Philosophy
Setting Your Goals for 2016
I think that the most interesting aspect of goal setting is looking at them in hindsight. As I sit here looking at the goals that I set for myself, I have to laugh at how much things have changed over the past 12 months. Some goals I beat by huge margins, and others I completely abandoned. It’s the nature of the year and the nature of change. The real secret to having goals that get accomplished is to start planning, in detail, right now.
The time to set goals is not January. Goals, given their long-range nature, require lots of contemplation. First, you have to consider where you want to go. What are the projects that you want to complete? What are the passions that you want to pursue? How do they fit into the schedule of your life? You have a finite amount of time to dedicate to pursuits, so what should you spend that time on? If you’re panicked in January because you’re losing time, you’ll make different decisions than if you completed the same exercise in November or December.
There are perennial goals that end up on all of our lists, the most common one being weight loss. We’re likely to pick up a few pounds over the holidays, but [we still struggle to keep momentum moving past January] (https://www.catholichusband.org/files/why-resolutions-fail.php). It can take up to 12 weeks to start seeing the results of your increased physical activity, which means if you quit before April, you did something wrong. If weight loss is on your list, start working towards the goal now, not January 1st. It’s a worthy goal and one that’ll pay dividends in your quality of life. Keep in mind that maintaining a healthy weight is more than reaching a goal and checking off a box, it’s a lifestyle.
In addition to health, financial, and career goals, I like to add in one extra goal for something that I’ve always wanted to do. It may be a skill that you want to learn or a lifelong dream. Have something fun in your goals so that it’s not all boring.
Once you’ve set your goals, spend time planning, in detail, how you’re going to accomplish them. What’s your plan? What does your daily and weekly calendar look like? What are the milestones and how are you going to reach them? How will you track your progress and remain accountable?
Now is the time to think about, write down, and plan your goals. Use the last few days of December and first few days of January to clean out everything in your workspace and get everything set-up. Then, charge!
Drive Safely This Season
As the cool fall air moved into the region, I made a concerted effort to get Benedict outside more. We ran around in the yard, cleaned up our garden, and put away flower pots. He’s a determined little guy who loves his freedom, so we’d also walk the 50 yards or so of sidewalk in front of our house. Since I regularly take him on my walk with me (he rides in the stroller), he’s had plenty of opportunity to see cars drive by. During our walks on the sidewalk, he’d stop for every car, yell “HI!” and wave as they passed by. Many drivers looked and waved back, most did not.
Are we really so distracted that we miss a 3ft child waving at us as we drive by?
Driving is one of the most dangerous things that you and I do on a daily basis. Although we’ve grown complacent in our surroundings and confident in our abilities, the fact remains that driving is an activity that demands total focus. Even a momentary lapse of judgement could result in serious bodily injury or death. The complacency is what’s really getting to us. We’re too comfortable. We’re comfortable enough to text, to talk on the phone, and even to develop tunnel vision.
The result of this complacency and comfort is experienced by each of us every time we drive. Motorcyclists drive near the centerline, changing lanes without signaling, and rapidly accelerating and decelerating. Vans drive slower than expected, drift, and make sudden corrections. Motorists unfamiliar with a particular area drive erratically as they seek to balance finding their destination and not crashing. Drivers text while traveling at speed on highways, or even in dense congestion.
While this is partly a warning about the dangers of complacency while driving, it’s also a warning against tunnel vision. We often only look out the window to glare at someone whose driving habits displease us. We can’t be complacent, we can’t be comfortable, but we also can’t be solely focused on what’s ahead.
Drive safely, drive defensively, but also be aware enough of your surroundings that you can anticipate changing situations and keep your passengers safe. We need to bring safety and courtesy back to the road, and it begins when you and I get behind the wheel.
Everyone Craves Respect
The Golden Rule should be the gold standard in human relationships, but my experience tells me it seldom is. I think we’re all a bit confused about just what it means to be respectful of others. The fact remains, we all have within us a desire to be treated with respect, even when we disagree.
We live in a pluralistic society with a myriad of hot button issues. In the discussions, debates, and arguments over those issues, it can be easy to see how rarely the Golden Rule is utilized. Instead of approaching a discussion with calm collected reason and logic, we see both sides maliciously attack one another’s background, character, and intelligence.
