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‘Wackbards’

by HOTELS Editors

February 14, 2012 - Categories: Blogs,

?Wackbards?

It seems to me that some of us have a tendency to live “wackbards” (“backwards,” for those of you who don’t live like this). What I mean is that sometimes we actually live with the cart before the horse. Think of the horse as the future and the cart as the past. We spend more time inventing ways to solve the past than creating new futures. 
Let me put it this way: How much of your time is spent thinking about solutions to situations you don’t want to have? How much of your day is about creating a future you do want to have? I have given this some thought, and I think I know how to get the cart back where it belongs.

Ask powerful questions. I think it might be the questions we ask rather than the solutions we find that mold our lives. Each one of us will have different answers, and my experience is our “better self” will speak to us.

Consider this question: How can I live more profoundly today?  

It’s a great question, and the answer will be different for everyone. Today I was feeling some negative emotion about a situation. I asked myself the question, and the answer was clear. Move past “feeling,” which isn’t the truth anyway. My “feeling” overshadowed the entire day. By asking the question, I chose a more profound way to spend my day (joy and appreciation of everything else in my life). My mood lifted immediately, and I became “cause” for my day rather than effect.

Here’s some good stuff for work:

  • Is this (project, meeting, goal) good enough?
  • How does ______ get better than this?
  • Is my team happy?
  • What can I do today that my competitors aren’t paying attention to?
  • Whom will I inspire today?  
  • What am I avoiding that by taking one step on it today will make the biggest and most positive difference (in my life, my work, this relationship)?
  • How do the people I care about know I care about them? Do I acknowledge them in a way they understand and respond to?
The first syllable of the word question is “quest.” To quest is to be on a journey of discovery — a search for something. Where would we be without quest? Sitting on a cart behind a horse, I suppose.
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