Farming Your Goals

I found my muse for this week’s post while sitting in a church pew this past Sunday.  Don’t worry, my post is not religion specific, and I promise not to preach to you as my reader.  As always my aim is to stimulate your thought, but you can be assured that regardless of where you fall on the religious belief spectrum, you will not feel disconnected to this week’s post. 

I was listening to the pastor’s sermon about a parable Jesus told his followers about a farmer planting his seeds.  With great intent I focused on paying attention, but admittedly my thoughts immediately wandered into the application of this parable about half way into it.  Based on the definition of a parable, the purpose is a real world application of a story.  Therefore the guilt I felt for day dreaming was very short lived since I was fulfilling the basic mission of parables.

The story talked about how the farmer tried to plant his seeds among various types of soil without harvesting a successful yield.  There were either crows that ate the seeds, the sun shriveled up the plants due to an arid climate, the soil was too sandy without much nutrients, or there were competing plant species stifling out the plants.  Then finally he planted them in just the right soil with the right nutrients away from predation by any natural elements such as birds or environmental factors and his yield was overwhelmingly abundant. 

While in my distracted contemplation of the story, I considered the farmer’s seeds as the lofty goals we set for ourselves, and the everyday objectives that we try to achieve in our lives.  It isn’t uncommon that many of us set out to achieve our goals and objectives but in doing so, we rely on the wrong resources, the wrong people, or even sometimes we are in the wrong location.  Unreliable people, faulty resources and bad locations serve as examples of environmental factors that can prevent us from achieving what we want to, or as the result in the farmer story, an unsuccessful yield.   

Our goals and objectives have to be rooted in situations where they can grow to become accomplishments.  Through the nourishment of our hard work, the right people, the right resources and location to name a few things, we are similar to the farmer who has to put in effort to water, remove weeds, and fertilize his plants to grow so that his crop can have a high yield. 

The farm of life that is filled with the plants of our goals, and objectives is one that sometimes takes time to grow.  A farmer will tell you that not all years in farming are banner years for crops but farmers do not take those setbacks and quit after one bad year.  Therefore similar to life where we are faced with failures in our goals and objectives we can’t quit either when faced with failures in our attempts to achieve certain goals or objectives.  Sometimes those things were not meant to be, and sometimes we need to just replant them, or in other words restart from a seedling again to create a better and stronger plant. 

A more drastic but sometimes necessary measure is completely moving the farm and starting in a new environment because that soil has been depleted of all supportive nutrients for the plants.  A new beginning in new soil is necessary sometimes.  This can easily be translated into a new job, a new work environment, a different city, or even a certain state where we may need to be in order for our goals and objectives to become more attainable.  Also crucial to this scenario is planting the proper crops or setting appropriate goals and objectives.  Going from a couch to a CEO might not be a direct manageable goal, but starting out with going for a supervisor role, then a middle management position, moving into an upper management role and then working into a CEO role is an example of planting the right seeds at the right times.

Whatever our goals and objectives are, it’s important that we are mindful that we are planting the right seeds in the right soil.  It’s also important that we are nourishing those goals and objectives with the hard work necessary to make them come to fruition.  While paying attention to these factors and removing the weeds, or the roadblocks from our lives holding us back from success, it is only a matter of time before our goals and objectives progress and sprout into attainment.

Going for the Gold

Here in Austin, Texas the city is alive with the buzz of ESPN X Games Austin 2014 kicking off on Wednesday.  The ESPN X Games Austin 2014 crew has been here for a while making plans, and constructing what will be a tour de force of fun, sports and music happening downtown, at Austin 360 Amphitheater and at Circuit of the Americas.    The competition will be undoubtedly fierce in a variety of events for gold medals.   

You see, whether you’re a fan of an event that will be here, whether you’ve never seen any of the events before, or even if you don’t care about the X Games Austin 2014, we all are a part of our own process in going for gold medals in our lives just like the athletes competing.  That’s what I want to talk about this week is 3 major components of going for the gold in our own lives.

So far I’ve already had the privilege of talking with Chase Hawk (BMX), and Jay Reichert (Stadium SUPER Trucks), two of the athletes participating in this year’s games and the common thread between them and you and I is that the pursuit of professional and personal goals is a long committed process.  Both athletes talked about how they got started and stayed committed to their sport, practicing and participating in competitions for a long time.  As you pursue your own personal or professional goals it too can be a long arduous process that has its trials and tribulations.  Getting a raise might be followed up the next year by getting overlooked for one.  Maybe you’re saving up to launch your own business but the financial woes you face keep putting it on hold.  It could even be a situation where you keep just adding on voluntary tasks to strengthen your resume to be ready for when you find your dream job so that you can be qualified to apply.  Much like the athletes I spoke to who are successful at reaching and participating on a grand stage, you too will eventually succeed, and land that consistent raise, launch that business, and secure that dream job so that you are in that position to get your own gold medal in life. 

