how he portrays himself, and is respectful of others along the way is very likely worth my patience and tolerance.

This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker

Grey Reality
Accepting that absolutes and extremes are rare and not representative of reality allows for you to also accept that not everything is exactly as it may appear

Sometimes, reality is harsh.  Reality can also be stark.  Your own perceptions may even define whatever you deem reality to be.  In my experience, reality is most often gray.
 
Recently, I was having a conversation with a close friend and we were comparing notes on parenting and business and he made a very astute observation.  He noted that social media leads us to believe that reality is absolute and extreme.
 
Somebody who is out having dinner posts a picture and wants everyone to know that they are having the greatest dinner ever created.  A parent takes a video of their child doing something around the house and it is shared as the funniest thing a kid has ever done.  The weather forecast doesn’t just predict that a storm is coming, it is going to be the mother of all storms.  Harmless?  Maybe not.
 
What about the kid who happens to be caught on film in an embarrassing moment that spreads across the digital universe because somebody happened to be right there with their phone and an app?  We all have embarrassing moments.  I do several times a day, but this person had the misfortune of having his moment caught on video and now he will be forever labeled as the goof in the viral video for all to see.
 
Whether it is implicit, such as the “we’re all out having a good time” post that you are not included on or explicit, such as the “you’re not one of us unless you are wearing these shoes” post, the social media version of reality is absolute and extreme.
 
You are either popular or not.  You are a republican or a democrat.  You are wealthy or poor.  You’re either in or out.  You are having the most fun doing the greatest things ever or you are by yourself doing nothing.
 
How about reality tv?  Does anyone ever wonder how real or spontaneous something could be if it is happening in front of a camera crew?  Are people really surviving in the wilderness when they are surrounded by a television production company?  Do people genuinely fall in love in front of an audience?  C’mon, let’s get real.
 
Very rarely is reality absolute and in no way is reality as it is portrayed in these examples, however, this is not a commentary on the evils of social media.  The fact that reality is gray is a good thing and cause for optimism. 
 
Most of life takes place in the middle.  Some of the excitement comes into play when you do experience an extreme moment, but if you only live when those moments occur, you are going to spend an awful lot of time waiting around and missing out.
 
Accepting that absolutes and extremes are rare and not representative of reality allows for you to also accept that not everything is exactly as it may appear.  Perhaps someone who you thought was rotten has some good qualities after all.  Maybe the real world that you reside in isn’t as far away from everyone else’s reality after all.
 
Absolutes divide us.  Think about what it would be like if you just concentrated on who you are and what you think without the burden of being labeled and categorized.  What would it be like if we stripped out the politics of politics?
 
I would be willing to bet that if we all sat down and answered topical questions without being led to believe that our answers would define us as necessarily being a republican or a democrat, we all would be surprised at how undivided we are.  How many of you want to have clean air to breathe and fresh water to drink?  Does anyone object to that objective?  Is crime a good thing or a bad thing for your neighborhood?  How about quality education?  Anybody against it?
 
Is it possible that if you are not obsessed with what you perceive others are doing, you may concentrate more on what you are doing?  Do you think that if you realized you have more in common with your neighbor than what you initially thought, you might be more inclined to strike up a conversation?
 
Extremes are not inviting and there isn’t a lot of room for people where they exist.  No one, except for Santa, lives at the north or south pole.  The weather is harsh, and the environs do not lend themselves to sustainable human life as we know it.
 
There is, however, plenty of room in the middle.  It is neither too hot nor too cold.  Unique qualities are admired not scorned.  Alternate views are debated not met with contempt. 
 
Extremes and absolutes promote closed minds and hatred for all, but the few who think and act and judge as the other extremists do.  The proliferation of these extreme views leads to a cancellation of each other and the expression of creativity and new ideas.
 
I don’t always remember how gray things really are.  On occasion, I will absolutely label someone who cuts me off in traffic as a *&@x!*+&#%!!!  I don’t always welcome disagreement with something that I strongly believe in.  I am not always in a good mood and I have yet to live a day without finding something that I could be better at.
 
Overall, however, I prefer to be curious, ask questions, seek opinions, and to collaborate with those who want to share their thoughts.   I do try to put myself in other people’s positions and to appreciate alternate perspectives.  I have certainly realized that, over time, I have learned far more from someone who had a different take or a more well-rounded approach than the one I would have stated or employed.
 
Lastly, you might be asking yourself if it is gray or grey.  The truth is…it’s both.  Gray is the more commonly used American version and grey is more commonly used in Great Britain.  It makes no difference to me and, however it is spelled, it is the color or colour I prefer for my reality.

