It isn't always as it seems

Just got reminded today that sometimes your own bad conscience decides how you judge people around you. It isn't always as it seems. Actually most of the time it isn't at all as bad as you think it is.

So what can you do when you have a "hunch" or a "gut-feeling" that makes you interpret certain signals a pre-determined way? Well, you have to QUESTION if this is reality or perhaps one of your own insecurities tainting your glasses - e.g. making you view the world in a non-objective way.

Let yourself travel into other glasses, other shoes, other perspectives. Try to see it from angels where you are not stuck in your own values, patterns, or pre-perceptions. If you manage to see it from at least two other angles, you are right to lower the probability of your own view being the "true" one and the "only" angle of a problem.

The best lesson I have re-learned this week has been that if you fight your own will to come up with the best solution, and allow other solutions - however crappy they may seem at a first glance - you can jump up and bet your glasses on that there is a valid reason for solving an issue the way someone else suggests it. Take a second and LISTEN to those reasons, before you decide. It will save you a lot of pain and re-payment later.

I took the time to listen this week. I allowed me to be patient although people were waiting for answers and blowing up the importance of things. And in the end, I gained two weeks work and the respect of two VPs.

Take the time to listen to ALL suggestions, and evaluate them equally and fair. There are sometimes reasons you don't know. And as long as those reasons are objective and not for anyone's personal career, then they should be paid attention to. It may save you a fortune of time and effort.

Good luck with listening to all input next week, and allowing yourself to evaluate even if first reaction is that they are wrong. Good luck with allowing yourself to be patient.

I know you can do it.

Create Your Own Wheels

If I had followed all the rules. If I had listened to all "good advise" that I have been given. If I had gone the safe paths that others had tried before me, showing on "this is how you do it" solutions. If I had done that more in my life, then I would never have learned as much, succeeded with as much, and advanced before my peers as much as I have today. I wouldn't have grown as much as I have either.

I am not saying you should reinvent the wheel, I am saying you should invent your own wheels in your shapes and forms and designs. I am saying you should find new ways to use old wheels. You should dare questioning why to use wheels at all. And you should create new wheels where there are none or where the wheels in place do not fit YOUR GROWTH PATH.

We are all individuals. We are all different. Who says we all learn and progress the same way? We all need our own path. Our own wheels.

People may have viewed me as "complicated", "difficult", "emotional", "stubborn", or "dramatic" at times. Well, I choose my own world, my own rules, my own limitations and values. I chose my own glasses to view the world through, and in my world the whole world CAN BE WRONG. Even if things have been proven before, it doesn't mean they are still true. And just because some people have decided it is best for them in their context to do certain things in a specific way, it doesn't mean you have to follow the same pattern. Maybe it doesn't fit who you are or who you want to be. You have the right - and every human being does own this right - to define who you are and what values you want to stick by. There are consequences of your choices, yes, but at least you own them if you have not let anyone else force you to become the person you are.

It is YOUR LIFE and YOUR CHOICES. There are NO RULES that you have to follow because someone says so or because someone else is limited by fear. The only entity - really - that you have to account to is yourself. You are your values and the consequences of your actions. Of course not excluding owning up to the responsibility of your actions.

Choose who you want to be. Choose your values. Live by them every day. And let no one else define your rules.