Sacrifice on the altar of self-improvement
Or- How to live your best life on just 24 hours a day - Part 1
Think- I’m thinking about Brandi Carlile
This past weekend, my wife Tracy and I went to the Durham Performing Arts Center to see Brandi Carlile. She is an insanely talented singer and songwriter who you should be listening to if you are not. This concert was a special solo show. Just her, a guitar, and a piano.
When she came out on stage, she said that these solo performances scare her to death, but that is why she must do them. Because they scare her, and because they allow her to switch from being an entertainer with the security of a band and lights and smoke, back to being an artist.
I took two points from that introduction. First, that to obtain anything that we don’t have, we have to sacrifice.
Security for solitude. Certainty for adventure. Comfort for growth.
The second point was that while both artist and entertainer are a part of her, each requires dedicated attention, sometimes to the exclusion of the other.
I thought this was a great gateway into our discussion of sacrifice.
If we want something we don’t have, we have to do something we haven’t done.
And, even once we have achieved our goals, we need to return to them with enough regularity to maintain them.
A major part of the challenge comes in determining what you are willing to sacrifice.
If you are anything like me, you don’t have a lot of free time on your hands. Your twenty-four allotted hours per day are probably packed with twenty-four hours of stuff.
To start a new habit, or to reengage an old one, you need to sacrifice things.
Now, I’m sure I don’t need to point out that Einstein, Edison, and Brandi Carlile also only had/have twenty-four hours per day, so I won’t point that out.
One reason we fail at beginning a new habit is not lack of will or desire, but because we have given no thought to what we will sacrifice to make room.
Then we become overwhelmed, the day slips away and we shrug and say, “Well, I was just too busy today. I’ll start tomorrow, or the day after that…”
It’s also often true that good habits take longer than bad ones. It’s easy to swing by McDonald’s and pick up dinner. Harder to plan a menu, go grocery shopping, cook, and clean up, but we know which one is the better option.
Going for a run or a trip to the gym includes transit time and (hopefully) a shower when you finish. Failing to account for the true time required makes following through that much more difficult.
It’s easy to say, oh I’ll just get up a half hour early, and maybe that is the answer, but it is also true that many of us are chronically undersleeping, and that’s not good.
The first step is to spend a week tracking your time. Where is it spent? Where is it wasted? How much time is spent on bad habits you want to break? How much is spent on things that are taking you off-track and moving you further away from your sky anchor?
I have recently begun to apply a concept taken from military planning called Lines of Effort (LOE) to help focus my time. Doctrine explains LOEs as:
“Lines of effort link a series of tasks by purpose... focusing on the establishment of the conditions for success.”
When fighting an insurgency as we dealt with in Iraq, it is not enough to be good at fighting. You also need to win over the populace, and that might mean assisting in the establishment of a stable system of governance, restoring electricity, establishing schools, and tending to water and sewer issues.
Each of these is an LOE. Each LOE is a bin that contains multiple tasks like the individual strands that make the rope in the photo below.
Each LOE is intertwined with all of the others.
We can’t focus on all LOEs all the time, but we also can’t focus on one LOE to the exclusion of others. The key is to keep all LOEs moving in the right direction. As Ben Franklin said, “Little strokes fell great oaks.”
I believe we can capture our lives with the following six LOEs:
1- Body
2- Mind
3- Spirit
4- Purpose/Passion
5- Relationships
6- Responsibilities
The first three LOEs are 100% self-focused. Does that seem selfish? A little stingy? I don’t think so. It’s kind of like the oxygen mask on the airplane. If you don’t take care of yourself first, you can’t help others.
Starting next week I’ll go in-depth on each Line of Effort.
Read: Atomic Habits, by James Clear.
This is probably my all-time favorite book on habit development. My copy is dog-eared, annotated, and highlighted.
James Clear also has one of my favorite weekly emails. You can sign up here:
Write:
In the chapter of my memoir I am working on, my unit, Task Unit Raider was directed to halt all offensive operations and assume responsibility for safeguarding the Interim Iraqi Government in advance of the turnover of power from the Coalition Provisional Authority. We joined forces with SEAL task units from across Iraq to provide personal security details for the leaders of the interim government.
These were men that a lot of people wanted to see dead, and T.U. Raider was given responsibility for protecting the man most at risk, Kurdish Vice President, Dr. Roush Shaways.
This chapter will provide a good look at how Lines of Effort are managed during combat operations.
My memoir, Tough, Rugged Bastards will be available in the fall of 2023 from Post Hill Press.
Repeat- Words of inspiration from the people who said it best:
You can dance in a hurricane, but only if you're standing in the eye. Brandi Carlile
Your competition is not other people but the time you kill, the ill will you create, the knowledge you neglect to learn, the connections you fail to build, the health you sacrifice along the path, your inability to generate ideas, the people around you who don't support and love your efforts, and whatever god you curse for your bad luck. - James Altucher
Follow your passion, be prepared to work hard and sacrifice, and, above all, don't let anyone limit your dreams. Donovan Bailey
He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly. James Allen
Things aren't gifted to you. Things don't just come from an idea, from nothing. You have to work for them. You have to pursue them. You have to take time. You have to sacrifice. Ozuna
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Love the bit about Brandi Carlile....I have used the concept of "the obstacle is the way" many times with counseling Soldiers and the rewards it brings in are substantial. If something scares you...you need to attack it