​You have aspired to be a manager since the start of your career.  You have been a dedicated student and you have followed directions.  Along the way, you have gained the knowledge and the expertise that is necessary for you to continue to advance and to add to your level of responsibility.
 
You have taken some big steps toward management, but the know-how that you have gained won’t necessarily make you ready to be an effective leader.  There are still at least two things that you will need to fully understand in order to be prepared when promotion day arrives.
 
First, you must realize that the primary change and biggest difference in your job going forward is the addition of the responsibility for others and the fact that you will no longer be assessed solely on your work results, but on the results of those for whom you are now responsible.
 
Second, if you are now reliant on those for whom you are responsible, you will need to quickly figure out how to put them in the best possible position to succeed.  The best way to do that is to understand the difference between teaching and telling.
 
I occasionally hear people say, “I can’t wait to be the boss so I can tell people what to do.”  If that is your perception of what it means to be a manager you are in for a rude awakening. 
 
Knowing how to do your job is very different than knowing how to help someone else know how to do their job.  Anybody can tell someone else what to do, but that will not help them understand why they are doing it or what its correlation is to their success.
 
Let’s start with this premise.  Don’t say it if you can’t explain it.
 
If you have kids, you already know that you can very quickly lose control of a discussion and look like you have no idea what you are talking about the second you use a word or repeat a saying that you cannot clearly explain to your inquisitive child.  You must understand what you are talking about if you are going to have any chance of assisting your child to understand what you are talking about.
 
The same is true when you are working with employees.  Most vocations have their own lingo.  The police definitely use their own vernacular.  Lawyers like to throw a lot of Latin around.  In the credit union world, we like to abbreviate.  That’s all great and maybe even necessary, at times, but if you are going to talk the talk you better first understand what you are talking about.
 
Another must in teaching is to understand the “why” behind what you are relating.  If your answer to the question of why a procedure is in place is that “it’s just the way we have always done it”, you are likely falling into the trap of telling and not teaching.
 
By the way, this also applies to your interaction with clients.  If you have an unhappy customer on your hands and you find that you are unable to articulate your policy and its application to that person, you are going to be in a very uncomfortable situation.
 
Your ability to teach will not only help you develop employees and effectively resolve disputes with customers, it also directly correlates to your ability to advance.  In a similar way that a student who thoroughly understands the subject matter is much more likely to get an “A” on the test, the employee or manager who demonstrates command of her area of responsibility will likely be the first one considered when a promotional opportunity presents itself.
 
Conversely, a student who simply repeats what his teacher has said and an employee who merely recites the employee handbook are not likely to be the ones next called upon to lead a collaborative discussion or take on an important assignment.
 
Telling someone to do something or that a project is due takes very little time at all.  Effective teaching, however, can require significant time.  Account for that by preparing your employees well in advance of a key deadline or progress measurement.  A successful teaching and learning process generally relies on some repetition, a little bit of positive reinforcement, and at least one real life application of the concept or procedure.  If you realize this ahead of time and plan accordingly, you will put your employees in position to advance, which will help you to continue your success.
 
Telling is essentially unilateral and the act of telling someone what to do does not necessarily require an understanding of the situation or even two willing parties because there is no guarantee that the person being told wants to be part of the process.
 
Teaching is collaborative by its very nature because it requires at least one party to teach and one party to learn.  Collaborative efforts lead to a greater understanding of each other and the needs of your organization.
 
Whether you are already a manager or you aspire to be one, whether you are working with students or co-workers, when you are next given an opportunity to teach, take it.  In fact, make it a habit and you will undoubtedly move forward as will those around you. 

This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.

When you are in pursuit of a goal, are you engaged or stressed?  How you answer that question will say a lot about how much you enjoy your life and how you will rate your overall happiness.
 
When you actively and consistently set goals, whether they are financial in nature or otherwise, there is no doubt that your increased awareness will also increase the number of things for you to think about and potentially worry about.  The additional worry often times will lead you to look forward to the end of the pursuit, or the achievement of your goal.  There is nothing wrong with this, unless that anticipation completely overshadows the value of the process itself or what is sometimes referred to as “the thrill of the chase.”
 
If you are an accomplished goal setter, you already understand the importance of goals and the vital role they play in the forward progress of your life and the realization of your ambitions.  If you know how to set goals and why they are important, you will likely achieve your goals as well.  Having an understanding of the importance of goals and their role in the quality of your life, however, does not directly translate into an appreciation for the pursuit of those goals.
 