In the marketplace, both as consumers and employees, we see companies and managers act disrespectfully towards people. Companies refuse to stand behind their product and managers fail to be open and honest with employees.
If we all agree that the Golden Rule is a great thing, then why don’t we follow it more uniformly?
The problem is that we’ve become very confused about how to apply respect in our interactions with one another. Respect doesn’t mean rubber stamping or rolling over for someone else’s viewpoint. Instead, respect insists that we see each other for who we really are, people with feelings. The Golden Rule asks that we share truth with people with whom we disagree, but without attacking them as people. It’s entirely possible to have an intellectual debate over an issue and to still be friends with your debate opponent. At their core, they’re still a human person worthy of dignity and respect.
If a company is disrespectful towards you, they’re unworthy of your business, so take your dollars elsewhere. If your employer is disrespectful, they’re unworthy of having you as an employee, so take your services elsewhere.
While we want everyone else to adhere to the Golden Rule, the only person that we can really force to change is ourselves. Although respect may not be reciprocated, set a good example. Be mindful of your interactions and treat others with the respect that they deserve.
My Own Biggest Obstacle
When your thirst for change exceeds the threshold of your objections, things start to happen. We all have a series of objections when it comes to making changes in our lives. We like things the way they are, or the cost to make this particular change is too high. While it’s convenient to place the blame for our lack of change on external factors, the truth is that we’re our own biggest obstacle.
In our quest to change everyone else, we forget that we have full sovereignty over ourselves. We have within our power the ability to control every aspect of our lives. We can choose which pains we hold on to, how active of a lifestyle we lead, what activities we spend our time on, and how we manage our relationships. The only thing that I need to improve my physical health is discipline and time. The only thing that I need to let go of pain is permission from myself. The only thing that I need to improve my intelligence is literature, which I can get free of charge at the library.
The biggest obstacle in my life is me.
Change is part physical pain, part mental block. If I choose to make reading a priority, I’m going to have to cut back on something else in my schedule that I like, such as Netflix. If I want to get my family out of debt, I’m going to have to cut back from some other area of my budget, like entertainment. If I want to break free of habitual venial sin, I’m going to have a few rough weeks of temptation and behavior correction. If I want to move past pains, I have to revisit uncomfortable memories in order to dismiss them.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle that we put up in our lives is the mental block. We should give our mind some serious credit as it holds a lot of sway in our decision making. The creative power that it possesses is often the last bit of weight that we need to tip the scale and get momentum moving in our favor. The mind tends to the negative, so it needs convincing.
One of the more common mental blocks that we give ourselves is, “You’ve tried this before and failed. Don’t bother again.” We need to recognize when our mind is limiting itself, it’s trying to save us. When we hear it tell us things like that we have to change the script. “You’ve tried this before and failed. Now you know what you need to change in your plan so you can succeed!"
External factors can make change and healing difficult, but far and away the biggest obstacle is the one that we set up before ourselves. Recognize that reality, and smash through those walls like the Kool-Aid man.
Change Requires Pain
There’s something very real and raw about wanting to make changes in our lives. We all want to be better than we are today. We can see our future and (hopefully) we foresee brighter days with better financial security, better jobs, better opportunity, and better quality of life. The challenge is enduring the pains that it takes to get us from where we are to where we want to be.
For the past 4 (almost 5) years, I’ve been working on my physical health. We all innately understand the challenges of weight loss and, once we achieve our goal, the challenge of maintaining it. With all of the delicious foods in the world, consistently saying no to the bad things and yes to the good things is a real challenge. My main tool for getting me to my ideal weight has been walking and tracking my daily steps, but lately I’ve added in more traditional exercises. I’ve chosen to do the 7-minute workout about five times per week. if you’re unfamiliar, you basically do twelve 30-second exercises at an intense pace. I hate every minute of it.
It’s pretty cute when Benedict comes over to hang out with me while I workout and mimics what I’m doing, but overall, it stinks. It’s difficult, it’s oftentimes painful, and it’s always uncomfortable. I know that since I’m just beginning, it’ll get easier, but jumpstarting this routine is all uphill. So why continue? Because I know it’ll get me where I want to be.
