DO YOUR MATH and GET INTO THE ZONE

"Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted” - David Bly



DO YOUR MATH and GET INTO THE ZONE

Have you ever caught yourself driving a car, find yourself at a particular place and time and can’t recall the last several miles of your trip? Not really conscious of the act of driving? Maybe a little scared and thinking to yourself, “How did I not get in an accident?”

I was driving to my daughter’s basketball game yesterday and this particular thought, the thought of how we get in a zone and can wind up someplace down the road without really much conscious effort. And as I began formulating my thoughts around this I started to relate this driving experience to life.

Beginning with the end in mind, we take an action. Yesterday, I was headed to a local gym. Knew where I was going, knew how I was going to get there. Pretty easy. I jumped in the car, turned it on, headed out, and didn’t really need to think too much on anything else. I arrived on time and enjoyed the game.

As I was driving back home, my thoughts returned to the earlier thought I had on how our mind falls into this zone and we lose consciousness of an pretty dangerous act, driving, but can perform it very successfully. I then began to relate this experience to our life’s experience, our personal journey, and I have come up with this personal theory.

When we are driving, we really do have control of the situation but we are being led by our subconscious mind rather than our conscious. Our subconscious is allowing our conscious mind to think on other things, maybe more pressing issues we need to deal with internally. This is allowed because we know where we are going and how we are going to get there. We free up our conscious thought process needs.

Could our life’s experience be very much different?

My theory is if we have specific goals and aspirations in life, if we can truly crystallize those thoughts and begin with the end in mind, develop the plan to get there, take action, our subconscious will take over and we will just be along for the ride. One day in the future, we would look back, and say ‘wow!’

Let’s write a simple math formula:

SUCCESS = (GOAL + PLAN + ACTION) x EFFORT

Many of us struggle each day in the conscious because we are missing a component of the above formula; no clear goals, no plan, no action or no effort. Is it that simple? Well, let’s look at Tiger Woods. We would agree he is a success wouldn’t we? Is there a component missing above? Do you not think he has a plan; a practice schedule, a course management plan, etc? Review the most successful businesses, do they have goals set each year, plans, with compensation models designed to drive action and effort.

IS IT THAT DIFFICULT? OR DO WE JUST NOT HAVE THE DISCIPLINE TO FOLLOW THE FORMULA?

The by-product of not following the formula is a bunch of stress, anxiety, and frustration. There is enough of that already when we do have it all together. The trip to the game yesterday could have been more complicated if there was traffic, construction, an accident, etc. We will always be adjusting our plans, moving obstacles, dealing with unknowns.

If you want to change you life DO YOUR MATH and GET INTO THE ZONE!!

And I encourage each of you, whether you’re ‘in the zone’ or not, to help someone else get there.

NOTE: Picture of me in 1986 Bitburb AB, West Germany receiving award.