Goals, Excuses, Blame

Last Wednesday we had another Mastermind meeting. Due to the holidays, we had 3 weeks in between our last meeting and this one and the tasks we had to complete were assembling a Goals Notebook and figuring out at least 5 major goals that we each wanted to accomplish. We also had a few chapters in Jacks’ book to read.

I was way behind. I just had not made the time to do it. I had a lot of great excuses too.

My thought process, (the night before our meeting while I sat in bed reading 4 chapters of The Success Principles), was at first, kinda beating myself up, feeling guilty for not having done this last week, or the week before, not liking that I was “cramming” (shades of high school exams), and just generally wondering if this whole MasterMind thing was worth it.

I was feeling that way because I had created a stressful situation, and I wanted to blame it on the group, but most of all I wanted to blame Jack Canfield, ’cause, hey! it wasn’t my intention to create any more stress in my life with this group! Damn you Jack and your highfalutin’ ideas! Especially that part about not being able to place blame anymore – arghhhhhh….I think I hate that part the most…(See “Session 1″ for more on blaming)

A friend of mine was over and she said, what’s the big deal? These are your friends, you have a good time with them. So what if you are not “prepared”, it’s not the end of the world.

Wise words indeed.

When we all met the next night it became apparent that none of us really had our act together, despite having “ALL THIS TIME” to do a few seemingly simple things – all for our “betterment” mind you.

We talked about how crazy these last few weeks had been for each of us, and how there was no point in getting stressed out about our Mastermind group – that kind of seemed to defeat the purpose of our getting together – besides, who wants to “get to where they want to be” in a strait-jacket? We all decided to blame Jack Canfield for falling behind on our Goals Work and felt sooooo much better.

It was so great to talk about it and feel relief. So we started talking about our goals, really defining them and getting clear on what steps we needed to take to get there, and all of us were already taking many of those steps.

And I realized that THAT, this sharing of our lives and supporting each other and helping keep each other on track, is what our Mastermind Group and the Success Principles is about. Yes, read the book, do the work, but hang out with people that believe in you, whose feedback is helpful, who inspire you.

And when you run into some problems, blame Jack Canfield, then….move on!

Anyways, back to GOALS.

Jack asks that you write down your top goals on index cards and keep one in your wallet and the other by your bed, or someplace you will see it all the time. I did that a few weeks ago and it’s been really valuable.

Sometimes I feel like I am slogging along, even if what I am doing is related to my #1 goal, like I will never get there, whatever.

And then I look at that index card next to my computer and I feel inspired again. I wrote down 5 milestones to reach by June of 2009, with exact dates for completion for each task. And they are not overwhelming, they are quite do-able, and everything will happen. I have complete faith in that. There is no doubt.

I realized one of my immediate goals could be “getting Jacks exercises done in a timely, stress-free manner, before our next meeting” – what a concept… Not every goal has to be far out in the future. There’s that “Right Here, Right Now” thang goin’ on…

Session 2

For our second meeting we compared lists – 30, 30, 30 and 20. Which adds up to 1,324 items we had to come up with in 2 weeks, which is a LOT! We all noticed that while we started off with more “material” objects to DO or WANT – our lists quickly disintegrated into more altruistic aspects, wanting to give more, start foundations, more community involvement.

Like starting off with “learn Aikido” as one of my TO DO’s ( which would be very cool and I would wear a Gi – elevating the cool), but I’d also like to help start/fund a wildlife hospital in my community which I would like to fund with part of the royalties from my best-selling book, which is another thing that I would like to DO (get on the NY TImes Best Seller List), and – Doing in Action – something I am currently writing.

Things I want to HAVE, a mini-cooper! Inner peace! A wildlife hospital!

Things I want to BE…all of us were way more personal with the “BE’s” . Like being a better listener, being more intuitive, being content where I am, being an inspiration, more thoughtful, a philanthropist.

20 things I love to do – that was the easiest list, and I had way more than 20. The idea behind this list is acknowledging what you love and then seeing how that could apply as a career, in case you are not doing something that you are passionately in love with at the moment. Oprah loves to talk, Tiger Woods loves to play golf, Rodney Yee is fantastic at yoga, DeNiro loves to act…and aren’t these people doing pretty well doing what they love? I love art and creating, so designing is a natural extension of that, but, I also love some other things that I am sure I can make a wonderful living at too and will be investigating those ventures in the near future. Why can’t I do 2 or 3 things that I love all at once? And if you are thinking that you can’t do what you love because that would be IMPOSSIBLE – think again, and see where that critical voice is coming from and if it really has any merit – or if it’s a broken record you have playing in your head that is completely irrelevant in your life now.

