April is for ACTION - Let's Spark Something New

Sparking New Action

Changing your actions is a cycle. It starts with changing your thinking. How you see a situation or what you believe about it, affects how you approach it. For example, if you see a situation as an opportunity, you will approach it that way. If you see it as a problem, your approach is likely to be different. Opportunities provide benefits; they are desired, interesting and worthwhile. Problems usually are not.  Thinking isn’t enough.  We hear a lot these days about changing mindsets, paradigm shifts, and mindfulness.   There are important concepts, but we mustn’t stop there.  Your thoughts will only take you half way to your destination; if your goal is improvement, change, or achievement of something, you will need more.   

Stephen M.R. Covey says you cannot think your way into new behavior. You behave your way into new behavior, he asserts. Let me elaborate. Have you ever tried something new only to discover that you really like it – a food or an activity, maybe a new hobby?  No matter how much you thought about it you couldn’t get to the point of enjoying it until you actually tried it. It was that way for me the first time I tried sushi.  I thought it would be gross initially. That thought had to change before I could even take that first bite of yellowtail sashimi. Once I changed my mind that freed me to change my action. But I couldn't discover that I love sushi, become a fan of it, and encourage others to try it until I took action by actually consuming it. My thinking was a great start but it was just the beginning.

Let’s look at how this works in the workplace.  Think of an employee who is always late for work. That person won’t start being on time until his behavior changes. He can think about being on time, understand the importance of timeliness, and want to be on time. Nothing actually changes until he stops hitting the snooze button or adjusts whatever is making him late.

Consider the millions of people who THINK about exercising every January 1. They plan for it and even select and join a gym. But sadly many of them take no action beyond that.   Clearly one does not develop a new habit by simply thinking about it. It STARTS with thinking, then finishes with doing.

A mentor of mine explained it this way: if five birds are sitting on a wire and three of them intend to fly away, there are still five birds on the wire.  What they intend to do produces nothing. What they attend to produces results.