No one teaches you how to intentionally reflect as an act of growth.

For the most part, it’s simply something you do, mostly subconsciously as you navigate each day.

If you’re like most, you followed the process laid out for you at different stages of life.

You went to kindergarten, then grade school, then high school, and then off the higher learning or vocation.

The path was defined, the objectives laid out, the lesson plans constructed, and the outcomes measured and compared.  You passed the grade and moved on, or you did it all over again.

You tried out for the team, or the sport, you followed the practice plan, you did the drills, you learned the plays or the skills, and you played the games, competed, sometimes winning, and sometimes losing.

Winning and losing, getting cut, or riding the bench gave you the feedback.  Is this working, or not? Coaches gave you feedback, you implemented it, or you didn’t.

You followed the rules set out by mom and dad, or you broke them.  You recognized what the consequences would be for your decisions, and you decided they were worth the risk, or not.

You played and created, and explored, and realized what you liked, or didn’t like, and decided if it was what you wanted to keep doing, or stop doing. In some instances you had the choice, in others, you did not.

You got a job, did the training, learned the ropes, figured out the expectations, and you worked the process.  Maybe you moved up the chain, took on more responsibility, got a pay raise, got a promotion, and kept on going.

Or maybe you decided then or later, that working for someone wasn’t your jam. You decided something you knew or created would be worth something to someone else, and you endevoured to build your own business or career.

You built a business plan, or maybe you just winged it!  You added more pieces, more people, more work, more time, and slowly, but surely, your business venture either flourished or folded.

In all of this, there were indeed moments of reflection.  Do I like this, do I not, do I want this, do I not, am I willing, am I not.

But you weren’t likely taught how to intentionally reflect.  

You might have been one of those who simply learned through a measure of experience and insight. But there really isn’t much in the way of a formal education in reflective practice.

What I mean by intentional reflective practice is that you use the idea of past, present, and future in a way that serves you rather than simply occurs around you.

Intentional reflection means that you first recognize where you have come from, and how you have grown (the past), then grounds you in what you are doing now, and why you are doing it (the present), and finally empowers you to visualize a future possibility that inspires you to further growth.

There is no resentment of what has been, simply a recognition of how it has shaped you.

There is no pining for a future state.  No, “once I get there I will be good” statements. No grass is greener. There is simply an ownership of the present, and how you can make the best of it and experience growth in your effort.

The future represents an imaginary possibility, something you are pulled towards like gravity, but not something you are attached to like it must occur.  There is no “there” to get to, instead there is an image to inspire.

The future vision exposes the work you need to do to grow so that you may meet the mark of its demand.

Reflecting with intention means that you own a process, you are conscious and connected, and that you regularly look back for recognition of growth, see yourself now as a clarification of growth, and look forward as an inspiration toward further growth and change.

It’s a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly experience.  

It’s who you are, not what you are.

Try exploring intentional reflective practice:

1 – Recognize yourself and mind the gap – “where have I come from?”

2 – Ask yourself to be present; “Who am I now? Do I see my purpose?”

3 – Inspire yourself; “where do I wish to go, and why do I wish to go there?”

Regularly engage in this internal conversation. Make it a part of you.

When you begin to do this, you will see yourself like you have never seen yourself before.  It might be uncomfortable in the beginning, but over time, you’ll begin to see your life with more clarity.  

You won’t pine for a future state, or regret what has been or is now.

You will be living your life with intention.

In my life as a performance coach I’ve watched Olympic and professional athletes and many executive athletes I’ve supported toil with the concept of life balance.

We are often advised that creating a balanced life is important in establishing good health and well-being.

I believe a lot of the frustration in trying to attain “balance” is in the interpretation of the word.

The term balance conjures a perception of a scale with equal amounts of weight on either side. The word balance is often interpreted in the sense of equality amongst all the competing interests and demands of our lives.

Many may advocate against such a concept, for the notion that we might somehow be able to truly create an equal effort in every area of responsibility in our lives would seem daunting, if not impossible.

Maybe functionally when we speak of balance the perception and expression of the term should be more like the concept of how music is composed.