If you are someone who is constantly and solely focused on the end result, you may be devaluing an equally important part of the process, which is the pursuit of that result and the corresponding journey you will take to get there.
 
Results are great, but the majority of your learning and the experiences that you gain in your lifetime actually take place along the path that you travel as you move toward those results.  In fact, most of your life is spent in the pursuit stage of your goals and dreams, not in the actual end result of those pursuits.
 
If you find yourself wishing that your work day was over, is it possible that you will miss out on a positive experience or a learning opportunity because you are not engaged in the moment?  If you are worried about the outcome of an event or process, might you be less effective in influencing that outcome because you are not focused on the present?
 
As great as it is to reach a successful conclusion, much of the joy to be derived from reaching that conclusion is in the work and the effort that you put forth to reach it.  Without the value that you derive from the work that you do, your results (even if they are successful ones) will be hollow and not as meaningful to you or your development as a person.
 
Let’s use my golf game as an example.  I am not a good golfer, but I do take the game seriously and I am just as competitive on the golf course as I am everywhere else.  I am generally aware of my strengths and weaknesses on the course and what my ability will allow me to do or not do.
 
Knowing these things also helps me to distinguish between a lucky shot and a skillful shot.  Each may end up in the same result on the scorecard, but I can tell you that I always feel better about the shot that I meant to hit and practiced hitting than I do about the lucky shot that happened to end up in the right place.
 
On the rare occasion that I achieve the result I was looking for, I am aware of the work that I did to get there and the execution that was needed on my part to achieve it.  It is a result that I can build upon because I know what I did and why I did it.  A lucky shot doesn’t tell me anything other than I may be just as unlucky on my next shot as I was lucky on this one.
 
Everyone needs something to look forward to, whether it is the purchase you can finally make after saving your money or the retirement you will be able to thoroughly enjoy after a lifetime of hard work.  A little dash of luck and good fortune is always a welcome assist in getting you to where you would like to be, but if you don’t enjoy the process that takes you there, you will miss out on an awful lot of life’s experiences and lessons.
 
If your first thought upon arriving at work every day is that you are another day closer to retirement, you will diminish the value of the work that you do.  While there is nothing wrong with thinking about your ultimate goal of not having to work one day, the work that you do today should be important enough to you to focus on the present; for you to learn as much as possible and for you to have as much positive influence on the course of your life and on those around you as you can.
 
From a financial perspective, you certainly want to properly prepare for your retirement by saving and investing what you will need to enjoy your life when you are no longer earning a paycheck.
 
If you don’t pay any attention to what your financial needs will be when you retire, you are either not going to be able to retire or your retirement will be vastly different than what you hoped it would be.  Conversely, if you spend every day thinking about how much you have to save for the future, you may have plenty of money when you stop working, but you will miss the fun of the present.  You will likely deprive yourself from enjoying the money that you make while you are working because you are solely focused on the future.
 
If, however, you fully appreciate the work that you are doing and the progress that you are making toward the achievement of all of your financial goals, you will be much more likely to find that balance between preparing for the future and enjoying today.
 
If you can constantly learn from your past and keep an eye on your future, while making sure that you live in the moment; you’ll be right where you need to be most of the time.

This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.

​A theory of evolution
The objective of your ongoing evolution is the constant commitment to purpose and forward progress, specifically YOUR purpose and YOUR forward progress

Before we get started, please note that the title begins with an “A” not a “The” and that the rest of the title is deliberately not capitalized.  This is not a thesis on “The Theory of Evolution” nor is it even an alternative view on the subject.
 
The evolution that this title refers to is the type of evolution that you need to initiate and continually experience if you want to live a fulfilling life and to pursue your hopes and dreams with purpose.
 
There is a long-standing debate on the topic of whether people, especially adults, are capable of change, as in the type of change that involves your personality and the traits that help to define who you are and what is important to you.  Sometimes, the concept of change and that of evolution are intermingled.
 
I am not suggesting that you should try to change who you are, if you are happy with yourself and you are not someone who texts while operating a vehicle.  In my opinion, a change represents a different direction.  You decide that you are going to head east when you were previously travelling west.  An evolution represents an improvement or a strengthening of the direction you are already headed.  You have always gone west, but now you are going west a little faster.
 
