Last week, I asked "Are You Choosing Greatness or Just Settling For The Crumbs?" Today, I would like to share a few more ideas that can help you overcome what gets in the way of having the life you want.
Indeed, each of us has been confronted with difficult circumstances and unattractive choices. You probably did not "choose" this economy, the lost job, the shattered bank account. And yet, here you are. The only choice you really have is what you will do to work around whatever is holding you back.
Much like the sailor who loses her mast in a storm, you can bemoan your fate, or you can come up with a "workaround," a "jury-rigged" temporary mast that will at least get you going again. While it may not be a perfect solution, at least you are moving again. Sometimes the path from crumbs to your version greatness is simply a question of finding that temporary solution, something that at least gets you moving.
My new book, "Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work," addresses this question in a number of work-related circumstances, ranging from overwhelming workloads and meaningless meetings to uncooperative people, misaligned silos and broken systems. In this article, I want to share with you a powerful "workaround that works" to improving your life, a simple yet effective approach for overcoming anything that appears to be in your way.
That workaround is a simple question: "What can I do that would make a difference in my life that requires no one's permission other than my own?"
Of course, the value of that question is relative to your willingness to simply ask the question in the first place. Now, if you don't want to change anything, if you would rather wallow in the hopelessness of the economy and blame politicians, bankers, and just about anyone else for your predicament, that's your choice. But if you want to find a workaround that will get you moving again, read on.
How You Frame the Problem Is the Problem
Last week, I suggested that an important key to overcoming life's challenges lies in how you frame the problem. If you frame the problem as impossible, then you won't find many choices to help. If you frame the problem as the economy, the politicians, the bankers, etc., you won't find much you can do.
The article suggested that you can choose to move from crumbs to greatness simply by your willingness to take those first steps.
BrooklynCitizen echoed a sentiment held my many when writing:
While all this is valuable we keep stressing the individual as if all their choices actually allowed control over their life. We can at best guide our lives but certainly not control it. Also what is not mentioned is the role other people play in our greatness. Behind every great life is a great support system; no one does anything alone and if they live this way they will fall short of greatness.
BrooklynCitizen was so close to getting the idea, and then fell into a somewhat common misperception that obscures the point. That misperception? That the game of life is about controlling something outside your own self.
The one thing that you can control is something most people ignore as though it were meaningless and insignificant: you may not control what happens in your life, but you do control how you respond to what happens. Regardless of the situation, you always have a choice about how you respond, about the choices you make next. The choices may not seem all that great, but if you don't make the ones available, you have no chance at finding your version of greatness.
The challenge is that simply making a choice, even the best one available in the moment, rarely vaults you from crumbs to greatness. However, that one forward-moving choice, no matter how small and apparently inconsequential, may be the choice that puts you on the path to greatness.
Viktor Frankl's incredible story of surviving Nazi concentration camps involved his startling realization that freedom was the experience he had just after the Nazis did something to him and just before he chose how he would respond. That freedom to choose his response was the one thing the Nazis could not take from him, and so it enabled him to remain in a position of control -- not much control, mind you, but enough that he was able to endure through the incredible agony and horrific circumstances to which he was apparently doomed.
Did his choice about how to respond make a difference in his life? Sure did. Did it change his circumstances? Not so much. But did it make a positive difference? Beyond all measure, because the choice to remain resolute in his own inner experience allowed him to survive and to eventually thrive.
Remember, positive thinking just doesn't work, at least not all by itself. Positive action works. But how do you take a positive action step without first having a positive thought? You can use this one simple question to put you on the path of discovering your own workarounds for whatever is blocking your path.
There's more to the puzzle, to be sure. However, no matter where you find yourself, there's always some little step you take that will begin to move you forward.
How about you? What choices could you make that would put you on a path to overcoming whatever is in the way?
I would love to hear from you about your ideas, about how you have chosen in the past or what you are focusing on as you look ahead.
Please leave a comment here or drop me an e-mail to let me know your experience.