In music balance is a weighting of the various frequencies of sound or the instrumental arrangement. Certain elements are more pronounced at different times throughout the arrangement, and certain frequencies are more dominant.

There is always a “foundation” or baseline of sound frequency, each element being a part of the overall sound, however for a true piece of music with melody and flow to be expressed, there must be constant change, otherwise we would just have sound, or worse, maybe just noise.

In a video created by David Lindberg presenting the thoughts of Alan Watts, Alan described why your life is not a journey, he describes life using the analogy of a musical arrangement.

“No piece of music is created to arrive at a completion, unlike travel, where one is trying to get somewhere, in music one does not make the end of the composition the point of the composition. If that were the case the best conductors would be the ones who played the fastest, there would be composers who wrote only finales.”

Music is an analogy for life. 

The marriage between flow and structure in music is really how we should consider balance in life. There need to be consistent relative structures, and there need to be various elements that ebb and flow.

Sometimes in our lives, we will stay close to the original arrangement, and follow our composition, and sometimes we will define a new arrangement or direction based on what we want to achieve. There should be no guilt about the expression or composition of our lives, and certainly no final destination in mind.

There are so many different types of music, each establishes a different mood, energy, or intention.  In just the same manner, our life requires a different mood, energy, or intention given what we wish to accomplish in the moment, and in the future.

The feeling of being out of balance is just like walking into a booming rave in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday morning when you expect to be working on a project, but instead, your head is pounding with the massive weight of the bass vibration. It’s the wrong music, for the wrong moment, and the desired intention.

The idea of life balance is to modify the music of life just like we modify the music for mood.  Don’t play the same music day after day, situation after situation.  Play the music that meets the mark.  Being balanced is playing with the “frequencies” in your life, and ensuring that you are playing the right music at the right time, exploring the full spectrum of what’s possible.

Don’t try to live a balanced life, instead try to better recognize the time for variation, change, and revision.  Reflect more often on where you are, where you have been, and where you wish to go, just like a beautiful piece of music that takes you on a wonderful momentary ride.

Think of balance like a mixing board, and find the frequencies that work to make you stronger, better, and more fulfilled each day.

When I started University back in the 80’s just like everyone else, I was on a mission to follow the program, learn the curriculum, pass the exams and graduate!

Along the way, I knew I was going to experience epic parties, all-nighter study sessions, lack of sleep, sleeping through class, sleeping in class, meeting friends, new relationships, break-ups, F’s, D’s, C’s, B’s and A’s!

It would all likely happen, and I would get through it, and on the other side I would be something, or somebody! 

I would go out and get a job, I would arrive in the real world and off I would go to earning money!

Money! Ya! I would have money, real money!

Not have to collect beer bottles after parties at my residence and bring them to the grocery store for five cents a piece so I could have enough to buy some Kraft dinner, and maybe on a good night, some wieners.

Enough money so I could really afford to go out for dinner, maybe order a good bottle of wine, maybe own a “new” car, and maybe one day own a house instead of renting a dingy apartment.

I believed, as did most of us who enrolled in university, that my raison d’etre was to get a job and make a living! If I made a good living, I would be successful. If I somehow did better than that, well hey, I would be living la vie da loca!

I believed it when I started University, and I still believed it when I graduated. In essence I believed that success would be attained through becoming something.

It’s always been the way, right?

I once read a book where the author described success as the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.

What I have come to realize since graduating university, and immersing myself in a professional life, is that what I do is not who I am.

That actual success is much deeper and more profound than what I do, or what I have accumulated, or who I have been labeled.

I have realized that who I am is much deeper than what I do, and that in order for me to feel as though I am truly on a pathway to success I must be reaching towards my own worthy ideal.

There is no definition of what that is for every person, no mandatory pathway or script. 

Ultimately we are all on a different path and will reach toward our own worthwhile life when it aligns with our spirit and energy.

But there are a few principles worth considering along the way. Ones I wish I knew when I was much younger than today.

Principle number one is that mindset might just be the most important part of living a successful life.

Most of the prevailing research on mindset today resonates around the concept of fixed versus growth mindset.

