Denny Strecker
Helping People Reach Goals They Never Imagined Possible

In today's class, I spoke with the students about the importance of developing compassion and discuss its importance.

Aesop Fable: The Man and the Trees

    A MAN came into a forest and asked the Trees to provide him a handle for his axe. The Trees consented to his request and gave him a young ash-tree. No sooner had the man fitted a new handle to his axe from it, than he began to use it and quickly felled with his strokes the noblest giants of the forest. An old oak, lamenting when too late the destruction of his companions, said to a neighboring cedar, "The first step has lost us all. If we had not given up the rights of the ash, we might yet have retained our own privileges and have stood for ages.

Moral: Let not your conduct furnish a handle against yourself.

Make sure you are not sabotaging your efforts as you move towards a goal. Most of the time this happens subconsciously so always be on the lookout
for negative behavior that will try to stop you from being successful.

An example of this behavior would be:

Trying to save money but then buying another pair of shoes because they are on sale

This example is pretty clear, but others are not so cut and dry:

You decide that you want to get more done in your day so you set your alarm for 6am and decide that you are going to get up and start your day. The first morning you drag yourself out of bed and you get quite a bit done. The next few days are same. But then, the sabotage appears…the alarm goes off and you don't "feel" like getting up so you say to yourself, "Well, just one day isn't a big deal." and you turn off the alarm and go back to sleep.

The trouble is, "one day" turns into two, and then three…..you get the idea.

The way to be truly successful in anything you do comes down to two things:

#1 – Focus on behavior and not results. Most people look at the end result and say "I want that!" and then haphazardly try to reach it. Instead of falling into that trap, look at the behaviors that go along with the result and start doing them. If you use the behaviors, the results WILL follow.

#2 – Remove your feelings from the equation. There are plenty of times you may not "feel" like doing something – that's the sabotage. Develop the self-discipline to do it anyway. Here is the important part – it doesn't have to be perfect every time. I workout every morning and some workouts might be 1 hour while others might be 15 minutes. It is not the length of the workout that matters…..it is the habit of working out.

Learn these two strategies and apply them to whatever goal you want to accomplish and I promise you that you will do fantastic.