I have no idea what percentage of our composition is innate and what percentage is learned, but I do believe that we are all our own unique individuals and those of us who figure out exactly what that means and then address our weaknesses and maximize our strengths will have a heck of an advantage over those who don’t spend anytime thinking about that stuff and are content to stumble through life without much of a direction or a purpose.  Building upon who you are is an evolution and one that is important enough to never stop.
 
As a student, if you take the time to figure out what subjects are of interest to you and which of those align with your skill set, you will be much more likely to select a major that is consistent with your future goals.  If you take the added step of researching the job market for your intended career as a decision point along the way, you will be more likely to earn your desired reward for the hard work you put in as a student.
 
As you evolve from a high school student to a college student and, ultimately, to a full-fledged member of the workforce, your evolution will be purposeful and efficient because you have taken the time necessary to set your course. 
 
If you select a major only to determine that, despite your best intentions, it is not the way forward for you after all, that’s okay too.  Evolutions rarely follow a straight line nor are they symmetrical. 
 
If you are already in the workforce and you feel like you have reached a dead end in your current career, it is important to figure out why that is the case.  You certainly don’t want to make the same mistake again, so at a minimum you will want to know why it went wrong so you don’t end up inadvertently going down the same path again in a different career.
 
You may also realize that the stagnation you are experiencing is your own doing.  Perhaps you stopped learning new things.  Maybe you convinced yourself that you had been in your job long enough to know all there is to know.  It is possible that you found too large of a comfort zone and stopped seeking new challenges.  In other words, you may have stopped evolving.
 
I have often heard people express concern about retiring from their job.  It is certainly true that some people are not well suited for retirement, but I believe that most people who worry about retiring are really worried about finding a new purpose.  Sounds to me like a great time to continue to evolve, to re-calibrate.  If you have found purpose in your work, you are already ahead of the game.  Now, it is purely a matter of identifying the things that you enjoyed and helped to form your purpose so that you can find a similar pursuit in retirement.  You did it once, you most certainly can do it again.
 
The objective of your ongoing evolution is the constant commitment to purpose and forward progress, specifically your purpose and your forward progress.  There will be times when you will feel as though you are not making the type of progress you had hoped for, but if you are following a plan that represents who you are, and that plan includes ways that you will learn from past mistakes, appreciate your life’s experiences, and improve upon past efforts; you will ultimately get to where you are going.
 
You may ask how I can be so sure.  Simple.  Your evolution ensures your relevance, your purpose, and ultimately your survival and you don’t have to wait for it to occur.  You are perfectly capable of creating it yourself specifically for your own benefit.

 This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.

Freedom of Familiarity?
We may have to be resolved to our physical confinement and restrictions for the foreseeable future, but that does not mean that our mental and emotional beings need to be confined by those same restraints

As I may have mentioned on a few occasions, sometimes an idea for an article pops into my head and the words immediately pour out.  Other times, I get the idea and all the words roll around in my head for a while before they eventually assemble in a cohesive way.  What you are about to read falls into the latter category.  As you read it, you will likely understand why this composition crystalized at this time.
 
Every one of us has a comfort zone, a place where we find peace, safety, love, and happiness.  Your comfort zone may be your home or anywhere you happen to be in the same place as your spouse or your best friend.   Your comfort zone may be your favorite vacation spot or your local coffee house.  Wherever you are most likely to feel your best, strongest, most confident self on full display, that is your comfort zone.
 
Your comfort zone is likely different than mine, but there are almost certainly common threads amongst our definitions.  I mentioned a few of them already; peace, love, happiness, strength, confidence.  How about familiarity?  When you have familiarity with someone or something, you are free to be yourself and when you are true to yourself, you are the best version of yourself.
 
When you exist in this zone, you can accomplish great things.  The confidence that you feel in your comfort zone should liberate you from your inhibitions and help you to unlock your potential and challenge yourself to learn more and expand your horizons.  After all, if it does get scary as you progress forward, you can always come back to your comfort zone.
 
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work this way.  Whether it is the allure of all that comfort and peace or a desire to shelter yourself from anything that might disappoint or frustrate you, you may very well be tempted to stay in that zone as much as possible once you have found it.
 
However you view your comfort zone and whatever amount of time you spend in it, ask yourself this question: Would your feelings about it and the time you spend there change if you couldn’t leave?  If you suddenly did not have any choice, but to stay in your comfort zone, would the familiarity of it set you free or trap you?
 
My view on my comfort zone is analogous to a lap top and its docking station.  The purpose of the laptop is to create mobility and versatility for you and the tasks that you need to complete.  When the laptop has done its job for the day and its battery power begins to wane, you pop it snugly back into its docking station, where it re-charges, syncs up, and gets ready for the next day.
 
