We Have More Time Than We Think We Do

I would do this or that if only I had the time. I would start this or go there, but I don’t have the time. If I had the time, I would go back to school.  It’s amazing how we tend to blame the lack of time for not accomplishing many of the things we desire to do in life. We put off starting a much-needed exercise program because of lack of time. Some people even blame the lack of time for not being able to spend more time with their children and love ones. This perceived lack of time often gets in the way of us becoming the best we can be.

Have you ever thought about how many hours there are in one week-seven days? From Sunday morning at12:00 am until the following Saturday evening at 11:59 pm, we all get 168 hours to do whatever we desire. Our level of success in life depends on how effectively we use our time. Author and speaker, John Maxwell says, “nothing separates successful people from unsuccessful people more than how they use their time.”   The difference between successful people who get things done and those who wish for things to get done is how they make use of their 168 hours. Personally, I make every effort to use my time wisely from the moment I awake in the morning until going to bed at night.  This enables me to live a disciplined and productive life accomplishing whatever I set my mind too. There is no wasted time in my days. Below are a few examples of how I made use of my time to accomplish goals for myself and to help others.

·     Donating 3 hours a week to community services as a mentor allowed me to make a  difference in a young             person’s life. 165 hours for myself.

·     Exercising 10 hours a week has enabled me to get into the best physical condition of my life. I run 50 miles,         strength train, do yoga during this time and still have 158 hours for other activities.

·    Studying 20 hours a week allowed me to earn a doctoral degree while working full  time,  helping to raise            two wonderful children, and being an engaged husband.  148 hours left to my disposal.  

·    Reserving 25 hours a week for family made a big difference in my being able to establish a strong                              relationship with my wife and children. Leaves me with 143 hours.

Collectively, these examples required only 58 hours of my time. There remained 110 hours for work, sleep, recreation, and other self-improvement activities.  Take away 45 hours for work, leaves 65 hours for sleep and who knows what.  I normally require only 5-6 hours of sleep per night (42 max).  This leaves me with 23 extra hours in my week.  My days start at 5:00 am and ends at 11:30 pm. In the book, 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, author Laura Vanderkann says, “you can choose how to spend your 168 hours and have more time than you think. The book is filled with research based on real life stories of ordinary people who learned to maximize their time on the road to experiencing extraordinary personal success.

I encourage you to rethink how you organize use your time. We have enough time; what we do with it makes the difference. We all get 168 hours a week no matter where we live, whether rich or poor, or old or young, it’s up to us. There is no time for excuses and procrastination.

Written by Dr. RL Kight for Mind Power Solutions.  I would like your comments regarding what you will do to make better use of your time.  

Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying: The Choice is Yours

Unfortunately, we live in a society where it is believed that achievement of goals is for the young. It has helped to create a mindset that life has passed us by once we reach a certain age. Recently, I had the pleasure to engage several middle-age people in conversations regarding next steps in their lives. Now that these individuals are closer to retirement years, they appear to no longer see the value in the pursuit of personal goals. They view reaching retirement as a period in life when you accept that you have done your best and no longer strive for other goals to achieve. I find it difficult to accept reaching a point in life where you only look forward to having your basic needs (food, clothing, and shelter) met and exist from day to day waiting for death to arrive. I feel these people still have so much knowledge, talent, and experience that could be used to achieve much more in life.

Think of all the great achievements and accomplishments by people who were considered beyond their prime. For instance, like his politics or not, we must give Donald Trump credit for setting a goal to become president of the United States at age 70 and doing it. While many of his peers were most likely content to enjoy the benefits of their wealth, he decided to set a new goal of being President. There are other examples of people who continued to find success later in life:

• Ray Kroc was 52 when he bought the first McDonald's, which he ultimately built into the world’s largest fast food chains.

• Harland Sanders, better known as Colonel Sanders, was 62 when he franchised Kentucky Fried Chicken. He sold the franchise business for $2 million 12 years later.

• Harriette Thompson, age 94, set a goal to become the oldest woman to complete a half-marathon, two years after she became the oldest woman to finish a marathon in San Diego. In 2016 — she did it. She finished the 13.1 miles at a pace of just over 17 minutes per mile and finishing in an unofficial time of 3 hours, 42 minutes and 56 seconds.

There are several reasons why people should continue to pursue goals as they age. Research has shown that goal setting is critical to maintaining a sense of meaning in our lives.  It also helps to keep the mind sharp and focused. Most of all having goals keeps us youthful and vibrant because:

• Life is for living- Morgan Freeman had a line in the movie Shawshank Redemption where he says, "Get busy living or get busy dying”.  Having goals at whatever the age gives us a reason to keep on living.

• It ain’t over until it’s over- don’t worry about past missed opportunities or failures. If we are breathing and fortunate to have good health, there is still time to accomplish whatever we desire. Never good up on yourself until your last breath is gone.

• We need a purpose for living- goals move us ever so closer to fulfilling our true purpose in life. To awake each morning with something to look forward to gives us hope. Otherwise, it’s like being a dried-up grape on the vine that has lost its purpose for living.