Physical health, emotional health, spiritual health, and even relational health all require us to, at times, experience difficulty, pain, and discomfort. Yet, after we push through the challenges, we reach the other side where there is increased quality of life. People never reach their weight goal and say, “That wasn’t worth it.” No one puts down a novel and says, “I wish I had spent that time watching TV.” No one spends an afternoon with their child and says, “I wish I had worked.”
The more resistance you face in making your life, or the life of your family, better, the more assured you should be of your goal. Keep pushing, it’s almost always worth it.
I Hate Car Dealers
Alison and I are in the market for a new car. Well, we thought we wanted a car, but now we’ve decided on a van. A few weekends ago we spent a marathon three days car shopping. We went to three different dealers and a couple of private party sellers. We didn’t walk away with a van, but I did walk away deeply disappointed with the process.
For whatever reason, it seems like it’s incredibly difficult to find a car dealer whom you can trust. The entire system is set up in a manipulative way, which to me violates the basic rule of a good deal. A good deal is when everyone deals honestly and with respect, and both parties walk away satisfied. Since most car buyers are financing their purchase, many break under the intense pressure in negotiations just so they don’t have to deal with the dealer anymore. Clearly not every car dealer is terrible, but there are more bad apples than good.
Alison and I are buying with cash, so we walked away from the bad deals, but honestly, it shouldn’t be like this at all. First there’s the ridiculous markup on the vehicles, then there’s the surprise fees that have no basis in fact or reality, and finally there’s the psychological warfare of the salesman and sales manager. The only reason why the system continues is because we all keep buying.
I’m not opposed to a business making a profit and I understand that there’s markup on everything, but I think that the auto industry is particularly egregious. In fact, I think a reasonable argument can be made that the auto industry is the modern slaveowner. In order to maximize their profits, they’re willing to lie and cheat to get buyers to sign on to payments. While the difference in monthly payments may seem small to the buyer, the profit to the dealer and actual cost to the buyer is extraordinarily high. Certainly buyers are voluntary slaves, but the same principles that underpinned the system of slavery in this country can be found in the auto industry today.
So what’s the solution? First, we need to give up our car addiction. It’s a great thing to love your car, take care of your car, and have pride in your car. It’s an entirely different thing to be obsessed with your car. Buy a car, and drive it for a decade, then shop for its replacement. Second, pay cash. Financing your car only limits your options. The monthly payment seems like its affordable until your company goes out of business, your kid needs braces, or your other car blows up. If you don’t have the cash, you can’t afford it. Third, say no to dealers. When buying a car, dealers are trying to earn your business. Don’t let them steal your money when you’re the one who makes the buying decision. Buy from dealers you know and trust, or from places like CarMax where there’s complete transparency in the buying process.
It’s sad that the auto industry preys on the general public, especially the poor, broke, and uneducated. Let’s starve them of the cash they need to stay in business until they get their act together.
Daily Grooming
How we present ourselves to the world is an important aspect of live, and so making time for daily grooming is a must. To be fair, daily grooming can be a bit of a drag. Depending on the day, you may or may not feel like shaving, or you may opt for a few minutes of extra sleep instead of using that time for shaving. Regardless of how you feel on any particular day, make sure you take time for grooming.
Shaving daily, or allocating time for beard maintenance, is about more than just the smoothness of your face. It’s a discipline issue. If you can’t be disciplined enough to clean up your face every day, how can you be disciplined to accomplish anything of greatness? A scraggly appearance isn’t doing you any favors and, frankly, being properly groomed is a bit of a boost in manly confidence. Shaving may be tedious after doing it for decades, and yet it’s still a manly endeavor. Taking sharpened steel and skillfully running it across your face so that your face is as smooth as a fresh butter is, in its very essence, manly.
While it’s unnecessary to schedule your day around shaving time, plan your morning so that you have adequate time to accomplish this small, but important task. Shaving is alone time where you can contemplate life or plan your dreams. Never rob yourself of those moments in which you can ponder the meta questions.
The biggest asset in planning your day is knowing yourself. If you’re a morning person, your fight will be getting to bed on time to ensure that you have enough rest to jump out of bed in the morning and charge. If you’re a night owl, the fight is getting out of bed at the time that you planned for and set the night before. It’s important to realize the connection between both the time you wake up and the time that you go to sleep.
