DECISIONS, DECISIONS.....

What's the best decision you've ever made? And the worst?

Why sometimes is it easy to make a decision whilst at other times you can just stare at the choices and glaze over? What's the difference?

Let's look at this a bit more. How do you know when you've made a good decision? Or a bad one?

Sometimes the answer is obvious - your Grand National horse romps home at 100-1 or you look the wrong way crossing the road and the bus runs over your foot!

Other times it's more subtle.....

So how do you know? Is it an intuitive, gut feeling sort of thing? Do you need others to tell you you were right, or do you just know? 

How do you decide?

Do you weigh up all the options, carefully researching  every possibility in detail, or are you more of an Andy from Little Britain, "I want that one!" Two extreme positions of course and like most people I'm sure you are somewhere in-between. But it's worth thinking about, if you haven't already, just how do you make a decision?

Think back to your best decisions, those you were most happy with. I bet these were made in the way that you are most comfortable with. For those that didn't turn out so well - think about why, what was different on those occasions?

The point here is to look for the patterns that work for you and repeat them. 

Oh - one small correction from last time..... I'm told by my son it was Watchdog who featured the voice recognition software problems with the Nintendo DS, not the Gadget Show. My sons looked at me in that pitying way only kids can do, as if to say..... "don't you know anything?" Maybe I need to get that Brain Training game back out again!

LISTENING

How old !!!

I wasn't best pleased to hear the small Japanese animated creator of Nintendo DS Brain Training announce that I had a 57 year old brain earlier this afternoon....

My younger boy had just bought it and we were trying it out. Load of rubbish I thought, blaming my slow test-time on the poor quality of the voice recognition software.
"Yes it's a known glitch, doesn't always recognise the word blue. They said so on the Gadget Show", announced my older son later. Must be a mistake then I thought, already feeling a little better, my bruised ego beginning to heal.

My sons love the Gadget Show. I can't decide whether it's because of the gadgets themselves or the fact that the presenter Jason Bradbury is an absolute dead ringer for our friend, also called Jason. Spooky that..... mind you've I've never actually seen them together, so....

I had another go later on and got an excellent score on the timed maths tests. Of course this time, I put that down to me!

Made me think, it's funny how we sometimes only hear what we want to hear. The ability to listen well to others, not just to let the sounds enter your ears, but to really hear what others are saying, is a precious skill. We could all improve our listening skills. Next time you have a conversation, really make an effort to hear what the other person is saying, without interrupting.

In his excellent book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", Stephen Covey lists one of the habits as - "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." We all have one mouth and two ears. The world might be a better place if we all tried to use them in that proportion.

MAKE ROOM FOR THE CHILD IN YOU

This afternoon, I arrived at the school gate earlier than planned.

Whilst waiting for the bell to ring and unleash my son and 200 others into the weekend, I watched some younger kids playing on the field.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and they were having a great time.
They chased eachother about and rolled repeatedly down the small grassy bank without a care in the world. Quite right too, they were only about nine years old, but it made me think about how differently they'd be behaving in a few short years time....

Most of the adults I know would worry about getting grass stains, making their hayfever worse, hurting themselves or simply what the hell they looked like whilst they were doing it. Whatever happened to the carefree abandon of their youth!

The kids also looked totally absorbed in what they were doing. They weren't distracted by anything around them. They were simply playing, having fun and were right there, right in the moment.

The ability to abandon yourself to fun and to get completely lost in what you are doing is something that's all to easy to lose in adulthood.

When did you last really enjoy yourself.? I mean in a laugh out loud, couldn't care less kind of way? When were you last totally absorbed in something you really wanted to do?

Lots of things change as we grow up, but sometimes we could learn a thing or two from the kids. I'll tell you what - if you don't tell mine that, I won't tell yours!

THIS IS YOUR ONE MORE DAY

It's not been an easy week, but it's made me think.......

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a much loved former colleague. 

Not only was he the founder of the practice I am lucky enough to be a partner in, but he was something of a local hero. A real old style GP and an inspiration to all who knew him.

Although already retired, he died prematurely, without getting as much time as he might have hoped for to spend with his family and pursue his many interests.

This week also marks the first anniversary of a near death experience for one of my closest friends. She survived a freak accident and emergency surgery - thank God.

Both these events have made me reflect both on the fragility of life and of the need to really make the most of every day. 

Do you have things you want to achieve one day?

Things you'll do when the kids are older/you've paid off your mortgage/you've retired?

Why are you waiting? What small step can you take today to move you a little closer to your dream?

None of us know how much time we will be lucky enough to have, so why not concentrate right now on really making the most of every day?

Joe Vitale speaks about how many people who have lost someone close to them wish to have just one more day with them. To tell them all the things they always wanted to say to them and to do all the things they'd been wanting to do.

Why wait until something like that happens?

Why not start, right now, to make this your one more day......

WHO WOULD YOU INTERVIEW?

If you could interview absolutely anyone, alive or dead, who would it be? What would you ask them?


My son had to answer this recently for homework. Like many of his classmates he chose a footballer.
He told me that one boy had chosen to interview God. As he said this, he rolled his eyes as if to say "creep!"
Very imaginitive I thought, unusually impressed.
"Yeah, he asked him why he invented wasps".
God apparently answered, "because I was bored".

I couldn't help but think it was a wasted opportunity....


So who would you choose and what would you ask them?

Interviews are a great way of understanding what makes someone tick. They can help us discover how people do what they do best. In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), this process is called modelling and is a way of studying excellence. If someone has a skill, it can be taught to someone else. This applies not just to physical skills but also to the mindset behind them. Modelling involves taking on the beliefs, attitudes and other characteristics of the person as a fast-track way to achieving their skill.

What did Nelson Mandela have to believe in to survive all those years in captivity?
What kept Thomas Edison going through more than 900 unsuccessful attempts to invent the light-bulb?
What went through Bob Beaman's mind just before he smashed the world long-jump record in the 1968 Olympic final, by an incredible 21 inches?

And just why did God invent wasps?