The beauty of getting older is understanding the difference between activities that add value to your life and one’s that don’t

Time in front of the TV or on social media for most of us is not adding any sort of value to our lives. Don’t get me wrong, I understand ‘down time’ is a legit way to refuel, but most of us don’t us those devices and that time in that way. And I’m as guilty as anyone.

I just recently got back from a long weekend hanging out with my childhood friends. The three of us haven’t been together in over 10 years. It was the perfect setting where the activities involved: pickleball, swimming, boating, cooking by campfire, listening to music, staring at the views of the Puget Sound and of course quality conversations.

There were moments of laughter, sincerity, vulnerability and a whole lot of tom foolery.

Boom! Value added.

I’ve come to realize that I’m in a place in my life where there’s a lot of repetition in my day. The activities/tasks are not numerous – just a few or maybe several, but I do them over and over again.

Work, exercise, creative endeavors, hobby’s, etc. It’s only 4-5 different activities, but I repeat them over and over and over again. It’s all good, but the other day I received a compliment on how proficient I was while doing one of my very intentional activities. I was thrilled to hear as it came from a very qualified person in that field.

It just validated all the time and effort I’d been putting in over the last few years. I felt great about my progress.

We need to see how far we’ve come every once in a while in order to get some perspective. You know, come out of the trees to see the entire forest kind of thing.

It’s not a new idea by any means, but I just heard Darren Hardy recently discuss the idea of breaking down old and conformed ways of thinking about problems by using First Principle Thinking. And I think I’m in love.

One thing that humans tend to get caught up on is continuous improvement. Now, there is nothing wrong with continued improvement, but what if the seed of that “solution” is inherently flawed. We continue to spend our time improving a flawed idea.

Maybe we can start with the fundamentals and build our idea from the ground up. Maybe we can take a more of scientific approach and identify facts instead of basing our strategy of attack on assumptions.

I love this idea! Besides, creatively it gets us out of our own patterns of thinking that seem to be based on what everyone before us has done.

Maybe this gives us an opportunity to strike out with a fresh new approach to age-old problems. I hope!

How do we know that we don’t know?

One great way to discover if you know or don’t know is by NOT talking and listening to others around you.

Often times, we’re quick to speak because we think we know or we have some information, but maybe we don’t have all the pieces.

I’ve found myself speaking up sooner than I should only because I believe I have some knowledge. That’s the time when I need to close my mouth and just listen.

Then later I can gather that information on my own before opening my big trap again.

No doubt, knowledge is power, but a person who thinks he/she knows but doesn’t, is just a fool.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be no fool.

When I’m able to define exactly what I’m going to focus on, then engage. I’m much more proficient.

In addition, I like to spell out for myself what I need not waste my time focusing on as well. I think it’s important to define – and write down or say out loud – things that we shouldn’t focus on, such as the things that are out of our control or negative people or distractions that take me away from my goals.

My point is this: I can’t get enough clarity or preparation in my life in order to be the best version of myself. And if that entails spelling out what I cannot control in my day and reminding myself out loud in order to stay on task, then so be it.

I’m all about using whatever resources I have and are availible to me in order to be a better version of myself than I was the day before.