When the laptop works in concert with its docking station, it is perfectly suited for the tasks at hand.  If it never docked, it would never sync with the broader system to which it is attached, and it would ultimately run out of charge and value to you.  Conversely, if the laptop never left the docking station, there would be no point in having one because the reasons you own it would be negated by the complete lack of mobility and versatility now trapped in the docking station.
 
In my mind, if you choose to never leave your comfort zone you are negating the value of your comfort zone and resigning yourself to a life of perpetually untapped potential, limited or no opportunity for growth, and confinement in place of freedom.  The only decision you are making in this scenario is the decision to stay where you are.  I guess that because you are making that choice, you could fool yourself into thinking that you have chosen to be where you are.  But, what if that choice is taken away?
 
The power of choice and the freedom to make your own decisions are the greatest and most powerful freedoms you have.  If that power is taken from you for a short amount of time for a cause or a reason that you understand, chances are great that you would still be willing to sacrifice your decision making for the greater good.
 
What if the circumstances aren’t so clear and the time frame is even fuzzier?  How long would you be willing to make that sacrifice and what would you want in exchange for making it?
 
Adverse and difficult times have a way of bringing the best out of you.  It might be because they cause you to look at yourself and the world around you in a different way, or that they create a different focus for you.  Sometimes, the challenges you face are simplified when there is one overriding factor that looms so large, you have no choice but to stand together with those around you and face it.
 
Friends and family are typically front and center during tough times.  If you appreciated them before facing those tough times, you probably appreciate them even more so while you face those times and if you were taking them for granted, you may realize that and make it a point to let them know how much they really mean to you.
 
As we all face these difficult times together, confined to our individual comfort zones and temporarily deprived of many of our basic and most powerful freedoms, let’s make it a point not to let those same comfort zones trap us now or on the other side of this adversity.
 
We may have to be resolved to our physical confinement and restrictions for the foreseeable future, but that does not mean that our mental and emotional beings need to be confined by those same restraints.
 
I am going to make it a point to continue to find ways to expand my mind, harness my emotions, and strengthen my resolve to be a better person in the short and long term.  What are you going to do?
​
​This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.

Mindset
When you have the right mindset, you form the foundation for good decision-making

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.
 
I don’t know who first said those words, but I grew up hearing them and I don’t remember a time when I was not aware of the meaning of that statement. In fact, the older I get, the more meaningful this statement becomes.
 
So much of what you accomplish in life is only possible when you first believe you can accomplish it.  Said another way, so much of what goes unfulfilled in life is a result of a lack of belief in yourself and what might be possible should you be willing to try.
 
I have met many people who I thought had a ton of potential and that much of it was untapped.  I have also met a lot people who I felt were unique and as I got to know them better became even more convinced that they were capable of achieving at a level beyond where they were currently at in their life.  In these instances, it was my belief that the common thread was a fear of failure.
 
Fear of failure is a topic in itself for another time, but for the purposes of this example, let’s just say that it is a trait that is unique among humans. For some reason, many more people than not tend to focus on what they cannot do versus what they can.  Worse, many people who think they cannot do something only think that is the case because they have never actually tried to do whatever it is they think they can’t do.
 
This thought process is akin to the one that you may use when determining what foods you don’t like.  In most cases, you may only think you don’t like something, but you have never actually tried it.
 
If you are one of these people, try this exercise.  Instead of thinking about what you cannot or have not done, focus on what you can do and have done.  Give yourself an opportunity to build some momentum toward the development of a positive mindset.  For example, at the end of a busy day, think about what you crossed off of your to-do list instead of the things that you just couldn’t get to.
 
There is nothing wrong with looking back on each day in order to evaluate what went right and what went wrong, but if you give yourself some credit for what you accomplished versus just kicking yourself for what you didn’t do, you may find that you eventually will empower yourself to start feeling better about what you are doing and to think about what else might be possible.
 
Another common element that can detract from a healthy and positive mindset is the concept of your comfort zone.  Your comfort zone is whatever circle you draw around yourself at any given time that allows you to feel safe and relaxed.  You need comfort in your life and there are definitely times when it is healthy to allow yourself to feel protected and warm and to enjoy the peace of mind that comes with those feelings.
 
You do not need as much comfort as you might think, however, and in that sense the importance of comfort is a bit over rated.  If you think about the greatest, most exciting times in your life, comfort is not likely to be one of the first thoughts those memories invoke. In fact, those exciting times were likely only possible because you stepped out of your comfort zone.  You gave yourself the opportunity to learn something new or experience something totally different and outside of your routine.
 
