“The way you do anything is the way you do everything”
This is a fantastic quote. I couldn’t find who first said it, but I believe that this is so true.
What do you think?
Read it again and think about what it really means in your life.
Let’s look at some examples.
You find that you spend all your income every pay period. You might put money aside for tax and bills, but your spending account is completely empty before the next money arrives. Then how do you handle food on your plate? You have dished up your serving and then proceed to eat everything on your plate. Do you ever stop to think if you are full? Do you stop before all the food is gone, or do you not even notice? The plate is empty and you are not sure if you have had enough to eat.
Or maybe you are the other extreme. You have a savings account, and never spend it. I heard of a case where a family had a savings account for holidays, but never took holidays!!! Then, you are the sort that has to have tons of food in the cupboard – just in case. Maybe even letting things go out of date because you can’t use it all, but you would still rather have cupboards full.
You like to drive fast. You keep close to the speed limit, just a bit over, and you are always in a hurry. How fast do you eat? How fast do you talk? Do you get frustrated with people who want to go slower than you? Do you get frustrated that your business success is not happening faster?
A very common belief is that we have to work hard to make money. It requires sacrifice dedication, deprivation, and concentration. Are these the same words you use for going on a diet. It is so hard, it takes so much time, it requires sacrifice and lots of effort.
Are you always late? Do you hate deadlines, or do you feel that you do your best work in the last 24 hours before a deadline? So when you are dieting you look for the one that says lose 10kg is 10 days.
Do you have a victim mentality? It is everyone else’s fault. Why don’t you have more money in the bank – well my husband spends too much. Why aren’t you the right weight, well friends always go out and I have to eat what they eat. Why don’t you have the career you want – because your Dad told you that being an entrepreneur is dangerous.
We see this in relationships where people break up with a violent partner and find another violent partner. It is probable that they saw and maybe experienced violence growing up, and so they believe this is actually normal behavior. “Everyone does it”
Have you seen people who seem to get themselves into some amazingly crazy situations? Things always seem to go wrong for them. We all have computer glitches sometimes, but some people have the weekly. They turn up for appointments on the wrong days, or they have been double booked. Random things happen that rarely happen to others.
I was at a seminar and a young guy come in late and hassled. It came out later in group chats, that he had been pulled up for a random license check. He was driving without a license and so was stopped driving and fined, with possible court time. It was a country road which 50 people had traveled at exactly the same time. Not one other person had been pulled up. He assured us that his car was road worthy, he was not speeding and he looked fine. The difference was the way he functions in life. He loses his license, but then drives again, and gets into more trouble. He keeps messing up. The way he does anything is the way he does everything. Luckily, the seminar was about this exact topic so hopefully he took away the strong message that he was sending out the signals to attract this situation to him.
I have never been a perfectionist and I am really happy with this. It is OK. It means that I would make a disaster of an accountant or any other job where minute detail mattered. Lucky for me that was not my career. I am very much an 80/20 person and I like that about me. I see this in so many areas of my life. Fitness, food, and putting things online. So the way I do anything is the way I do everything, works for me mostly. There are some areas where it has been an issue (for others not so much for me), and I am now aware of those areas and make a concentrated effort to be one hundred percenters in those areas. But my home will never be a show place, and I do like to eat chocolate occasionally. I remember once with my food where I felt that I was being honest about how good my diet was and I would say it was 80%, which is good. But when you looked at the couple of things each day that were not part of my meal plan, my maths had been out. 20% with food means 3 meals per day x 7 days in the week = 21 meals. This translates to 4 meals per week. MMMMM, not 1 per day!!!
What are you attracting to you, that is not what you want?
Lack of money or income. Excess weight or the inability to lose it. Poor relationships, lack of friends. Messing up the computer system, or booking systems. Not asking for help when you need it, and getting into bigger trouble.
Look at the areas of your life where you want to do better and see what patterns there are.
Next week we will talk about where this comes from and therefore what you can do about it.
Until then, keep tapping.