Men are always properly groomed. Give yourself enough time in the morning to take care of you so that you can be ready to take on the world with a fresh shave, fresh ideas, and an overall pleasing appearance.
Never Quit
Quitters quit. In perhaps the most obvious statement ever made on this blog, I’ll state it again. People who are quitters quit things. The strange thing is that many quit just before they hit their inflection point. I’ve been tempted to quit this blog dozens, if not hundreds of times over the past two and a half years. At this point, the momentum is with me, and I just keep rolling. My writing skills have improved and I’ve found my voice.
There are many things in our lives that we’re tempted to quit. Our jobs, hobbies, learning new skills, weight loss plans, and sometimes, even our marriages. The happiest people, the people who achieve the highest levels of success share the same quality: they never quit. They weather the storm, persevere, and reap a bountiful harvest. Like patient farmers, they toil daily towards a goal, often quietly and anonymously. Farmers are never surprised when their crops yield in the Fall, neither are successful people. They’ve done the work and the results flow from it.
Quitting is easy. Quitting is simple. Quitting is quick. The things that are easy, simple, and quick are generally not the best things in life. They don’t bring lasting results. Work for something that has meaning. Work for something that’s worth all of your effort, all of your creativity, and all of your time.
There may be something in your life that right now you’re considering quitting. I’m telling you today, on behalf of your future self, don’t.
A Society That Doesn’t Read
We live in a society that doesn’t read. In 2013 a quarter of Americans didn’t read a single book. Ouch. What a waste. (Author’s Note: It’s interesting that the median number of books was age and community agnostic, but not income agnostic!)
Reading is a critical skill, but more importantly, it’s an activity that expands the mind and increases creativity. Thirty minutes spent reading is distinctly more enjoyable and fulfilling than thirty minutes spent watching TV. Like exercise, if you’ll spend thirty minutes a day reading, you’ll experience tremendous growth over the course of a month, let alone a year!
Many will certainly claim that they read their Twitter feed, BuzzFeed, and their Facebook timelines, but that kind of reading isn’t sufficient for expanding creativity and increasing intelligence.
Why don’t we read? It’s an excellent question. I actually think it has something to do with our education system. Just as we teach kids that education is for the classroom and fun is for home, we teach students that reading is just for school. Students are given a wide range of books to read over the course of their studies, some that they find to be interesting and others they find to be terribly boring. We’re all different. We have different interests and subjects that we’re curious about. I have zero interest in books like Pride and Prejudice, but I can knock out a 500 page World War II book in a matter of hours.
Reading isn’t boring, some books just aren’t of interest to us. As adults, our continued learning is completely up to us. We don’t have to sign up for a class to learn or pay a teacher to sit in on a series of lectures, we just have to pick up a book. When we’ve finished that one, pick up another. Find book genres that you love, and keep reading those!
You likely will have a few subjects that you’re interested in, but the beauty of books is that there are literally millions of them. That means that even if you’re only interested in Business-Productivity and History-Korean War books, you’ll have enough reading material to last decades.
If we want to move away from the unintelligible Internet comments and celebrity culture, we’ve got to grow a brain, namely, our own. Find thirty minutes a day, mark it off limits, curl up in your favorite chair, and read a book!
Where Do You Send Your Thoughts?
In a widely circulated Matthew Kelley talk, Matthew made the point that where you send your thoughts, your actions will follow. His point was that if you spend your time contemplating the things of God, your life will improve; if you spend your time contemplating sinful things, you will stay trapped in sin.
We have plenty of mentally idle time during our days: making coffee, doing the dishes, in the shower, mowing the lawn, and even watching TV. In these moments, what are you thinking about?
Higher level thinking about virtue, philosophy, and theology can be mentally exhausting. When you’re mentally idle and not thinking of these higher things, you can still be directing your thoughts in the way that you’d like to move. You could think of ways to bring comfort to your wife, how you can better serve your family, and dream about reaching your goals and achieving a better quality of life. Perhaps you could even pray.
Your mind is incredibly powerful. Harnessing that power for good and positivity will lead you to a better place in your life, for both you and your family.