I took my fifteen year old niece to dinner recently and she was complaining to me about how her father (my brother) is so strict with her. It turns out he gets really unhappy with her when she doesn’t get her homework done, restricts her priviledges when she doesn’t complete her chores in time and enforces a 9pm bedtime when she complains of being “too tired.”
I don’t think she got the sympathy she was hoping for from me. I pointed out to her that her dad’s reaction was pretty predictable. Instead of wasting time hoping he’ll change, she needs to embrace the Law of Cause and Effect.
She knows that everytime she doesn’t keep her bedroom tidy, she loses her cell phone for a few days. So the solutions seems pretty simple–clean your room! She knows she had an early curfew when she doesn’t get her homework done in time. Solution: get your homework done.
My niece isn’t alone. I admit that I, too, try to defy the Law of Cause and Effect.
Zig Ziglar famously said that for twenty years of his life he chose to be overweight. “I say that I chose to be overweight because I never ate anything accidentally.” Cause and effect.
If I don’t make marketing calls, my pipeline dries up and my anxiety increases. Solution: Make consistent marketing calls!
If I don’t fully cover the job and present three qualified candidates, the odds go down significantly of successfully closing the search. Solution: Cover the job!
If I don’t create a written plan for my day, my productivity goes down and my frustration goes up. Solution: Start every day with a plan!
Most problems have a simple solution. We try to make them more complex to avoid confronting the reality of how our own behavior got us in a bind, but those are the best problems because they’re the easiest to solve. If you don’t like the outcome, change the input. If you don’t like your situation, change the behavior that got you there.
Don’t worry about making radical changes. Change your behavior just for today. Tommorrow you’ll have a similar decision to make, but you can cross that bridge when you get there. Just like recovering alcoholics focus on staying sober “one day at a time”, you can change your behavior in day-tight increments.
Today I will go to bed at a decent hour.
Today I will make 20 marketing calls.
Today I will put together a good plan and work it.
The Law of Cause and Effect. Take care of today and tomorrow will take care of itself.