Providing comfort to others is noble.  Seeking comfort from others, especially when times are tough, is necessary. Retreating to your favorite chair or putting on your softest slippers at the end of a hard day is an essential luxury.
 
However, allowing your comfort zone to enable you to stand pat, to not venture into the unknown at least a little bit, or to somehow make it okay to not apply yourself toward worthwhile challenges is completely unacceptable.
 
Do you find that you approach new situations, such as a get together with a new neighbor or the start of a new class, with dread or that you concentrate on all of the things that could go wrong?  If so, recognize what you are doing.  While it may be easy to talk yourself out of attending one function or to put off taking that next class, making a habit of doing so will only lead to a very small and constantly diminishing comfort zone.
 
When you try something new, especially if it involves putting yourself out there for others to see, something will likely go wrong.  If, however, your mindset is positive and you choose to concentrate on the side of your mental ledger that keeps track of what goes right and what is gained, the things that don’t go so well won’t be nearly as important to you as they once were.
 
There is always room for improvement in just about everything that you do, but improvement isn’t possible unless you are out there doing something to begin with.  If you strive to improve as opposed to letting the thought that your endeavor won’t be perfect stop you from trying, you are moving forward with purpose and toward fulfillment and achievement.
 
When you take the steps that are necessary for you to develop a healthy and positive mindset, you also send a strong signal to those around you that you are confident and that you are dealing from a position of strength.  You indicate that you are someone who is interested in taking an active role in determining the outcome of situations with which you are involved.
 
When you have the right mindset, you form the foundation for good decision-making.  Once you make good decisions on a consistent basis, anything is possible!

This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.

The Importance of Goals and Incentives

In case you haven’t noticed, most of the world surrounding you is moving toward or already using a goal oriented, incentive based system.  The reason is simple. It works.
 
Credit unions and banks often provide incentives in the form of reduced lending rates or increased savings rates to their members and customers for using more than one of their products or for using a specific service.  Credit card issuers reward you with airline miles, cash back, and a host of other gifts when you use their credit card to make your purchases.  Grocery stores discount certain items if you carry their check-cashing card.  Most employers have created a merit-based, incentive-laden environment that rewards employees for adapting behavior that is consistent with organizational goals.
 
For the most part, incentives are the rewards you receive for reaching your goals. In the same way that people are much more likely to achieve their goals if they are written and specific, businesses have found that they are likely to do more business with customers who are incented to do business with them.
 
Knowing how to establish your goals is the most essential aspect of developing any useful and relevant plan and there are several key ingredients of successful goal setting.
 
Understand the Purpose

When you set out to establish your own goals, you should begin the process by defining what you want to achieve and why you want to achieve it.  Understanding the purpose of your goals will help you develop a plan and to stick to it accordingly.
 
In fact, understanding the purpose of anything that you do will lead directly to increased personal awareness and perspective as well as the gratification you experience when you understand your role and how it relates to the world around you.  Remember that stress only comes from what you don’t know or cannot control.  If you understand your purpose and you follow the plan that you create to achieve a desired outcome through effective goal setting, you will absolutely reduce, if not eliminate stress in your life. 
 
Be Specific

Your goals should be specific and personalized to you and your individual need or aim. Being specific will ensure that your goals remain relevant during the time period they are in place.  Personalizing your goals will help you to stay motivated and engaged in your pursuit of achievement.  Relevancy and personal motivation cannot be underestimated in a world in which you continually face a host of new challenges and are subject to getting side-tracked, losing focus, or losing direction.  When something remains relevant to you, you are more likely to persevere and see things through to a positive conclusion.
 
Establish Measurements

Setting goals that are measurable will help you be able to determine whether or not you are successfully achieving your goals, whether they are short-term or long-term in nature.  Establishing measurements that are applicable at the onset, up through and including the completion of your goal, will help you to maintain your motivation and enthusiasm for achieving the goal.  In most cases, the more tangible and quantifiable your measurements are, the more helpful they will be.  Examples of useful measurements include, but are not limited to, numeric references, timelines and deadlines, and benchmarks.
 
Make them Attainable

Even if you successfully complete all of the other steps, you will waste your time if you do not ensure that your goals are attainable..  Setting attainable goals does not mean setting them so that they are easily achievable, rather that they are realistic and rooted in reality.  In determining the attainability of a goal, you should make sure that you would experience a sense of accomplishment if the goal were achieved.
 
