In his best selling book, Good to Great, author Jim Collins writes that "one of the dominant themes from our research is that breakthrough results come about by a series of good decisions, diligently executed and accumulated one on top of another." He also writes "one of the distinctive forms of disciplined thought of the good to great companies was there ability to develop a simple, yet insightful frame of reference for all decisions."
How does this business information pertain to you personally? I have always believed that many business practices can be applied to our personal lives, with a twist, to increase our overall effectiveness and success in life. It is from this belief I believe that we can use a simple, unifying concept to serve as a frame of reference to guide personal decisions to create breakthrough results in any aspect of our lives.
If you are not familiar with my story; I was a single parent with two children in 1985 when I was hired by Marriott Hotels as a housekeeper. Recognizing advancement opportunities within the company, I proceeded to transfer to Marriott's Courtyard division working my way up through the ranks of management to eventually becoming a General Manager with Marriott's Fairfield Inn division.
Six months after my GM's promotion in 1995, I was faced with what has been my greatest personal tragedy, the unexpected death of my fourteen-year old son, Blease on August 22, 1995. In spite of my professional success with Marriott, I resigned from Marriott in 1998, after thirteen successful years working with the company. I was living in an emotional and mental hell I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
It took years for me to move beyond a place of pain to exercising my personal power again in my life. Speaking publicly about my valley and spiritual wilderness experiences as a member of the Lamplighter's Toastmaster club in Wilmington, NC increased my self-confidence while at the same time begin to plant seeds for a new plan and purpose for my life. Napoleon Hill's quote, "within every adversity lies the seed of an equivalent advantage" challenged me to seek the value of my valley experience. As I continued to renew my faith and gain greater confidence and hope for my future, the connections I made to my ability to get back on track after several personal adversities and professional challenges created the awareness that each time I combined all or a combination of a specific series of steps towards my goals or objectives, I would eventually gained the momentum necessary to successfully overcome most of my challenges. The series of actions evolved into what I have now termed as The DRIVE5 Advantage empowerment process.
The application of The DRIVE5 Advantage consistently over periods of time in my personal and professional life led to tangible results. The process increases effective daily habits necessary for goal attainment through the reinforcement of concentrated focus and relevancy of actions to be taken towards goals and objectives.
The steps of The DRIVE5 Advantage are as follows:
1). D.raw the line. - To make progress in any area of your life; stop doing what is not working. If your efforts are not creating a desired outcome after a period of time, you have to change your actions or the desired objective. To create different in any aspect of your life requires that your thoughts, emotions and actions are in alignment with the desired outcome. You can not expect to get different from doing the same. It does not work. You waste your time, energies and resources when you do so. After my son's death, I eventually had to STOP focusing on his death and START focusing on the gift of his life to create the mental shift necessary for me to get my life back on track. As long as I focused on his death, day in and day out, I continued to camp out at Mt. Misery. Once I shifted my focus to the life that he lived and how he was such a blessing to me as a son and to so many others, feelings of despair that had tormented and held me captive began to dissipate.
2). R.edirect Your Focus. - Your life follows the direction of what dominates your attention the most. You have to begin to concentrate your time, energy and resources in the direction you want any particular aspect of your life to move towards. Direct your attention towards what you want to experience and begin to manage all other thoughts. You can not think about a good and bad experience in the same moment. You can think about them one after another but not in the "same" moment. This indicates that you can manage what you give attention to when a thought occurs. It is critical that you began a daily ritual of renewing your mind with words of encouragement that inspire you to continue the journey that you are on to back on track. Reading the Bible and other inspirational books was and continues to be my saving grace.
3). I.ncrease daily "do" diligence. - To end the internal tug of war that you are experiencing, you have to commit to "doing" daily tasks that are relevant to getting your life back on track. You have to adopt an attitude that you will "do whatever it takes" to renew your mind and spirit so that you can break camp from Mt. Misery and move on. There will be many moments when your emotions are triggered by something or someone that reminds you of your loss, when those moments occur, I encourage you to respect and accept them. Treat yourself tenderly during these moments. Without respect for yourself, your feelings and the process you will continue to deny the truth of your present reality. You should acknowledge your emotions and at the same time maintain your responsibility for managing them, and not be held captive by them. Allow yourself to feel what you feel for a few days at the most and then pick up where you left off. Majoring in pity parties will not serve your best interest. Exposing yourself to new people and experiences will help you to redefine your "new normal" and new purpose.
4). V.alue Enlarging Experiences. - Often when change is necessary you may hesitate to take advantage of it because it moves you beyond the borders of your comfort zone. But when you think about it, every since you were born, your life has been on a path of expansion. From new skills to increasing your knowledge base, the adult that you are today is a direct result of your life expanding beyond what was once considered the familiar. When I returned to college in 2001, I hadn't been in a college classroom since 1985. It was a challenge to discipline myself to study and complete assignments on time while I managed a million-dollar business. With all of the challenges I faced, this period of time served to build up the momentum needed to achieve breakthrough, after having pulled over on the sidelines of my life. The boost in my momentum positioned me to get back in the driver seat of my life. This time period during my life exposed me to greater opportunities to experience greater levels of personal and spiritual growth. When you expand your "options of opportunity" you stretch yourself to learn more, be more and do more.
5). E.mploy help from others. - Our society has this Ford tough attitude about asking for help from others. I believe that many individuals go to such extremes to prove that they can do something themselves that they fail to realize that this attitude can also make life harder than it has to be. It is important that you develop a healthy attitude about asking others for help. The longer you live, the more you will realize that when you have help you can get things done faster and the load is easier to carry. Nurturing your relationships with others is key to receiving assistance from them in a time of need. Keep your emotional bank accounts with others filled and you should have no problem making a withdrawal from time to time. When I finally gave myself permission to grieve my son's death, I had to get help from authors who had written on the subject of how to cope after the death of a child. When I returned to college, I utilized student services that supported my success as a student. If it's important to you...ask for help. Don't take it personally when you are told no, learn how to move on to your next available option.
The DRIVE5 Advantage empowerment process applied consistently to any aspect of your life enables you to create positive change. A key to your progress is the quality of your decisions and the effectiveness of the actions you take towards the objective or goal. You can determine what you need to stop doing that's hindering your progress. You can decide what relevant actions you need to begin to start taking on a daily basis towards your desired objective. If your desire is strong enough, you will cultivate a "do what it takes" mindset to press through to your breakthrough. If it isn't, you need to determine a compelling "why" that stirs your spirit and emotions creating a greater "inner fire" for the achievement you desire.
You can manage your thoughts and not be held captive by thoughts that no longer serve the best interest of you getting back on track. It will require work but it is work that is worth it. The life that God has created for you to enjoy and engage needs you at your best. When you have the courage and confidence to live out your best life, enlarging experiences will cause you little concern because you know that they are presented at the moment in life when you have the power to enlarge your influence in the lives of others. Asking for help does not mean that you are less than or incapable of meeting a challenge; on the contrary when you ask for help with something that is important to you it is a sign that you are growing in your interdependence, recognizing that each of us need one another.
There is no single defining action that results in getting your life back on track. Coming back from any setback or deliberately shifting your life in a new direction is always a cumulative process, a thought becomes a decision which requires effective actions that over time if consistently sustained begins to produce tangible results. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other." At the end of the day, its maintaining an undaunting faith in your ability to stay the course despite roadblocks or personal imperfections that will lead to your success in getting your life back on track.
This article has been adapted from the book, What Your Boss Has Not Told You!
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