Perspective

For achievement orientated individuals and in the running of our businesses, perspective is one of the things we lose sight of very quickly. No matter how much progress we have made over the last five years, five months or five days, if things aren't going well now or we haven’t seen results in the last week, we can quickly go into a tail spin with the self flagellating whip out, ever ready to beat ourselves into increased performance.

One remedy is the purposeful gaining of perspective. Just as we would return from an overseas vacation and take time to review the photo’s, memories and travel experiences, we would do well to simulate this activity for our personal and business progress.

Take time out to review the journey. Five years, the last year, the last quarter etc – whatever is relevant.

1. What have you learned and grown in personally?
2. Where did you detour or get lost? What were the reasons?
3. What hills have you climbed and what were they called?
4. What have been the results?

If you’re reviewing your business progress, list all improvements made including personnel, financial management, education, systems, sales etc

If you’re feeling frustrated with your current situation or performance, sometimes looking back over a similar period of time in the last year or two can give you perspective that otherwise goes unobserved. One client of mine was beating themselves up for the cashflow drain that happened in the month of July. Reviewing the financials of previous years, every July was the same. Gaining perspective, he put the whip down and got to work to remedy the situation for the following year.

As someone rightly said, “we overestimate what we can achieve in twelve months but underestimate what can be achieved in five years.” We would do well to take a longer term view, understand what we need to do daily in order to get to the five year destination, re-align our goals and then…put the whip down. Self flagellation, apart from hurting, simply impedes progress.

Enjoy the view - from where you came and the mountains up ahead. You were born to climb!