What do you want to be when you grow up?

You’re already grown up? Really? There’s nothing more for you to grow into?

Many of us get to a place where we abandon our dreams. We push on, spinning our treadmill and being busy, but it isn’t taking us anywhere new.

In a sense we have empowered other people and circumstances to shape our lives rather than reconnect with our dreams and empower ourselves.

Take a moment, grab your favourite drink and find a quiet place. Remember what you wanted to be when you grew up. Play with the dream and bring it up to date. Trust me – it’s fun 🙂

Now… what is the one small thing you can do today which will connect your reality to your dream.

Tomorrow – you guessed it, do another small thing.

Dreams are real. They are mere steps away.

“Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.” Dr Stephen R. Covey

If you are reading this and saying, “But I have done this kind of thing before and it doesn’t work for me.” Then have a look here at what to do when goal setting doesn’t work.

Are you mosquito or bee?

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst” – William Penn

We all know about the tension between Urgent and Important tasks, and yet we seem to need a reminder now and again to help us refocus when we are just ‘too busy’.

Are you ‘too busy’?

“It’s not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted.” – Mary O’Connor

Take a minute or two to focus on what is important, and why it is important.

Now rearrange your day and diary to shift the focus of your activities.

Then set the expectations of those who may be demanding that you do urgent activities that seem to be more mosquito than bee.

Here are few more tips to help you fight the tyranny of the urgent.

Intelligence vs. creativity

When we try to solve a problem with intelligence, we look for what is known.

When we use creativity, we imagine what is unknown.

If you have been struggling with a problem for a while, and most of us have something we would like to solve/fix, have you been using intelligence or creativity?

To use creativity, you need to look somewhere that intelligence would not think to look. You need to think in a way that intelligence would not.

One simple tool is to imagine the opposite effect that you think you want. If you want something to be smaller, what would it take to make it bigger? If you want something to not happen, how could you make it happen sooner? Try this simple mind trick. It is surprising the insights you get into what is holding the problem in place.

If you think that you are not creative, you have probably fallen prey to one of these myths about creativity.

Beware of conventional wisdom

Conventional wisdom refers to the commonly held beliefs, ideas and assumptions that a community or population has about an issue. These lead to a set of expectations, interpretations and explanations that people assume are true. As a result, the ideas embedded in conventional wisdom are rarely challenged. Even if people acknowledge there is a better way to do something, conventional wisdom may still rule the day.

Conventional wisdom has its value, but its inertia can get in the way of change.

Do you want to change something?

Dig beneath the surface to find out what ‘conventional wisdom’ would say about the change, and then inoculate yourself and those around you. Be the maverick who recruits allies and creates a new convention.

But first, how do you really feel about the change? Here are some questions for you.