Tag: life

What’s your experiment?

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Yesterday a conversation about experimentation, inspired by the Responsive Organisation, prompted this reflection:

To grow in life and work we experiment

We like the comfort of plans, order and progress. We hope that our lives will deliver a straight-line path to our goals. We feel the pressure to be able to lay our actions to others in a plan with a high degree of certainty. This pressure is magnified in a work context where the expectation of  managers is often to demonstrate confidence, certainty and control.

Life is chaotic, uncertain, creative and constantly changing. Just like us.

The only way to manage that volatility is to experiment, to grow and to change a little bit at a time. If we don’t become more responsive, we wither:

  • Some people let the uncertainty overwhelm them. Paralysed by fear they stop and wait for some clarity. Success moves by them.  
  • Some people let the scale of the challenge overwhelm them. They are concerned that they they won’t finish. If you don’t start, you can’t grow the ability to solve for the scale.
  • Some people fear their own goals, worrying that they might be too daunting or not bold enough. Without confidence in a direction to start, they don’t start and miss the chance to shift to better goals as they learn more about the world and themselves.
  • Some people worry about being changed. They experience change is their external environment forces them to change and that’s rarely a path to success.

In every case, the alternative is to do something small one thing at a time, to experiment, to learn and to grow. My experience is that success follows those times that I took a chance.  I grow when I put myself in a place where I have to learn more to get the job done. I may not have known how it would end, often it ended up somewhere new and better, but the lessons of the experience will showed me what I needed to know & do next. You don’t need to be reckless, but take small actions to experiment with the water in the deep end.

It won’t be easy. Success never is. Success is rare and precious. Success is the reward for risk, learning and effort. Success comes when you respond better to the opportunities before you.

Start today

What experiment will you try today that takes you one step closer to your goals?

Relentless

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

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Success often isn’t complicated. It is just hard.

Why is it hard?

It requires relentless pursuit of improvement.

Many of us only have a passing interest in doing better. We like comfortable patterns and a minimum of stress and effort.  The quick hit that delivers a quick win appeals as a way to get there easily.  

Others might learn, but do they keep applying that learning to do better next time?

Success takes a huge and consistent learning effort (10,000 hours, anyone?). Learning, applying learnings and constantly moving forward is what creates the best chances of success.

What does a relentless pursuit of success take?

  • Know why you want to do better – purpose motivates effort and helps you set clear goals that take you where you want to go
  • Have a short term goal to achieve – achievements give focus and satisfaction
  • Do – practice matters most
  • Measure progress to your goal – measurement enables learning
  • Learn – take time to reflect on how to do more, better, different or less
  • Do more next time

Simple steps. A simple process to do once. Hard to do relentlessly.

Simple things become hard when they must be done over and over again, better and better each time.  

That relentless process of focused attention on learning and improvement is what drives the best performance.

Never Give Up Your Dream

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

Keep up the daily effort and keep your dream alive.

Recently, I saw the excellent Trinitas program from Melbourne Chamber Orchestra. Performing among the many talented artists that night was Shane Chen. Shane impressed the audience with his playing, energy and enthusiasm of his performance of the Schubert Rondo in A Major for Violin and Strings D438.

I was surprised to hear that it is only in the last three years Shane has pursued a career as a professional musician. When he approached ANAM 3 years ago looking to restart a musical career, he was working in a shipping company having given up his dreams of a musical career for a more remunerative pursuit of commerce. Importantly, he had kept up his passion and practice and remained ready to take risks for his dream. Those risks were very real given his path was unconventional for a classical musician. The teachers at ANAM saw his potential and after 3 years of hard work, Shane talent & passion shines in his performance.

If you face a challenging career dream, follow Shane Chen’s example:

  • Keep up the work towards your goal. Daily practice of some kind creates options. Surrender guarantees your option is lost.
  • Take risks to do what you want. The path to success is not easy, sure or straight.
  • Find great people to help.

The last point is why I believe organisations like ANAM and MCO and teachers like Bill Hennessy are critical to the careers of artists in Melbourne. Stories like Shane’s show the support talented artists need to pursue their careers and brave the risks involved. Without someone to nurture talent and and providing support & opportunities, fewer artists will pursue their career dreams and produce great work.

So as you pursue your career dreams, what can you do to help the dreams of others be realized?

P.S. if you need a suggestion, MCO would love your help to continue to realise dreams and create great music

Start today

Posted on by simongterry in Uncategorized

It is never too late to be what you might have been – George Eliot.

Time isn’t waiting for you.  Start today.

We all have laundry lists of things that we want to do and want to become.   Those items will remain simply lists, if we don’t act.  

In life there is always something more urgent to distract us from what is important.  Meetings can wait.  Email can wait.  Coffee can wait.  Television can wait. Gossip can wait.  You may well even find today’s crisis can wait.  

Make time today to take a positive step towards your goal.  Turn your future life into a project and tackle it stepwise.  Small steps can come first.  Leaps will come later.

Regret is a wasted emotion.  Leave it behind along with the feeling of lost opportunity.  Turn those emotions into an impetus to act on your purpose.  With action comes progess, with progress comes confidence and we all know that’s essential to continued success.

Create accountability.  Promise the steps to the future you to someone who matters, someone who will hold you to account.  Publish your plans.  Share your future and you’ll enjoy the ride more.

If you are going to start-up the future you, get going today.