Quick Insanity Test

Keep on doing what you're doing, and you'll keep on getting what you got!

I urge you to take some time to really reflect on that statement. Go ahead ... I'm waiting. It seems like a simple enough message, but when applied to achieving worthwhile goals it works as blatant evidence as to why they remain goals and never become achievements.

Look Familiar?

When I was growing up, I was an extremely competitive wrestler. I was part of a great program which won our league banner each year. My head coach once told me something that changed my perception of practice and work forever. He stated "Practice doesn't make perfect, PERFECT practice makes perfect!" Expanding on this, he was letting me know that practicing something a million times will not produce perfection if I am not practicing with perfection. If I learned how to do a move (I wont get specific as I am sure no one cares too much about collegiate wrestling) but practiced it the wrong way, when it came time to perform, I would have performed it wrong as well. Luckily I caught onto this teaching early and had much success.

So what does all this have to do with you?

If you have any worthwhile goals in life, at work, in your relationships, sports ... etc, you must be constantly learning and trying to improve yourself and your performance. The problem lies in the fact that most people keep working hard at something using the same techniques every time and blissfully hope for different results. If you go to the gas station and pay $20, guess what? You'll get $20 worth of gas. The result won't magically change because you wrote it on a piece of paper and posted in every room in your house and work space. Just merely hoping for things and "staying positive" will not produce physical results if there is no action taken. Even the Bible states that "faith without works is dead." You can hope all day long that "this time it's going to workout" but if you are using the same method in your approach to life and its opportunities you will ultimately get the same results time after time.

I wrote a blog a couple weeks ago regarding the benefits of learning from failure. This is pretty much a follow up to that article. What one must do after they have failed and decided that they will use that failure to motivate them. Go back to the "drawing" board (in my case it's a cork board and white board) and start over with a NEW method. Take the time to apply a new thinking with regards to things which you may have previously come up short of your goal. Test new and different approaches and methods to the same opportunity (change the word "problem" into "opportunity") and see if you produce the desired results. Chances are you wont hit a home run your first attempt but you will undoubtedly see measurable growth in the areas in which you apply this advice.

Try new things, get many advisers, read more, get out of your comfort zone and TEST TEST TEST.

This man is calling YOU insane!

Albert Einstein stated the definition of INSANITY as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."