In essence, in the fixed mindset all the shitty things that happen to us happen for a reason, and most of the time we attribute it to bad circumstances rather than recognizing how our mindset drives how we perceive the experience .

Nothing is bad or good, we just like to label it based on our own personal experiences and bias.

In a growth mindset, everything that happens to us is really just an experience and usually these experiences lead to opportunity.

The problem is that if we spend all our time dwelling on the label we have affixed to that experience, we often miss the opportunities that arise all around it.

A simple example that happens to most of us often enough is just trying to find parking! I see a spot, I drive towards it, and someone else grabs it!

A fixed mindset tells me to blow up! How dare that person take that spot from me! Couldn’t he/she see I was about to take it?

We start blasting the other person, yelling at them and yelling in our own little bubble about all the injustices of the moment. Instead of actually noticing that another spot freed up, just up ahead, and because we were too focused on what just happened to us, we missed it as well!

Opportunity missed!

This is but a simple example, we do this every day with so many other more significant realities like relationship break ups, or job losses. We get transfixed on what happened, rather than focused on where the next opportunity appears.

A growth mindset allows us to see the opportunity, it relieves us of the label, and allows us to simply observe life as it comes at us rather than react to it and become embroiled in it.

The second principle is the  power of consistency.

The power of consistency is simply this; if I apply a reasonable amount of effort towards a task, skill, project or goal, and I do it consistently every day, I will eventually achieve it.

Sounds simple enough, right?

Well it doesn’t end up to be as simple as it should be, as most of us don’t do this very well and as such, we often miss out on achieving a lot of things that we would like to achieve. We give up too soon. We ebb and flow on our effort, on our commitment, or our actual getting it done!

If you want to get good at something, apply the power of consistency!

The third principle lives off the back of the power of consistency. If you want to have a lot of money one day……you have to invest.

Investing money, even just a little money, regularly and consistently in blue chip investments will yield an eventual financial bounty. It’s just an absolute fact.

However, most of us fail to do it early enough, consistently enough, and with a complete commitment to the long-term.

Get rich quick? 

Ya, it happens, it happens to some people who win the lottery in life. But if your approach focuses on how to do that, and you miss the boat on the long-term approach and the application of the power of consistency, well, you will likely never have what you perhaps desire.

Which brings me to the fourth principle; stop focusing on the money!

There are actually three kinds of currency in life:

1 — Money

2 — Time

3 — Energy

We tend to get focused on having as much of the first as we can get. And we unfortunately spend a lot of the other two currencies in our life trying to get it!

Instead, focus on how you use your time and energy most efficiently and effectively. Then the money will come!

We all need to do a “time audit” on our life on a regular basis, I’ve written about this in a previous blog post. Where do I waste time during my day? What actions am I doing that are taking me towards my goals of achieving a worthy ideal, and what actions am I doing that are not?

Time is a very limited resource, we only have so much available to us, and all of us have no real idea when it will run out on us.

So good heavens, let’s not waste time!

Everyone needs to take the time to identify what things we do in life that inspire or recover energy and what things suck energy from our being.

It might be tasks, projects, environments, or even other people in our lives that either, bring energy to us, or they take energy away. Once we know these, we need to work towards removing or minimizing the energy OUT elements, and maximizing the energy IN elements.

When our time is accounted for, and our energy is strong, we can do anything, and money will most certainly accumulate.

The last principle I wish to share is, plan your life! 

Plan it, prepare it, review and revise it, and execute it — don’t be a passenger! And celebrate your life daily! That’s the bonus principle.

Build yourself a 3–5 year plan. What do you want your life to look and feel like in 3–5 years? 

Don’t be afraid to dream big. As Bill Gates purportedly said once, “most of us overestimate what we can do in a year, and underestimate what we can do in five.”

Now reverse engineer the plan!

What does it need to look like halfway? What does it need to look like in a year?

Now take year one and break it into quarters. What do you need to do in each quarter to help you move towards that vision?

Now break each quarter into weeks and establish what you have to do in week one to get started.

Each week, review what you’ve done, revise the plan, then wake up each day and execute the plan.

Every day, at the end of the day, celebrate what you achieved. Count your wins!

Most of us finished school and thought we’d get a job, and then we’d settle down, have kids, and build a life.

