Three Words and Three More Words

Ariane Goodwin, founder and creative force of the smARTist Telesummit asked me, as a returning presenter, to pen a blog post for the smARTist blog. I'm repeating that post here and adding three more important words I came across recently.

Blogger extraordinaire, Chris Brogan, talked about how he concentrates on creating THREE WORDS that sum up all that he will focus on for the coming year. His ideas, as expected, are thoughtful and practical. You can read them on the link above.

Brogan uses this Three Words in lieu of New Year’s Resolutions. I loved the idea, never having found resolutions to be more than wishful thinking and broken promises. So, I took up the challenge of creating three words that will help define and guide my actions and behavior in 2012.

My Three Words for 2012

Goodness – I will endeavor to incorporate goodness into all I do. It means seeking to achieve the best of those things most beneficial to my family, health, work, the environment and me. I will take action to become kinder and more generous.

Richness – My purpose here is not to gain wealth, although I am not against it. The goal is to seek and embrace abundance in my daily life. I will seek richness in the way I communicate, and in the way I make personal and career choices, and in my products and services I offer.

I believe, if I fulfill this goal and act as a conduit of rich ideas, adding valuable experiences and actions to those around me, that there will be a natural flow to me of resources that will lead to a life rich in health, friendships and acknowledgment for my contributions. I think wealth will be a byproduct of these other intentions and actions.

Simplify – This may be the hardest goal to reach because I have such varied interests. Some might call it focus, but that is just a matter of intention.

I’m talking about a series of purposeful actions. Without closing my mind to new ideas, I will streamline the amount of information that comes into my life. I will clean out the closets of clothes worn long ago, in another life. I will pare down anything that does not add value or beauty to my life. I will identify those possessions I no longer need or use.  And then, I will find ways to put them back into circulation so others who need them can find and use them.

Three More Words

The most recent issue of The Build magazine had an interesting article titled "How to Innovate in the Age of Uncertainty."  The gist is most of us use "predictive reasoning" to make decisions on planning and actions to execute them. This type of thinking is based on knowable variables.

What the authors say is happening now is we are in an age of uncertainty, and what worked in the past is not effective in our current socioeconomic and business environment. They look instead to how successful entrepreneurs use a different approach.

These entrepreneurs follow these steps:

• Take a small "smart" step toward what they desire.
• Pause to see what they learned by taking the step and.
• Build that learning into what they do next.

This process gives us our second of Three Words

1. Act
2. Learn
3. Build

By repeating this process, entrepreneurs are able to refine the process until they are happy with the results or decide what they are doing cannot be sustained. Following these steps keeps entrepreneurs from over committing to unworkable plans.

The first "smart" step is the crucial one. It follows advice I have offered for year. That is to accurately assess your available resources and then set realistic goals based on your resources. The final word on this concept is to not commit to using more resources than you can afford.

After taking the first step to act, it is crucial to stop and "Learn" from what happened when you did. Use this information to fine-tune your plan. This leads to the last step of "Build."

These steps will work well for visual artists who are every bit entrepreneurs. Yes, we are in an age of uncertainity, but we are also in an age of opportunity. It starts with perception. If you want to be successful, you have to believe you can be successful. Besides belief, you need a plan of action. Follow the advice in the Three Words above and you are well on your way to enjoying the success you deserve.