I’m getting married in the morning
Get me to the Church on time!
When Sue and I got married some 30+ years ago, we decided to spend our honeymoon in Italy on the Amalfi Coast. It was a stunning location with a lovely hotel and a fabulous area to explore, and we have some really precious memories from that holiday.
It almost didn’t happen. Although I love flying, Sue is less enthusiastic, by which I mean this was the first time she had been in a plane, and she has a very real fear of flying that presented an almost insurmountable challenge for that holiday. We didn’t fly again as a family for over 25 years, and in that time the fear of flying had grown. That was when our son decided to get married. In Florida. Well there was no way that we weren’t going to be at that wedding, and there was no way we could get there from the UK without flying, so this wedding was one PRIZE that involved a Next Exciting Win with a significant terror barrier to be overcome for Sue.
Some years ago I had taken up cycling and spent many hours in the saddle every week, and a great piece of advice I was given regarding cycling on the roads around where I live was: “When you see a pothole, DON’T look at it! Look at the piece of road you want to ride on, not the piece you don’t want to ride on.”
There is some great advice here when tackling any task, and that is to focus on the excitement in a task, not on the monotony of a task. If it’s helpful we can think of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Extrinsic rewards would be finding ways to reward yourself for having completed a dull task. Intrinsic rewards would be to focus on finding ways to make boring tasks exciting, or at least feel exciting by linking them to exciting outcomes.
For example, I am currently working on losing some excess weight. I could try and find non-calorific ways to reward myself for eating less or eating more healthily, or I could find ways to make eating less and eating more healthily more exciting. Without doubt the latter approach is the most effective. My approach in doing something NEW and finding my Next Exciting Win includes visualising what I might look like and how I might feel when I have lost some weight, and embracing that “not full” feeling of being slightly hungry and enjoying the exciting idea that it is in those times that I am actually shedding weight.
I conjure up a mental picture of the “food technician" in my stomach having to either store food reserves in the energy archives (when I am feeling full) or fetching food reserves from the energy archive (when I am feeling peckish). The more I can “feel peckish” the more food is fetched from the energy archive and as a result, I will lose weight. This is certainly in the Inspiration Zone, and it works for me!
I am currently on a journey towards a PRIZE that involves public speaking. Having embarked on a journey to become accredited as a Certified Member of the John Maxwell Team of Speakers, Trainers and Coaches there are several challenges to overcome that are quite definitely in the Inspiration Zone. One of these challenges involves Public Speaking.
As I write this blog I am part way through that particular journey, and I have used several Next Exciting Wins to move towards the PRIZE, with more to come before I get there. After working through the coaching videos and other related materials it was time to start practicing the craft. The Maxwell Method calls that “getting good”.
I set out a path with a series to Next Exciting Wins to move towards that goal. These NEW tasks involved joining the Professional Speakers Association, and then delivering a presentation before a room full of Professional Speakers to obtain their feedback, and has lead to signing up to enter the annual Speaker Factor competition. This event is planned for October this year with regional heats in the months before that. Each of these talks has provided me with a NEW that was in the Inspiration Zone, each taking me beyond the Terror Barrier, and leading towards the PRIZE of becoming a Professional Speaker. I’ll let you know how I get on!
