Earlier this week I tweeted (@JeffreyBWeaver) this question:
How would your day be different if you asked yourself "Am I proud of everything I did today?" at the end?
It's a question I've started asking myself a lot lately. See, I found that, too often, I'd look back on a day and feel like I accomplished nothing. I have this long list of things I'm always meaning to get around to but never do "because I'm too busy" or "there's not enough time" or "I'm tired" or whatever else I tell myself on the couch after work.
And so I started to look at everything I was doing in a day. A lot of it felt like wasted time- meetings that didn't need me, being too far into a trivial detial, watching TV, etc. Some of it felt productive, but wasn't. Others were time wasters that I justified with "I deserve it, I worked hard today." But the bottom line was those things were taking the place of productive things because they were easier.
And I'm not proud of that.
So I started asking myself that question- am I proud of what I'm doing? Today, right now, all the time; can I- will I- be proud of this later? Not will anyone else. Will I be proud of me?
It's making me change a lot. Because when I'm forced to make decisions thinking about how I'll feel about them later, not now, I make better decisions. It's simple (not easy), but in this wold we live in that is happening faster than ever and so much focus is placed on here and now, not later, it's something we miss.
So stop missing it. Stop making decisions now without thinking about later. And the easy way is to just ask yourself, "will I be proud of this choice?"
Will I be proud I hit the snooze button? Or proud that I got straight out of bed?
Will I be proud I watched 4 hours of TV before bed? Or proud that I finished that book?
Will I be proud I pushed half my to-dos off to tomorrow? Or proud that I cleared the list today?
Remember what Zig Ziglar said- "We all get 24 hours in a day." Are you proud of how your using yours?
Tough question.
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