Live Without Limits Using These 4 C's

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Hello friends, and welcome to this month’s Joyinmovement newsletter.

September is my birthday month so I tend to think of the big picture of my life. Sadly, I all too often observe that as people age they impose so many limits on what they think they can and cannot do. I am determined, more than ever, that I not become one of those limited thinkers. Read through to the end of this newsletter and you’ll see what limited thinking I’m going to let go of for my birthday!

I know that whatever I have learned, I can unlearn. Whatever situation I have gotten myself into, I can probably get myself out of. If my real goal is to continue dreaming big dreams and to live without limits, there are some keys I must remember.

These keys are clarity, competence, and concentration. I’ve studied these principles over the years and notice that folks who live successful lives and keep their dreams alive are good role models because they use these keys as their guideposts.

Clarity means that you are absolutely clear about who you are, what you want, and where you’re going. You write down your goals and you make plans to accomplish them. You set very careful priorities and you do something every day to move yourself toward your goals. The more progress you make toward accomplishing things that are important to you, the greater self-confidence and self-belief you have, and the more convinced you become that there are no limits on what you can achieve.

Competence means that you become very good in the areas of your chosen field that will enable you to accomplish your dreams. You apply the 80/20 rule to everything you do and you focus on becoming outstanding in the 20% of tasks that contribute to 80% of your results. I’ve written about the 80/20 idea before. Competence also comes from dedicating yourself to continuous learning. You never stop growing. You realize that excellence is a moving target. You commit yourself to doing something every day that enables you to become better and better at doing the most important things in your life.

Concentration is having the self-discipline to encourage yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, and stay with it until it’s complete.

The two key words for success have always been focus and concentration.

Focus is knowing exactly what you want to be, have, and do. I’ve been working with the be/do/have idea for many many years and I notice that when I get off track it’s because I have forgotten this focus.

Concentration is persevering, without distraction, toward accomplishing the things that can make a real difference in your life.

When you allow yourself to begin to dream big dreams, and let go of the distractions and activities that take up too much of your time you can focus your energies. You will start to feel an incredible sense of power and confidence. As you focus on doing what you love to do and become excellent in those few areas that can make a real difference in your life, you begin to think in terms of possibilities rather than impossibilities, and you move ever closer toward the realization of your full potential.

Let me add one more phrase to the list of C’s (clarity, competence, concentration). It’s COMMON sense, which sometimes isn’t at all that common!

A client told me about something that Dr. Phil once said. Dr. Phil was asked if it bothered him that so many critics accused him of oversimplification.

He responded that it didn’t bother him at all. He even volunteered that one fellow had recently accused him of saying things that were really nothing more than common sense, to which Dr. Phil responded, “Golly, that’s great. Do you mind if I use it as a testimonial?”

It got me thinking that all too often when we’re working on living our dream life we can really overcomplicate things. Maybe we do that so as to give ourselves an excuse when we don’t reach our goals. I’m not sure, but I do know that the most successful people I know keep things simple.

But just what is common sense?

A good technical definition of common sense is “sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge.” In other words, you don’t need to be a Ph.D. to exercise common sense. It’s a trait you develop through purposeful awareness and habit. Being aware and developing a habit requires self-discipline, the self-discipline to do the right thing rather than doing what makes you feel good at the present moment. This comes right back to clarity and concentration!

Common sense equates to wisdom, whereas an academic understanding of specific areas of life equates to knowledge. In simpler terms, what common sense boils down to is a sound understanding of how life works. Doing the right thing, if you will.

However, all the common sense in the world is useless if you don’t have the self-discipline to apply it. Again, I think the coupling of clarity and concentration gives birth to self-discipline.

With each passing year, we have more and more experience under our belts, allowing us to see which one of the 4 C’s is our weakest link.

At some point in time, to be successful and accomplish our goals we must learn from our experiences. How good are we at taking away the wisdom from our experiences, and then using self-discipline to apply that wisdom.

Many people miss the most obvious things when it comes to success in any area of life. While in search of the magic formulas for success, they overlook the importance of something as simple as common sense.

So keep clarity, competence and concentration in mind. Add in a heaping dose of common sense and watch some of your dreams come true as your perceived limits fall by the wayside.

What LIMIT-less experience do I have planned for my birthday? I’ve got it in my head that I want to go skydiving! Usually when ideas like this pop into my head and feel right in my heart, I take action. So check back next month and we’ll see how it went.

Until then, know that it’s never too late to find joy in movement and never too early to start!

shelli