… eating an Elephant

Unfortunately I had forgotten that, and needed to remind myself.

Have you had the same experience, where you neglect something that you care about due to pressures from other areas of your life?

That is why I chose 274 as the first of my focus words for 2015. It is a constant reminder that I want to write, not just write but create a significant body of work this year – 100,000 words.

But a goal of writing 100,000 words is a little overwhelming don’t you think? So I have chosen to break it down into smaller, digestible chunks. Hence my reminder to focus on writing 274 words each and every day of the year.

I was motivated to renew my writing by two recent experiences;

• firstly a question I was asked during a recent interview by a group of peers. They asked what I planned to do with my position and professional recognition?
• • At first I was not entirely sure, but the ability to write and explore novel ideas and practice was the obvious choice.
  • I need to follow thorough on my claim.
• second was reading the recent BCI publication “20 in their 20’s”.
• • This is an excellent publication featuring some wonderful fresh voices.
  • It motivated me to want to engage with these new and fresh views, to explore, challenge and tease out their perspectives.
  • That is not something that can be done by being passive and simply consuming their writing.

I was also prompted by a comment made in personal correspondence by Luke Bird, one of those new voices, when he recounted the story of winning the BCI Newcomer of the Year Global Award and then receiving an SMS message that simply said “that difficult second album”!

All our success is in the past. The challenge is how we can leverage it to create new successes in the future.

Everybody needs to contribute to the advance of ideas and practice. If we don’t then our practices become stale, stagnate and become increasingly irrelevant.

Just like success “Best Practice” is past practice.

Everybody can, and should, contribute to the development of practice. It doesn’t need to be a long article – a small post or even a coherent comment on somebody else’s piece can help. The key is that we have reflected on our practices, thought about what worked and what didn’t, and we share those thoughts and ideas.

Everybody has something to contribute. Although just clicking the “like” button is really not enough!

“From each according to his ability …”

There are novel and emerging methods we can use to promote the development of ideas. We can facilitate the sharing and development of knowledge adopting a new practice of Curating Ideas and Content.

This is a concept I will write more about during the year, but I believe it will become an important practice to adopt in moving from the legacy risk/BC domains into the field of resilience.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Will Durant, inspired by Aristotle.

I think you can write 200 words about what you do, don’t you? Try it. If that seems a lot then jot down four key headings/ideas – then try to write 50 words about each heading.

The trick is to just do it, whatever the change is you want to make. Do it day after day and start to build the habit. That is what the focus word of 274 is designed to help me with, making writing a habit.

A new year and hopefully a new habit for me, supported with a new writing framework and some new tools – who knows might even have some new ideas. That is my primary objective.

What about you?
Is there a new good habit you want to establish in 2015?
What devices will you use to renew your focus on what matters to you?
Do you agree that everybody can contribute small articles or comments? Assuming they are motivated to share?

Would love to hear your views.