This is it – this is your life – if you had complete control and responsibility for it, what would you do? Oh wait! You do have complete control and responsibility for your life…imagine that.

Session 1

Forgive me WordPress, it’s been 24 days since my last entry….

Jeeze! I am so tardy with this bloggie thingie – how do other people manage to keep up to date? ….and then there is facebook, and twitter..and linkedin….I am thinking that all of these social networks are doing a fine job of making me feel more socially inept than ever. But wait! I am 100% responsible for my life and how I feel! Sorry for the blame, I had a weak moment…dang it, I miss blaming

OK, back to a short summary of our first MasterMind meeting.
We reviewed the first 30 pages of the book and talked a lot about what we felt passionate about – in our work and private lives, what we felt we were doing on this planet right now and how we’d like to see our lives unfold.

For me, doing web sites is more than design and coding, my biggest joy is the connections I make with my clients and helping them get “bigger” in the world, putting them out there with a strong visual representation of themselves and the work they want to share. It’s really satisfying.

But there are other things I want to do and create, so I want to start getting clear on them and see how they manifest, WHILE I keep my web design business strong and happy!

There are a lot of exercises in the book, we decided to do the “I WANT” List where you name 30 things you want to DO, HAVE and BE before you die. Which seems easy-peasy at first glance, as I seem to wanting something every 5 minutes – so demanding! We were running out of time (2 hours with 3 girls can go by in a heartbeat), so we spent 5 minutes on our lists, just to get the ball rolling, with the intention of doing the rest for “homework”. Most of us got about 5 entries in each column. After you do new car, house on beach, financial freedom….you can get a bit stuck. But you just have to get a bit loose and it’s ok to dream big – put in things you think you will never do because you are too ______________ .  I want to learn Aikido, Indian classical dance, how to juggle. Then we stopped and compared notes. Then we swiped each others ideas that sounded good. Then we met 2 weeks later and reviewed our COMPLETED lists, and, for extra credit, we also each made a list of 20 things we LOVE to do (oh yes, you can put “eat ice cream” on there) and ways to turn that into a career – like being an ice cream taster at Ben & Jerrys…get it?

More soon.

My MasterMind Group • The Success Principles

I am part of a MasterMind group consisting of two friends, Pam Nilzon, Karen Burroughs and myself. I am giving our Biznik links as opposed to our websites as I just joined the Biznik Social Networking group and want to relate to others via that platform and perhaps interest other people to get involved with Biznik. You can reach our professional websites via our profiles on Biznik.

Back to the Success Principles Story:

A few weeks ago a client/friend of mine, Deb Robbins of Dr. Dandelion told me about a book she was reading called The Success Principles by Jack Canfield and how it was a really good read. So I got a copy and was inspired and excited by the content.

This book is fantastic in the way that Jack and his co-author, Janet Swizter, have managed to pull together a vast amount of knowledge and have formatted the information in easy to understand and apply principles.

You may have heard of Jack Canfield, he’s the co-author with Mark Victor Hansen of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series of books is also an inspirational speaker and contributor to other books like “The Secret”. Jack has sold over 118 MILLION copies of his books, so I figured he might have a handle on what he was talking about.

In the first chapter, Jack admonishes you to take 100% responsibility for your life. Sound simple? Think about it. That means not blaming anyone or anything for the circumstances of your life right here, right now. You are responsible for the life you have created and are currently living. Still sound simple? While I know in my heart that this is true, I also found myself feeling a bit edgie about it – and noticed I had a few excuses of my own…So how about an experiment where I actually do take complete responsibility for my life? No whining!

Reading the book inspired me to start a small group of like-minded individuals who wanted to “get from where you are to where you want to be” (aka the tagline for the book), and I invited Pam and Karen, both of whom I met at our local Web Designers Unite! group in Bellingham a few months ago.

We had our first meeting last week and had decided to do the “principle exercises” outlined in the book to strengthen our web design/developer careers and also move into other areas that we were passionate about.

I’ll write about our meetings and what we do in them and chart our progress in this blog. We’ll be meeting every 2 weeks. Our first meeting was fantastic! More on that soon.

I can’t write anymore tonight as I have to get going to a potluck dinner to welcome my friends Andrew Connor and Mike Mathieu back from their successful, amazing, incredible, FIVE month nation-wide tour as the Cody Rivers Show. Andrew and Mike are creating a fantastic life doing what they love – go see them when they come to your town for a show!

Rejoice,

ritama