Most often when I am looking for fulfillment I turn to my hobbies, which over the course of my life have changed and evolved. Currently I have three or four primary hobbies. I paint, write, learn Italian, and garden.
Our society puts an emphasis on fast. Hustle culture will get you promoted. We look at headlines in the news and make snap judgements without reading the article. We are constantly getting barraged with ads. On average we see about 5000 advertisements a day in one form or another. You don’t have to drive very far down the road from wherever you live in this country to know that America is the fast food capital of the world. Track builders can build a house in mere weeks these days.
There are certainly cycles in life when it feels like others are “getting ahead” of you and you feel like you need to make a move. Maybe it has been a while since your last big promotion. Or you look on social media and four of your friends got a new job, three are having kids, two are getting married, and a partridge in a pear tree!
The end of the year is quickly coming to a close and this is the time of the year that people start to ease into the holidays and take stock of the year that was. While more people are likely to make New Year’s resolutions than look at their year in review, the two are really symbiotic if you want to maximize your momentum going into next year.
ReLaunching Off the Productivity Plateau *Leadership Challenge*
This week’s leadership challenge goes hand in hand with our three thoughts of the week in which we recognize we have come face to face with a productivity plateau and we need to take the next step to continue to climb the mountain again.
Everyone romanticizes about taking the big risk. Pack up shop, sell the house and move to Europe and start the life of your dreams! I definitely have found myself falling into that category more and more over the last several years. Don’t like your job? Just quit! When reality sets it, rarely is it that simple and also very easy for others to tell YOU to take the risk, but it’s not their life at stake if the risk doesn’t pay off.
Starting a new habit may be one of the harder leadership challenges but perhaps one of the most important. Learning how to start a positive habit is key to being able to follow through in doing the things you want to do to thrive and feel fulfilled. As James Clear writes in his book, Atomic Habits, it really is all about starting the action that makes sure you get to the finish line.
Falling for the Stereotypes
In today’s world we are constantly being put into echo chambers with those who agree with us. Social media algorithms will feed you content you agree with, while at the same time vilifying those you don’t. This is a daily problem not just in our politics, but in our parenting strategies, philosophies on work and life, and even how we feel about truth and science.
Why is it that we are constantly putting off the things we want to do most? I can’t work out today because I have to take the kids to practice. I can’t read this book because the dishes have to be done. It’s true, life might be busy and many of us seemingly don’t have the free time, but the necessary stuff seems to get done. We keep kicking the can down the road, however on the things truly make us feel alive.
Depending upon where you look there are different definitions of the various generations from the most current, Gen Alpha, going all the way back to what we definite as the “Greatest Generation” who were born generally in the first 25 years of last century. One constant throughout the last 125 years seems to be that the generations change with technology. Since technological changes have seemed to grow exponentially, it’s no surprise that current generations are defined by a shorter time span (~12 -14 years) versus older generations which tend to be about 20 – 25 years long.