Stop Waiting for Tomorrow

People become fixated on goals they can’t reach and don’t realize that they need to think differently about their problems to find the best solutions. The issue of “just wait” or “tomorrow” is that people haven’t learned the art of thinking differently; they just know what to think. What to think isn’t important. “

Most people are just waiting for the next opportunity to do nothing or waking up every day looking for opportunities to not perform and ways to be comfortable. One day it will change…”; “I’ll just wait until tomorrow….”; “I wish…”; “I hope…”. These phrases sound great in theory but don’t indicate a mentality or perspective of taking action. So you can say, “one day it will change,” but it won’t. 

6 steps on how to think differently so that you can change your perspective and convert them into actionable steps:

Identify the problem. 

You have to start by thinking differently about what your problem is. 9 times out of 10, the initial problem you believe you have, is not the actual problem. The initial problem we perceive is only a symptom of a deeper issue.

Collect data. 

When you collect data, you go through all of the information that you have available so you can see what your process and system look like. Collecting data is not looking for fault or where to place the blame; we are looking for where the deficiency or disconnect is so that we can see where we can improve. 

Analyze the data. 

When we go into data analysis, we look at what is and is not working. 

Seek the gray space. 

Seeking the gray space is thinking outside the box. When we look at things as linear or black and white, we aren’t giving ourselves the freedom to create; we are just executing. Think differently about what you do. The gray space is where creation takes hold. If we seek the gray space, we give ourselves permission to create on a level we have never created before. 

Formulate a plan. 

Most people get into analysis paralysis, trying to consider every possible variable that could present itself to us. You have to think differently about when to execute a plan. Understand that you are never going to have a 100% solution. Formulate a plan to get to a 60% or 70% solution and then take action.

Execute the plan. 

Once you start taking action, you change all the variables. We get so plan-focused that we lose ourselves when there is a misstep or something in the plan that doesn’t work. 

3 powerful questions to think differently

• What do I know I know?
• What do I know I don’t know? (this is the pieces of information between the lines, it’s not the specified data.)
• What do I know I don’t know? This is the gray space that allows you to create.

We are all here to create something powerful. It’s far easier to be comfortable as a victim than to be uncomfortable as a creator. The difference between loss and failure: Failure is “I quit”; a loss is that we gave it our all, and it didn’t work.

Recognize that you can BE more, to BE better. You can take action, not to control, but to change. If you want something different, do something different; start thinking differently.