The work ethic however must be driven by passion a second necessary component to achieving gold.  We must have an intrinsic motivation and love of the pursuit process of our goals.  While talking to Jay Reichert, it was obvious that he absolutely loved driving Stadium SUPER Trucks.  After only one question he lit up as he talked about what it was like in the driver seat of his truck during a race, and had story after story of other races, practice runs, wrecks, and even what it was like to analyze the truck’s performance in trials.  That’s the type of passion we must have to transform our dreams into reality.  There has to be a passion about how we talk about our goals, and the work that we are doing to achieve them.  The intrinsic motivation and joy that we feel, should be palpable to anyone who asks, or observes us as we pursue our hopes and dreams.

Throughout the process of chasing our own gold medals, it is imperative to continuously set and aim for new goals.  We need to be battle tested as we move forward and test ourselves with various opportunities that come up.  This part of the pursuit process helps us to prepare for our shining moment.  This could be taking on a project that utilizes our skills, maybe taking an extra class, getting involved in an association outside of work, or anything else that will enhance our skill development and prepare us for our end goal.  These are all a part of the proverbial ‘corporate ladder’, because a ladder exists in all processes of pursuing a dream.  Each rung is further progression to the top of your game.  Much like these X Games Austin 2014 athletes are involved in circuit competitions around the United States, and some around the world which serve as their rungs of the ladder while they pursue a gold medal.

As we work at achieving our own gold medals through hard work, determination and success it’s important that we remember that it’s a process, we must maintain our passions, and be constantly ready to be tested along the way.   Sometimes we will get a few silver and bronzes along the way, but that gold is waiting and it’s achievable.  It will happen.

 

 

The Tip of the Iceberg

Some might describe me as having an affinity for watching documentaries.  That’s an understatement, but I’ll run with the subtlety and say that recently I was watching one about the great icy north.  While dazzled by the imagery on the screen, an iceberg was shown and I was reminded of a training I have done for my staff on how to work with others.  In the training session I compare the people we meet and interact with, to icebergs.

When we all look at icebergs we are typically seeing it from a perspective on land, looking at a majestic ice formation reaching into the sky.  With its many peaks, and points it can often be awe inspiring how it floats along in the water.  However if we were to look below the surface in the chilly water that it floats in, we would see something much more grand below the surface, dwarfing the size what we saw floating above it.  Therefore the entirety of the iceberg was more than what we initially saw when we were just looking at it on land.

As we think about the people in our lives, whether it’s a friend, a coworker, a family member or a significant other, what we see on the surface is typically just a small manifestation of who they really are deep down inside.  I’ve been reminded of this fact very recently while I go through my own life journey, and as I listen to some of the experiences that my friends are going through right now.

We can look at those that are wealthy, poor, happy and sad, and sometimes never truly know much more than just what we see on that surface.  Yet there is so much below what we see of someone’s persona, or the tip of the iceberg.  So much of what is below the surface is created from hard work, joy and pain, successes and failures, as well as instances of triumph and defeat.  Our experiences with others, the jobs we’ve had, and the roles we’ve played in family, friendships, relationships and the work environment are just some of the things that contribute to the entire make up of who we are, or in this case, the entire iceberg.  As I said these are just some of the things, but it can be comprised of so much more not listed, and we are all a summation of our experiences.

We all go through life making the best out of our situations, learning from the events in our life, but there is so much more to our personalities than the initial interactions we have with people.  That’s where treating people with empathy and patience can go a long way for sustaining friendships and relationships.  It’s being sensitive to that part of the iceberg we may not necessarily get a chance to see.

We don’t always know the journey that someone has taken to get to a certain point in their life, therefore we are not always aware of the rest of their iceberg that’s below the surface.  The smoothest iceberg we see, can have some of the roughest and most jagged edges below the surface and vice versa.  But if we take the time to holistically approach someone and genuinely show interest in them as a person we can ultimately be a better supervisor, co-worker, friend, romantic partner, and family member.  

A strong component of being able to do this is working on having a high level of empathy.  There has to be a certain level of compassion and willingness from within ourselves to want to learn about someone in order to have the ability to be empathetic.  The cliché “put yourself in their shoes” might come to mind, but this goes beyond just putting ourselves in their shoes.  It also requires wearing their hat, their coat, and their gloves to take the analogy further.  By this I mean don’t just look at it from our perspective trying to understand theirs, actively listen to what that person is sharing about their experience and try to learn and understand as much as possible about what they are feeling and experiencing.

Having this level of understanding is great, and it’s kind to be empathetic, but taking it a step further to treat someone from an empathetic standpoint is treating them as a whole person and not just what we see on the surface.  Understanding why they make their decisions, and how our decisions can affect them is something that can create a deeper more meaningful relationship and is truly a holistic approach to our interactions with others.

When we see and interact with someone quite often it’s just the tip of the iceberg that we’re getting.  So let’s change that and make an effort to see the entire person, or the entire iceberg.