GUESS HOW MUCH?
Awhile ago, I passed behind my wife who was scrolling her FB and what caught me was what she was watching that time, American actor/comedian Jimmy O Yang said his mom's fav catch phrase was: GUESS HOW MUCH? And threw me up with a long list of GUESS HOW MUCH questions. LIKE, GUESS HOW MUCH have you gone so far? GUESS HOW MUCH you have been of value to your loved ones? GUESS HOW MUCH are you deemed successful to date? GUESS HOW MUCH more you need to change anything within yourself? GUESS HOW MUCH have you realized if you have hit the ceiling of WHAT goals you pre-set? GUESS HOW MUCH you have been of help not just to your loved ones BUT to your colleagues either in your business OR workplaceYou might wonder, at WHAT point in your life should you rattle off with yourself this bunch of GUESS HOW MUCH questions? My curt advice. As soon as you graduate from college/university OR as soon as you finish up schooling. WHY? This will be part of your optional CHECKPOINTS in life. BUT if you ask me, I WON'T tag this as OPTIONAL but instead MANDATORY. WHY? This is for you. WHY scrimp on time & effort to CHECKPOINT yourself? Frankly, I did ask myself this GUESS HOW MUCH question at every CHECKPOINT in my life and if I have to rewind my life, surely I'll go through that CHECKPOINT cycle over again because it gave me tons and tons of benefits. As a post mortem from those GUESS HOW MUCH questions, I was able to have the following realizations: - WHAT steps I embarked which are missteps that need to be corrected and rectified
- HOW did I handle doing some steps where the impact to either my loved ones or colleagues could have been contained
- WHEN did I take certain steps where I could have improved things with a better timing
- WHERE could I have done things much better
The thing is, let's apply INVERSION THINKING here. WHAT IF I DIDN'T tweak and tune the things I was doing? WHAT IF I DIDN'T realize my shortfalls and miscues then? WHAT IF I DIDN'T recognize my imperfections at that time WHAT IF I DIDN'T agree that there are improvement areas WHAT IF I DIDN'T realize that there are realizations in life
WHAT IF I DIDN'T acknowledge the need to correct myself
WHAT IF I DIDN'T exert efforts to correct my imperfections
WHAT IF I DIDN'T accept a need to run checkpoint like this
WHAT IF I DIDN'T believe that nothing is cast in stone
WHAT IF I DIDN'T become receptive to changes
Our takeaway? Yes, in our lives, NOTHING is really cast in stone. Regardless of your best intentions combined with your capability, there will be tweaks and tunings that will improve your lot along the way. The worst thing is for one to resist [and I'd like to call it, to be damn STUBBORN] from all these compelling reasons to CHECKPOINT oneself from time to time and ask, GUESS HOW MUCH❓❓❓
