Читать книгу Homework Sanity - Roger Wilkerson - Страница 10

Super-Duper Gigantic Big Important Tool. I like that the “for dummies” books use symbols to say something is important. I would say this tool is the super-duper, gigantic, big and most important tool.

Thought is where all the power is.

When we change our thought, we have the power to change the thoughts of others.

Get rid of goal setting and replace it with setting priorities.What is this crazy talk? I’ve been setting goals all my life and hitting them. That’s how I know I accomplished something. This is true, yet over the years goal setting has moved far away from its original purpose. There are thousands of books generating millions of dollars on goal setting, yet goal setting is filled with so many psychological pitfalls.

If you’re struggling with making this change, I suggest using the goal as the destination and priorities as the journey . Remember, the journey is always more fun than the destination.

If you’re really struggling with this concept, then I’ll do you an even bigger favor, one that we can do easily through e-books or even printed versions of this book. E-mail me your struggle with this topic and I will personally help you through this change, free of charge.

Goals are a setup to fail. Goals have a specific set of tasks in a certain order. We can do nine of the ten things right, that’s a score of 90%. It is an A! We can then do one thing wrong, 10%, and that destroys the entire goal, giving us a big fat 0%. That is an F for frustrating.

Goals set us up to fail because they feed competitiveness, comparison and criticism, three things that can become cancerous when taken to extreme. Yes, there are healthy levels of competition, comparison and criticism. In the wonderful world of social media we get way too much of the negative side of competing, comparing and criticizing. Goals are also a setup to keep score. This isn’t good either, because it feeds building a case.

Priorities are filled with opportunity, creativity, excitement, adventure, fun and pleasure.

Think of your own life. Let’s say you awoke this morning with a massive amount of goals, tasks and things your brain has sold you that have to be done today because they should have been done yesterday. You know you won’t get it all done. There’s so much going on in your head that you aren’t even really sure what is actually still important. You may have even reached a point where your mind is wondering why you had the children you just dropped off at school in the first place. You find yourself snappy, on edge, moody and looking for a fight.

You drop the children off at school, finally get a moment to yourself and make your way to your favorite coffee place. You order your normal drink, sit down at your normal chair. All is right with the world. Then you take your first sip of a horrible-tasting latte. You arise and find yourself screaming, “What the $#$@#$!~!?”

The next thing you know, the barista is in tears. The other adults are looking at you like you’re walking around with a contagious disease of crazy (you are, by the way). Even people who have snapped for their own reasons are disturbed by your outburst. You see all of this and realize it is time to set another goal: find a new coffee place and start the cycle all over.

That’s what goals do. They keep us in a loop. We can’t be free until we achieve the goal. If the goal doesn’t work, we simply change the playing field. It is a form of insanity. Again, we see insanity fairly represented as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

When we set priorities, we don’t get trapped. We go with the flow. Priorities are fluid. People who understand and apply the concept of priorities approach the situation differently. They feel all the same feelings. The difference would be that when they sip the bad cup of coffee, they know it is time to go get a massage, a facial, or just be alone for a few hours. They would return to the priority that sent them in the direction of the coffee shop in the first place.

Set priorities. Teachers do not have the power to make you or your child stupid, yet the manner in which they hold themselves as authority or parent figures can trigger a massive amount of issues. We have to remove all of this “stuff” in order to be effective. We cannot fall into the trap of reacting by making teachers the new targets of childhood traumas that will never be healed through reliving them.

Today, make it your priority to read one page of this book. Flip to a random page. Read the page as many times as you want. Find how that single page sets in motion a variety of great ideas from your mind. Success is when we feel the energy shift out of negativity into either positive or neutral energy.

Track your progress on this change. The more this change becomes a habit, the easier the homework life gets. In essence, this helps us to move out of fear, which is fed by goal setting, into faith, which is nurtured by the priority path. The priority path allows us to see what positives and challenges the day has brought us and to respond to those items as they reveal themselves. This is different than the goal setting path, which feeds into the idea that we know there is trouble ahead. We spend time, effort and energy trying to manage this and find ourselves reacting. This becomes the hamster wheel and we feel like we are always putting out fires.

The priority path allows us to enjoy the fire. We can either put the fire out or use it to make s’mores. We become in control of the fire rather than the fire controlling us.