Russell Bishop is an educational psychologist, author, executive coach and management consultant based in Santa Barbara, Calif. Watch for his new book, "Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work," which will hit the book stores Jan. 10, 2011. You can find out more about Russell at workaroundsthatwork.com. You can also download a free chapter of his new book by going to workaroundsthatwork.com and clicking on "Download a free chapter." Contact Russell by e-mail at Russell.Bishop@workaroundsthatwork.com.
Follow Russell Bishop on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Russell_Bishop
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Let me thank you, Russell, for your continuing contribution, your gift in challenging critical thinking, and your many fans for taking the challenge to awaken. I love you and am so grateful for you each.
Cara
I hope that many derive benefit and gain strength from Workarounds That Work.
Check him out: http://www.wmitchell.com/amazing.html
I have lived in several countries on several continents. Wherever the "American" capitalism encroaches people become dissatisfied with their lives.
Last night I watched one of my favorite movies “The Gods must be crazy”. Whenever I am down, this one picks me up because it has some really funny segments in it. It is about these little Bushmen living happily in South Africa in the desert. One day an empty bottle of Coca Cola is thrown from an over flying little airplane and the villagers start fighting over it because there is only one. When they realize the problem the bottle is creating the hero of the story decides to throw the bottle off the rim of the earth. The film follows his journey into “civilization“.
I object to the word “Greatness” I would prefer a journey into becoming “humane”.
The is the beauty of it all... The change, the greatness, starts inside of you. Once this happens within you, the world is changed and you truly are great. What others think and see in you reflects what you think and see in yourself. This is truth.
The next day the woman came back, looking for me.
Attitude is everything.
Cara
You can weep or get up and choose from the current options available. (God knows I've done both often enough.)
Choices are partly about will and partly about opportunity. I can only control the first. I can't create some other reality with magical thinking.
And I likely do not see "great" results in the sense of dramatic difference. A decision to continue making decisions eventually will take you step by step out of enslavement to your own misery and back into dignity. Or it'll kill you if you insist on making the wrong ones...and the fact is, we will all die eventually anyway. So mourn loss, and then pick up and go on. We all do it at our own pace. In my humble opinion.
Your latest fan,
Cara
blessings to you,
RB
www.confidentpilot.com
He's a private pilot, and his audience is other pilots, but I've found his comments about beliefs and actions very practical and helpful in identifying, changing, and sometimes simply sidestepping mine.
I find it interesting how much resistance there is to the word "greatness", and the idea that an individual can choose so much of their life experience. Clearly a hot button for many.
In a word: No.
Don't get me wrong, I loved this article. You articulated beautifully the power of the mind, and the power each of us hold within. You just didn't go far enough.
Towards the end of your article you wrote about a Nazi concentration camp survivor, asking, "Did his choice about how to respond make a difference in his life? Sure did. Did it change his circumstances? Not so much." But then you stopped short of what you could have, really, should have said. Yes, you mentioned positive thinking, and in your defense, and mine for that matter, positive thinking is critical. But you then wrote how his "choice to remain resolute in his own inner experience allowed him to survive and to eventually thrive." But what if it hadn't? What if he hadn't survived? Would his resolution be worth any less? Would the idea that choosing how to respond to your circumstance, whether or a positive outcome ensued, be worth less?
That's the question. And the answer.
And, it's pretty darn hard to frame an answer to a problem you haven't defined.
Framing the answer is easy because the answer doesn't matter. That's the definition. You frame the "answer" in such a way that the outcome isn't the important part. Like you wrote, it's your *response* to said problem... but going even one step further... the answer is in accepting the outcome regardless; that your choice on how to respond is the most important part.
Am I making sense? Maybe you misunderstood me, or maybe I misunderstood you. Ha. But regardless, thoroughly enjoyed this article.
P.S. I read through the responses this morning and something came to mind... Kohlberg's theory of Moral Development. No, the article wasn't about morals, per say, but it was about one's realization and/or acceptance that black/white, or right/wrong responses to situations isn't the only solution. Maybe I'm a bit off, but the similarities to Kohlberg's theories and the, shall we say, *immature* comments, made me think of him and his ideas on moral development. Even if only fleetingly.
Humans can strive to be more fully human and aware, but "greatness" is not achievable.
People are only "great" within the confines of their own warped self-image, or in the eyes of the immature idol-seeker.