Align Incentives Accordingly

Goals and incentives are further related in that they are both indicative of deliberate behavior associated with a specific plan and their value applies to any situation you will encounter.
 
You will increase your chance for success in any situation if your goal oriented behavior is properly lined up with incentives designed to encourage you and keep you focused on achievement and forward progress.  Just as businesses have found out that people respond positively and consistently to incentives, you will find that if you include your own meaningful and personal incentives in your planning and goal-setting, the whole process of achievement will be even more worthwhile and rewarding.
 
Just as is the case with the goals that you set for yourself, incentives must be understood and carry personal significance for you.  Once those elements are established, incentives can be as elaborate or as simple as you would like them to be as long as they are reflective of the achievement you have earned.
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You should never hesitate to celebrate your successes and reward yourself for your accomplishments no matter how small you feel they may be or what step along the way they represent.  Sometimes, the small celebrations are the most important because they help you to build momentum and develop better habits. They also invariably lead to bigger celebrations!
 
Positive recognition is always a part of any useful incentive, even if that recognition is something you only give to yourself.  Incentives can be monetary or non-monetary.  They can include a night out, time away, or extra time off of work.  They can be activity based or relaxation based.
 
Ideally, the amount of reward you earn from your pursuits in life is equal to the amount of effort you put toward those same pursuits.  The simple act of setting goals and determining incentives will set the course for anyone to live their life in that manner.
 
When you take the time to regularly set personal goals and balance them with worthwhile rewards, you take a big step toward creating more opportunities and greater freedom of choice.  It is the type of freedom only felt by those that have taken command of their life by creating and following their own plans and making their own decisions.

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​This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.

Keeping Score
If your life isn’t about the pursuit of excellence in every way, shape, or form then what it is about?  If you are not out there every day attempting to be a better person, a better neighbor, a better employee, spouse, or parent and keeping score of how well you are doing, then what are you doing?

I do not have a soccer background.  I did not play soccer as a kid and, while I appreciate the sport, I did not have a burning desire to coach a soccer team until my daughter asked me to coach her team last season.  I agreed to coach, mostly because she has some type of mystic power over me that I can’t quite explain, but also because I thought it might be fun to work with kids that were 4 and 5 years old. All of them were participating in their very first organized competition and playing on their first team.  

I learned many things from the experience, starting with the fact that I needed to quickly adjust my expectations.  I went from giving motivational speeches to just hoping that my team would pay attention long enough to stop picking up sticks and pulling grass while the game was being played.

There were no scoreboards, but I witnessed first hand what I had long suspected.  We are born with an innate sense of competition.  Despite the fact that the score was never advertised or discussed during the game, these 4 and 5-year-old kids knew who was winning and who was losing.  This experience confirmed that before we are old enough to fully reason things out or to think logically, we know the importance of keeping score.  

My team lost more often than we won, but when we did win a game, the kids felt great.  They congratulated each other and the other team on a good game and they talked about how many goals they scored and they talked about looking forward to the next game.  They earned the satisfaction of knowing that their efforts had paid off and they experienced the reward of teamwork.

When they lost a game, they still congratulated the other team, but they didn’t feel all that great.  Sometimes they talked about the mistakes they made and sometimes they moped for a while.  They knew they didn’t like that feeling and many of them went home thinking about what they were going to do to make sure that they did not lose again.

Even though my focus was on teaching fundamentals and promoting good sportsmanship, I never discouraged the kids from keeping score because they were learning valuable lessons whether they won or lost.  They participated in a competition individually and as a team and found out for themselves what it was like to achieve success and what it felt like when they fell short.  Unfortunately, these are lessons they would not learn if a growing trend on the part of our society to not keep score continues to gain momentum.

If you are a parent of a child who has recently participated in any type of sport, you have probably already seen this trend in action.  You have likely heard phrases like “everyone is a winner” or “there were no losers today.” In these cases, great efforts and hard work tend to be diluted and those who are not dedicated and actively engaged are encouraged because they will receive the same reward as everyone else after the game or at the end of the season.

What does this teach our children and what type of false mentality are we passively or actively creating with these examples?  Whatever the answer, it is not consistent with real life.

Winning and losing are part of life and keeping score is the main measurement of how well we are doing or not doing in the pursuit of winning.  Winning is not an entitlement and the joy of winning cannot be created by a false or meaningless declaration.

