Your Main Thing, Your Main Thing?

“Long-term success is not an event it is a process that will have peaks and valleys along the way. Falling into a victim trap is in the valley, and remaining in that trap will delay your visit to the peaks.” – David Cottrell, Monday Morning Mentoring

How’s that first week of the New Year been going? Like most of you, including myself, there have been several things that have come at us other than our main goal for 2019. Even as we try to keep our focus, there is so much more that comes at us demanding time or attention over what we’d rather be doing. How we react to it determines whether we get to see our peak or not.

Curly from the movie City Slickers played by Jack Palance gives incredible advice. “The secret to life,” he says, “is in this little finger.” As he holds up his index finger his student gives him an odd look. He goes on, “When you figure out what that one thing is, nothing else matters. Everything else doesn’t mean anything.”

What is our one thing? Did you lose it by falling prey to being a victim of your team, spouse, friends, or fitness instructor’s demands on you? Are we more at fault for allowing them the opportunity to knock us off our one thing? I have learned this:

“When you depend on another’s perceptions to match your expectations, you’re setting yourself up for a disappointment.”

So don’t do it. Find your main thing and keep it your main thing. Be proactive in letting the people in your life that influence you know what is before they get to lay theirs on you. I’m pretty sure they will align much more to your needs if you proactively and honestly share what your main thing is with them. If you don’t, as stated above you’re depending on their perceptions to match your expectations which they will never really meet fully.

I think sometimes we don’t believe we should have to practice upward communication with our social circles. That we only have to communicate downward. That’s not how it works. I also know upward communication goes against any organizational gravity that lives in our social circles. And, like a rocket trying to crack the upper atmosphere to break away from Earth’s gravity it requires a lot of force and persistence to get there. That’s on us to create, not them.

I’ll keep today’s post short. Think about your main thing and make it your main thing. Get as close to one thing as possible. Ask around if your closest friends, co-workers, or bosses know what your main thing is. If they don’t, take the time and persistence required to show or share with them what it is. You’ll reach that peak a lot sooner if you do.