How To Use What You Love, To Accomplish What You Don't

There Will Always Be Things We Must Do,

Even When They’re Not A Natural Fit.

The trick is to find an “Access Point” to do it anyway.

A powerful benefit of being clear on what talents we bring to life, is the ability to use those talents as “Access Points” to accomplish things we should do, but don’t like to.

The personal “Owner’s Manual” you create in The ILM is a powerful tool.

It helps you stay focused on where you’re likely to find the most fulfillment and add the most value to the world in daily life.

Still, we don’t want to use this knowledge as an excuse to simply not do things we should do, but don’t naturally like to do.

When we do, we often cheat ourselves of valuable growth and others of significant residual benefits.

Here’s an example of a creative trick (An Access Point) I used to take on a task I had no passion for doing, but turned into something I have fun doing.

What’s For Dinner?

My wife always took responsibility for planning and making meals.

But she works a much less flexible schedule than I do.

Even though I was never “into cooking,” it suddenly (finally!) dawned on me that it was crazy she was coming home from work around dinner time and then taking on making dinner!

So, one night I asked her: “How about I take over planning and making dinner for us from now on, starting tomorrow?”

After being momentarily stunned that I wanted to take this on, she almost instantly said ” Yes, that would be really great!”

Enter The Holy Crap Moment

Oops…now I was all in.

I knew what I was doing was the right thing, but how was I going to “get into” cooking from now on?

It seemed like a steep climb, so I immediately started looking at how I could leverage my strengths to create a way to “get into” it.

One of my strengths is “transforming something strong into something superb,”* and I’m very visually oriented. (*ref. the Strengths assessment tool used within the ILM)

So I thought, “What could I do to make creating meals fun for me, if I didn’t have an interest in making the actual food?”

My solution: **Make every meal “look” beautiful.**

I decided to make the appearance of every plated dish the focus, creating a visual composition for each meal, especially as I was learning healthy combinations and how to work with flavors…

And how to not turn fish and chicken into a rubber product!

So How’d It Go?

Now, almost two years later, I make our dinners at least five days a week, have removed the pressure of this necessity from my wonderful wife’s “To Do” list, and most importantly, made her feel more appreciated.

Plus, I get to surprise her every evening with a new, visually attractive (and most times good tasting) meal that connects with me creatively.

I even take on those “meal in a box” deliveries once in a while, to help expand my knowledge of spices and combinations, creating new possibilities.

To paraphrase Thomas Edison: “The moment you think you’ve exhausted all the possibilities, you haven’t.”

An Easy Method To Change Your Perspective

What are things in your life that you should do, but dodge, because you really don’t want to?

Here’s A Method You Can Use To More Quickly Make A Connection Between Something You “Should” do, And Something You Love To Do:

Four Simple Steps:

1.) Make Three Quick Columns On A Piece Of Paper (yup, draw two semi-straight lines down the paper to divide it into three sections.)

2.) Add These Titles To The Top Of Each Column:

Column #1: What I Should Do, But Don’t Want To

Column #2: My Most Powerful Strengths

Column #3: Ways To Connect Them

Don’t Add Anything To The Columns Yet.

Flip the paper and make the Column #1 (Should Do) list on the back of the paper so you can just flow them out to see them.

Now Pick The One Item That Will Be Easiest For You To Accomplish. (This is not an Ironman Challenge, it’s a Get Your Feet Wet and Have Some Fun Exercise to get you familiar with the process. So start with small weights and work up.)

3.) In Column #2: List Your Most Powerful Strengths. (If you’re in the ILM, use the Strengths section in your “Personal Owner’s Manual™” If not (yet), write down what you feel from experience are your most dominant strengths. The talents you seem to use most often when you’re doing something you love to do.

4.) In Column #3, “blue sky” fun and/or wacky ways you can link the task in Column #1 to one or more of the Strengths you listed to accomplish the task.

5). Start doing the task in Column #1 using those strengths!

That’s what I did in my “Holy Crap” moment and you can do the same.

And have Fun with it! The more silliness your create as you do it, the better.

The mission is to make that combination uniquely interesting to you.

And now you have another cool Tool in your “Intentional Living Tool Box™.”

“Living Intentionally means you’ve become clear about the experience of life you want, and are actively making it so.”

By learning to quickly shift focus from seeing a barrier, to finding an “Access Point™,“ you intentionally shift your experience from a feeling of Weakness to an Experience of Control.

And learning to kick that burden to the curb using something already strong within you, gives you more power to live more intentionally.

Because A Happy Life Happens Intentionally™

and you get to make it so everyday.

Cheers,

PS: If you’re not already in The IL M, we open registration just a few times a year.

But You Can Jump in to our Free “Tools For Living” Mini-Series Experience Now!

I’m In For The Mini-Series!

You’ll get started learning how to live more intentionally, learn a variety of cool tools to help you live a happier life right now and have the first opportunity to join The ILM before it’s announced to the public.