• The human spirit strives on new challenges- you don’t have to run for president, start a business or run a marathon. However, what’s stopping you from improving or getting into the best physical condition that you can?  Start a new hobby or find a new passion to make use of your knowledge, skills, and talents.  

• We control the power to maximize our potential- when we depart this physical world our mantra should be “Used Up”.  Our lives should reflect that we spent every waking moment striving to live up to our full potential. Let it be known that we left nothing on the table.   

I encourage my middle age peers to keep living. As we move from one stage of life to the next, it’s important to set our sights on new horizons and goals to pursue. The continuous accomplishment of new goals will keep us excited about living.  

Written by Dr. RL Kight for Mind Power Solutions. 

Successful People Have DRIVE →

Life presents each us with our own set of challenges. They come into our personal lives, families, careers, relationships and marriages when we least expect them. If not careful, they will kill our dreams or force us to retreat into a corner fearing to come out again.  It takes a special mindset to deal with these challenges and not become distracted from our goals.  There are examples of people from all walks of life who have overcome some of life’s toughest challenges to rise to the highest levels of personal and professional success.

While some may call it luck, good fortune or a blessing from God, I advocate these people have an empowering mental force that will not allow them to give up.  I refer to this force as DRIVE. In my opinion, it’s a force that cannot be purchased or barrowed. We either have it or we don’t. If we don’t have it, it’s up to each of us to discover within what it takes to develop a success oriented mindset.

When I think of what it takes to have DRIVE, five other words come to mind:  DESIRE, RESILIENT, INITIATIVE, VISION, and EFFORT.  I consider these five words to be a formula for success.  This formula can be attributed to the accomplishments of many successful people from all walks of life as they aspired to become the best they could be. Each word brings its own special meaning to the development of a success oriented mindset.

DESIRE- Every person must have a thirst to improve or accomplish something within their lives. It’s an internal quest to do more and be more wherever they find themselves. The desire to be the best that we can be helps to develop a “can-do” attitude.  Successful people are not always the most talented, smartest or intelligent individuals in the room, but they bring an uncompromising determination to rise above current circumstances to achieve their goals.

RESILIENT- The road to success is full of peaks and valleys, pot holds, curves, dead ends, and road blocks to test our will to succeed. In the mix of setbacks and honest mistakes it can be difficult to stay focused on our goals. When life knocks us down, which it someday will, we must get back up and keep pushing forward. It’s fascinating to witness the resilient response displayed by so many people whose lives were impacted by hurricanes Irma and Harvey. They may have lost everything, but they are determined to rebuild and come back stronger than before the storms. Successful people can pick themselves up time and time again no matter the odds.

INITIATIVE- No matter how far the journey before us, it’s up to us to take the initial steps to reach our desination. Just get started! The focus is not on where we started, but where we are going. There is no need to sit around complaining about what we do not have. We must utilize whatever resources are available until we can do better.  Others are usually more willing to assist us when we show initiative to first help ourselves. Successful people never wait for others to do for them what they can do for themselves.

VISION- All success begins with a single idea. We must see ourselves in a situation as we would like it to be and not as it is. This approach gives us purpose and keeps us focused on our goals instead of the obstacles before us. It fuels the faith in our ability to accomplish what may seem impossible to others. Successful people never take their thoughts off the prize and are willing to do whatever necessary to make their vision a reality.

EFFORT- It’s important to strive every day to be great no matter the circumstance. There is no place for mediocre behavior or excuses in the pursuit of excellence.  Success demands that we invest both time and energy towards whatever we hope to accomplish. It’s unlikely we’ll reach the next level if we are unwilling to work to improve our knowledge, skills, and abilities.  Successful people understand that the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.

There are many talented and smart people who lack the DRIVE to live up to their full potential. The depth of our DRIVE will dictate the level of our rise. Success is within each of our reach and requires that we push ourselves to become all that we were meant to be.  Share this blog with at least 10 other people that you believe could benefit from this message. 

Written by Dr. RL Kight for Mind Power Solutions.   Visit blog atwww.mindpowersolutions.com to let us know if you like.

Never Give in to Mother Nature, Negative Self-Talk and Discouragement

Over the past 16 years, I have developed into somewhat of a serious runner. I run a minimum of 4-5 days a week on an average of 45-50 miles. Running is something I got into during my mid-life transition. I absolutely hated running for most of my adult life. After several basketball and tennis injuries, I decided to get into running to stay physically fit.  It is now a year-round outdoor activity for me through winter, spring, summer, and fall.  The only thing that prevents me from running are severe weather conditions such as ice, snow, and thunder storms.

Running is as much mental as it is a physical activity.  It presents the same type of mental challenges that often prevent us from reaching our full potential in other areas of our lives.  In order become an effective runner, I have developed a mindset that has enabled me to master the challenges sent forth by mother nature, negative self-talk, and discouragement from other people. All of us at one time or another find ourselves in a tug of war with at least one of these three factors be it in our personal life or career.  My success has been based on my ability to daily take on and defeat these three challenges.  I will take this opportunity to further discuss how running has enabled me to develop the mindset to overcome the challenges of mother nature, negative self-talk, and discouragement.  

