10 Commandments for the New Year, 2011

It has been a while since my last post, over a year actually. It has been a crazy year. I found the love of my life, I lost my Uncle to cancer out of the blue, my kid turned 18 and moved out, and I left one start-up to start another one. It’s a good thing that I don’t get “life motion sickness” and am a natural at adapting to change. On this New Year’s Eve for 2011, I have been reflecting on where things are at in my life and where I am headed and about the world at large and my place in it. This time of year everyone “makes a plan” or “a list” and promises to change – this is the time that people reflect on all the things they wanted to accomplish but couldn’t.

Ironically this usually fails many since life is a variable that screws with every formula, even with the “best laid plans of mice and men” we still come up short. Why? I think it’s because we all fall into the same trap. We “wait” for a time when we can get to the things we want, procrastination takes hold. We make the large goal, but don’t address the small daily habits that allow us to grease change. In other words, I think the model of just setting yearly goals is severely lacking. Couldn’t we get more out of life if we could be more responsive to life and opportunity? Let me take a moment to try and tackle this.

I present my own list of thoughts for 2011 that are my new 10 commandments (I love going biblical for fun, but they are just good suggestions really) for the New Year:

1. Sharpen your tools, settle on a formula – Think about how you wash a car. You get the hose ready. You look at where the Sun is at so you don’t get spots. You get the bucket ready, soap, sponge, then you are ready to go. You have prepared for the task at hand. This same simple approach can be abstracted to creating a system of approach for dealing with the daily, and charting a path to longer term goals. You simply cannot be equipped to capitalize on long term goals if you are not ready with the right tools for approach. Getting the most out of life is about being ready for changes to the plan, new opportunities to capitalize on, and so forth. So what are your tools? Mine are simple. I have a general notion of where I would like to end up by the end of next year, smarter, faster, better than I was before (like the bionic man), and fall asleep at the first sign of boring complexity, so, in order of priority: a) increase awareness of things entering my orbit and determine what role they may play in longer term goals, b) be fluid in my response to these new strands of opportunity and how they connect to future paths, c) execute daily. I like things in 3, and can’t remember shit after 3, so there we are.
2. Be aware, and Learn to Let go – Part of the problem for many is “I made a plan” and “I didn’t get there.” The reality is, is that people rarely achieve their goals the way they thought they would, and that can be frustrating. It can make you feel like you are incapable, inept, impotent in getting where you are trying to go. Were you really aware in that time though? Was there something that happened on Tuesday that you missed that perhaps would have gotten you there in another way? If you are too fixated on the perfect plan, you will miss the simple fluid opportunities that come along that could dramatically further your progress, just maybe not in the way you had envisioned. Be open to these strands of opportunity, be more flexible in determining how you get where you want to go. Sometimes letting go of the reins is the right thing to do, and sometimes it just gets you there faster if you have vision broad enough to notice.
3. Be a Life Ninja – You may have heard people say things like, “meet things head on,” “learn to take it on the chin,” and similar words of wisdom. While these may help in some situations when you have no other choice, I prefer things, like “step out of the way” and “duck you idiot so you don’t get smacked in the chin.” In martial arts you use an opponent’s moves and momentum against them in fluid motions, mixed with abrupt punctuated points of contact. Applying this to to everyday situations is priceless. Not only is it far more effective of a strategy, but you are more calm, more aware of what is happening, more in tune, and most beneficial you are often able to catapult to the next move, whatever that may be.
4. Use the Force – I am not much for prayer and religion as a means to make things happen, but prayer and my approach have some similarities. In prayer you are expending your energy to plead with a higher power to help you in your time of need, in my version you are expending your energy to move energy around you and get where you want to go. I use the approach that removes the middle man. The force is a perfect term to frame how life really works and how you can get more out of it. If you visualize life as an interconnected network of energy, then it makes perfect sense to learn how to pluck the lines, learn to make chords, basically, learn to play with the energy around you.
5. Stop Bitching – Too many people expend too much energy whining about what isn’t working, about how they were wronged, and so on, to just about anyone who will listen. Naturally there are heavy problems we all deal with like losing a loved one, and that is not of what I speak. I refer to the million little situational circumstances that don’t require the energy to make them so important. The overall problem with needless bitching is that it adds up, and soon the small gang up on you – in effect pecked to death by ducks. This is sort of a sister to the above “let go” except with the added, “save your breath” for something that really matters.
6. Find Your Balance – The hardest thing to achieve in life, I have found, is maintaining balance. My best template for finding mine is in visualizing all of the interconnected moving parts with their own opposing forces, and try to intuit the path that maintains the course I want even though the weights are mismatched. For example. If you have a kid, take them out on your lawn, grab their hands and spin them in circles. As you spin them, start walking in a direction across your lawn. The balance you find when you lean back against the weight of your child, while walking along a path, is the perfect analog to how to live life.
7. Lose the Fear - I know everyone hears this one often, but really, fear has to be ditched. Certainly some fear is good, especially in the case that it saves you from being eaten by a bear or something like that. But in life in general, fear is a cloud that screws up visibility for where you are headed and cloaks opportunities that could be right next to you.
8. Laugh More – How you react to things is entirely up to you. Some people get angry, some get sad, some depressed. I chose laughter, and you would be surprised how many things in life you can make funny. After my first startup crashed when I was 22ish, I found myself bankrupt, evicted, without a car (repossessed), alone (wife took kid, left), and back living with my mom. Even though this was a hard time in my life, I remember laughing at much of it. The circumstances that occurred were like a cascade of bad, a systemic collapse of mass proportion, a domino pattern that seemed to make its way through my whole life at the time. I found humor in the irony of how these things occurred. The fortune in this approach is that I was able to rebound quickly, identify new opportunities, and ultimately get where I wanted to go. You can do the angry or sad thing, but all that feeling sorry for yourself, or that anger, will cloud everything you see. Laughter is an emotion that holds great power and promise, so I say HA!
9. Let Things Die – Zombies are huge these days, but they belong in video games and on the silver screen, not in your day-to-day life. Don’t let things in your life that are obviously dead become a Zombie. This could be a job, a relationship, a friendship, or any number of large or small issues you face in life. Everything in the Universe has its lifecycle, and when it is dead, it is dead. Out of death comes new growth, and new opportunity that would never be there if not for a death. People usually hang on to things that aren’t good for them out of their own insecurities, so it’s always a great idea to review your life through a similar lens and not hang on to things that are clearly bad for you out of your own insecurities. There is a lot of life power in learning how to let things die.
10. Take Control of Perspective – One of my favorite movies of all time is Being There, it was Peter Sellers last role. He plays Chauncy Gardener, a childlike adult with a learning disability that is mistook for a sage of life due to his simple framing of things related to his gardening. His answer for solving an economic crisis in the movie was that “more new growth would come in the Spring after a death of things in the Winter” to paraphrase. The central theme of the movie for me was that so much of what is made complex in life can be perceived and encountered with a higher form of perspective. There is much grace to be gained in life by taking control of perspective. How we look at what we go through makes a difference on how it affects us and the people around us. Don’t let life treat you like the tail wagging the dog, chose your perspective and own it, you have the power to do so.

I for one am optimistic and excited about the New Year and really believe I can manifest 2011 into the best year of my life so far. I wish everyone out there a very Happy New Year 2011!

For my closing words, I will again reference Being There, which had one of the best endings in a movie EVER in my honest opinion. The last line uttered as Peter Sellers walked on water was, “life… is a state of mind.” I couldn’t agree more.

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~ by shawnpcunningham on December 31, 2010.