Most of us wake up one day and realize that getting on that boat and passively waiting for it to arrive at port led to an awful lot of disappointment or miss-direction.

You get but one life on this earth, use these principles to make it an amazing adventure. 

These principles work just as well if you’re 21 or 75, just live them!

Have you ever watched the movie “Saving Private Ryan”. 

If you’ve never seen the movie, may I suggest you probably should take the time to watch it, even if the violence in it is too much for you to digest?

The first thirty minutes of the movie and the last 30 minutes of the movie are perhaps the most realistic depiction of war ever made by Hollywood. Steven Spielberg directed an unfortunate and horrifically real masterpiece.

The movie, without giving away all the plot elements, is about a small platoon of soldiers on D-Day who are asked to find the only living brother of four after his brothers have all been killed in recent action.

General Marshall sends orders to save the one living brother to prevent their mother from having to grieve over the loss of all four of her boys. No doubt a noble cause!

At the end of the movie, as the leader of the band of men (played by Tom Hanks) who have finally found Private Ryan (played by a young Matt Damon) is literally passing away, he whispers in Ryan’s ear, “Earn this!” 

You see, at that moment many men had passed away in an all-out effort to save Private Ryan’s life and Hank’s character didn’t want the effort lost on this young man’s conscience.

Watching this movie, you cannot separate yourself from all the unbelievable heartbreak and horrific sense of loss that these men and their families must have suffered during the war, or any war for that matter.

Imagine being with your grade twelve graduating class and within a minute of landing on the beach, all but three of you are left alive! 

Then you must piece together with a whole host of others to create a new class, only for it to slowly but surely be dramatically culled right before your eyes over and over again!

Hanks’ character’s words in that moment of the movie made me think a lot about the concept of earning your life. Something I’ve tried to remind myself of ever since.

You see, so many of us today just seem to believe that our life is a right, and how dare we not be automatically happy as we flow blindly through life collecting all our baubles and trinkets. We somehow expect it should be right, rather than earn the right to have it.

So for me, there are five important tenets of life that allow us to be worthy of our life on this planet.

The first is to work without complaint. 

Most these days again perceive that a job, or even better, a career is a right. 

Unfortunately for a great deal of the population of this world, a job that pays them a reasonable and sustainable wage is something they might only dream of, not expect. 

So if you have one, understand that it is a privilege and that the person you work for, or the person who buys your services has provided you with the privilege of serving them. 

Do your work with all you have, and do it like you know it might not be there tomorrow.

Second is to be gracious and thankful to your parents for bringing you into this world and providing you with a home (that is if they did so, for all those of you who lived tortured lives at home, this one might not be applicable). 

If your parents brought you up with whatever semblance of structure and provision, and they loved you as best they could, you owe them everything you have to honor their effort. They did the best they could as you are, or may likely do with your own children. Any parent knows it is not an easy task, and it doesn’t come with a playbook!

The third is to mentor someone else. 

We all get to summit our own mountains in life not by the sheer effort of ourselves, but by embracing the support and guidance of so many along the way. Without mentorship, we would likely make too many mistakes to ever achieve our summit. As such, it is our responsibility to pay it back and to mentor others so they may likely summit as well.

The fourth is to learn and grow throughout your life. 

Never stop learning, never stop challenging your thought processes, your habits, or your biases. Those who rest easy, those who take the easy route and do the same thing on different days, do not earn the right to prosper or succeed. 

This life we have been given is a blank canvas and we can paint the picture, we can revise the picture, we can add to the picture, and modify it as we see fit until such time as we pass away so we should never be satisfied with its composition.

The last one is to make a contribution to this world. 

When you give, you grow, when you take, you self-limit. Our life on this planet is about our contribution, it is all we can leave, and it is all that can represent what we have accomplished.

There will be people who take advantage of our contributions. There will be those who do not appreciate what we bring. That is not the point. We cannot live through another’s state of mind; we can only be in charge of our own state of mind, which must be driven by a sense of giving, not receiving.

Wake up every day and earn this life you have been given.

There is nothing trivial about the blessing of our life, never rest easy that it has been earned.