Mother Nature:  Mother nature can be harsh and brutal during the winter and summer months. She shows no mercy and has no sympathy for my desire to stay in physical shape. It’s easy to get up and go out to run at 5:00 am under good weather conditions.  However, there are days when Mother Nature sends elements of rain, heat with high humidity, and freezing temperatures to test my commitment to running. These weather conditions cause me to ask the question, “Do I really want to run today under these conditions or stay in the comfort of home?” Confronted with these weather conditions can make it a difficult decision.  Such decisions can either motivate you or paralyze you.  I next question is “do I let this stop me or do I continue out the door to accomplish my running goal and objectives. Running has taught me that we can’t control acts of nature or undeserved situations that occur in life, but we can control our response to them. We must keep moving forward to achieve our goals no matter the situation.

Negative Self-Talk: It would be untrue to I say I look forward to getting up to run when the clock alarm goes off at 4:30 am. My initial reaction on many mornings is to shut off the alarm and go back to sleep. I struggle against negative self-talk that says I’m tired and need more sleep and rest.  These are the mornings when I must dig deep within to change my mindset.  I fight against tiredness or soreness and push myself to complete those 8 to 10 miles run. If allowed to do so, negative self-talk can keep us from success even when victory is within our reach.  All too often, we allow negative words such as “can’t”, “might”, “maybe”, “try”, “but” to stop us from pursuing our dreams, hopes and aspirations. Running has taught me how to reverse negative self-talk to replace “I don’t want to” or “I can’t do this” to “Yes I Will” or “Yes I can” and go get it done.

Discouragement: To become a successful runner, I have learned to tune out discouraging comments from well-meaning people. There are people who make negative comments about my age, share reasons why they don’t run, highlight the possible damage I am doing to my body or bring up the danger of going out alone early in the morning. If I allowed these people to fill my head with all kinds of negative thoughts, I would have given up on running a long time ago. We often hear the same kind of negative comments when we set out to improve the quality of our lives or pursue our goals.  There are dream killers all around us and we must be mindful to block out their discouraging comments or they will destroy our spirit to compete. I try to never give my power away.

While you may have no desire to become a runner, we all face challenges from mother nature, negative self-talk, and discouragement daily. No matter what we desire in life, there will be obstacles, setbacks, and uncertainty along the way. How we respond to them depends on our mindset. We have free will to take them head-on and pursue our destiny despite them. Running is a great activity for physical wellness as well as mental growth and spiritual development.  Share this blog with at least 10 other people that you think would benefit from this discussion. 

Written by Dr. RL Kight for Mind Power Solutions.  Visit www.mindpowersolutions.com and let us know if you like.

Overcoming a Victim Mentality

We all experience setbacks and disappointments in life at one time or another. No matter how hard we try to avoid them - tragedy, hurt, and illness have a way of finding us. There are also times when our actions contribute to our own down fall. Other times, it’s like B. B. King use to sing about, “if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all”.   We feel that bad things just seem to follow us no matter where we go or what we do. These day to day challenges can prevent us from reaching our full potential if we allow ourselves to fall prey to a victim mentality.

What does it mean to have a victim mentality? From my understanding, it’s a sense of being powerless to change or overcome what has happened or is happening within our lives.  It’s feeling trapped by past experiences that appear to keep holding us down.  It’s as if we are stuck in a rut with no possibility of creating a new beginning for ourselves and blaming others for our situation.

A victim mentality can easily happen to the best of us including yours truly. I recall when I was dismissed from my place of employment for the first time in my life during the "Great Recession".  This was a terrible blow to my morale and self confidence. I mentally went into a fog. Initially, I couldn't see my way to the next opportunity. How could this happen to me with a doctorate degree with years of experience. I had been a golden boy in which everything I touched tended to turn to gold. After months without being able to find suitable employment, I began to doubt myself and to question my qualifications. 

In order to stop this down slope,  I had to reach deep within to change my internal conversation. It wasn't a new one, but it was self talk that I had used throughout my life. I said to myself, "This is Robert Kight and there is nothing that I can't accomplish." My entire mindset and outlook about my situation began to change. I no longer viewed myself as being unemployed, but instead considered myself to be in a state of transition. My thoughts began to focus on possibilities to create new opportunities. My self-worth was not depended on the place of employment, but on my ability to make things happen. Before long I had found a new opportunity and I was back in the game

If you are reading this article and have a sense of feeling down and out or know someone who maybe going through a similar situation, I encourage you to change your internal conversation.  Focus on what you can do and how you have handled situations before. Refuse to give to the current situation.  As long as you are down and not out, you have the ability to pick yourself up and continue to compete. You are not a victim, but a winner with unlimited possibilities. Please share this blog with at least 10 other people that you think would benefit from this discussion.

Written by Dr. RL Kight for Mind Power Solutions at www.mindpowersolutions.com