Are you Satisfied, Unsatisfied?
Mastering this balancing act will lead to joy on your journey while accomplishing great things in the future. Let me explain.
Are you always satisfied? You may be good at counting your blessings. You may have a great perspective on how blessed you are and how your organization is doing. The question is, are you moving forward? Have you cast a vision for where you hope to be in the future?
Are you always unsatisfied? I was this person in a much younger life. I have clients like this as well. I’m all for reaching new goals, setting high expectations, and pushing yourself and your team. A steady diet of this, however, can leave you empty and without joy.
The correct posture to take is to balance satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
Achieving this balance requires discipline and processes……really. Do you have a process in place that you trust for getting to your tomorrow? Having this trust in process, in discipline, brings freedom.
Your process needs to begin with the end in mind, where we hope to be at some point in the future. It needs to be rounded out with goals for the journey, check points of our performance that give us cause to celebrate successes and address failures along the way.
Establish the plan, work the plan, set short, medium, and long-term goals, address shortfalls, and celebrate victories along the way.
We become the individual or organization on the mountain top because of the steps we take on our journey. Mastery of the disciplines needed to get to our future is the most valuable asset we can give ourselves and our organization and will pay dividends for a lifetime.
There is a balance to this dance. If you become too satisfied, you may become complacent. Too unsatisfied, it may eat you alive, living for tomorrow while losing out on the riches of today. Perspective is a very good thing. Do you have people in your life that can speak into this with you?
Here are some questions to help you with this balancing act:
- Do you have a 10 -year target for yourself or your organization?
- Do you have a more detailed 3-year Vision that includes key steps to get there, a strategic plan?
- Do you have an annual plan that supports this 3-Year Vision?
- Do you have Quarterly goals and strategies that support your annual plan?
- And finally, are you holding regular check-in points with yourself or your team, preferably weekly, to work this plan?