If your life isn’t about the pursuit of excellence in every way, shape, or form then what it is about?  If you are not out there every day attempting to be a better person, a better neighbor, a better employee, spouse, or parent and keeping score of how well you are doing, then what are you doing?

Keeping score can apply to a competition with others, but it should most often apply to your own personal competition to be the best that you can be.  Whether you choose to keep score or not, be advised that the world around you will keep score for you.

If you don’t apply yourself at work and make it a point to accomplish goals, you will ultimately lose your job.  If you don’t keep track of your finances in a responsible manner, you will lose your credit rating and eventually your access to credit and if you don’t set out to win the heart of your spouse everyday…well, you get the picture.

Vince Lombardi, often thought of as an expert on winning, is credited with saying “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence” and that “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.”

He was absolutely right.  He also probably knew that the more vested you are in something, the more likely you will be to work to protect it and nurture it.  Only then, will you appreciate the true value of your efforts and you can only appreciate the true value of your efforts when you appreciate the difference between winning and losing.

For the kids on the soccer team who are just beginning their life learning curve, they will go forward a little wiser and a little better equipped for their future.  They have many wins to look forward to and many scores to keep.

The poor coach, on the other hand, is having a much harder time.  He knows full well how hard it is to win in life and all he can do is think about how he can improve his coaching skills and lead next year’s team to a championship, but that’s a story for another time.
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This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.

Hotel for Teens

Years ago, Ray Romano was a guest on a late-night talk show, and he was asked what it was like having three kids under the age of five and he said, “It’s a lot like living in a fraternity.  Everything is broken, no one sleeps, and there’s a lot of throwing up.”
 
When I eventually became a father of three, within a four-year time span, I always remembered that answer and found it to be apropos on many occasions.
 
Now, those kids have grown into full-fledged teenagers.  The other night, as I was reflecting on how fast time had passed, it occurred to me that my wife and I have moved out of the fraternity house and are now running a small hotel.
 
Specifically, this thought occurred to me as my middle-aged bladder once again assured that I was not going to sleep through the night.  I got out of bed and noticed a light coming from one of the bedrooms and I could faintly hear a conversation coming from another, not at all dissimilar from a walk down the hallway at a hotel.
 
For a second, I thought about comparing our house to a bed and breakfast, but that comparison doesn’t work because my wife and I are the only ones who get up for breakfast and there is almost no gathering in a centralized place like there is when you actually stay at a B&B.  Our lobby (kitchen and family room) is merely a pass through for these guests of ours.
 
No one keeps the same hours.  While they don’t quite come and go as they please, I do still have to make sure that the front desk is manned at hours that aren’t exactly conducive to my schedule or my own need for sleep.
 
Dishes are left in haphazard places as if the hired help will be by at any time to clean up. 
 
Guests come and go daily.  Some are regulars.  Some are just passing through. 

Also, there should be enough wi-fi speed for everyone, yet connectivity is still sketchy for some reason.
 
When I think about it, there are very few differences from a hotel.
 
I guess one difference is that there is no signal for whether the towels and sheets should be washed.  Everything is always on the floor, but the laundry is still done on our schedule (because my wife and I are the only ones doing the laundry).
 
Another big difference is that hotels are eventually monetarily compensated for providing shelter.
 
When our kids were really little, they believed that everyone in our extended family lived with us and just spent varying degrees of time at our home.  If they saw their grandma once a week, they would welcome her home as if she had been working or vacationing somewhere else in between her stops at our house.
 
Now, it is the other way around.  Our kids do really live with us, but it feels like they are just visiting when we do see them.
 
When I first became a parent, I had a vision of what it might be like when our young children became teenagers.  Along the way, I tried to prepare myself and them for that time, but the priority was always to spend as much time together as possible and to have as much fun as we could while doing so.
 
As important as I believe it is to plan and be prepared for whatever you are going to encounter, I think it is a blessing that the demands of young parenthood keep you focused on the moment.  Those demands ensure that you live in the moment and that absolutely adds to the enjoyment of those times.  Plus, I eventually learned that there was plenty of details to sweat and situations to worry about once that time arrived so there was certainly no need to think too much about the teenage years while they were still adolescents.
 
Even though it can be stressful running a hotel while still working a full-time job and tending to all the other aspects of life, I am very aware of how fast time passes and I know that this time is fleeting and precious.  So, for now, I am going to enjoy it as much as possible.
 
Besides, it is not as if they have asked for room service.  At least not yet, anyway.

​This article is part of Scott Arney's educational series, entitled The Serial Decision Maker.