You've Got to Look Back to Move Forward

A little over a year ago we launched Qwerke.  At that time I had lots of dreams and goals, all of which I wanted to achieve immediately!  One of those goals was to take what we do at Qwerke to the clients of People Helping People which is non-profit dedicated to reducing the number of children living in poverty by teaching low-income women, primarily single mothers, how to earn an adequate income through stable employment that pays a living wage.  I’d been volunteering at PHP as a coach helping people put together their personal work histories.  I’m a fan of what PHP is accomplishing for women of low-income and I thought Qwerke could be of assistance in some way.

Another of my goals was to begin to do some keynote speeches and presentations in front of larger groups.  I started to learn from and study some of the best speakers in order to be a better, more comfortable presenter.

Today, I’m excited because next week I will be the keynote speaker at PHP’s Women’s Professional Development Seminar.  Both goals came together at the same time and in the same place!  How cool is that?  I’m not fooling anybody, I have a long way to go to be big time, but I still think it’s interesting and no coincidence that both goals will be achieved at once.  And this is just a beginning.

The whole thing has made me think about looking forward – as in setting goals – and looking back, to see how far I've come.  Did you know that you have a talent for both looking forward and looking back?  They are two of 34 talent themes found scientifically to be universal in all people.  These two talent themes are called Context and Futuristic.  People especially talented with Context enjoy thinking about the past,  They understand the present by looking at its history.  People especially talented with the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be.  But even if you’re not “especially talented” in these themes, you have them.  And even if they are not dominant and in your top 5 or 10 of the 34 total themes, it’s good to dig deep sometimes.  Specifically, I mean it’s good to look back to make sure you appreciate how far you’ve come.  You also need to look forward because even dreaming about what you want to accomplish is a form of goal setting, and it really works!

My example is like that.  I had a dream or goal in mind a year ago.  I even thought of how it might look.  And though I tried to find a way to have Qwerke help PHP, my idea wasn’t a good fit.  Since then our business at Qwerke has evolved and now we have something that truly is a good fit for PHP.  The second goal of doing more public speaking has been happening too, but I didn’t really dream the two would come together like this.  It was, in fact, another speaking opportunity I had that made the connection for this one at PHP possible. 

So what about you?  Do you take the time to look back to see how far you’ve come?  It’s an important defense against discouragement. 

One more story, and then you can ponder your Context and Futuristic talent themes.  Perhaps one is much stronger for you than the other.  Okay the story…

One day last winter, in my part-time job as a snowboard instructor, I had an afternoon adult group class.  Three teenaged boys and a 38 year old man who had not seen much snow in his life.  All four of them were “never-evers” – people who had never been on a snowboard before.  I love teaching never-evers because the joy of accomplishment is so great with them.  It doesn’t matter if they are 6 or 60, when they start to get it, there’s a lot of excitement and I get to share in that!  The three teenage boys took to the instruction a little quicker than my 38 year old.  About two hours in, we were coming down the beginner slope and he was falling repeatedly as he tried to execute turns.  Finally, when he’d become tired of picking himself back up, he exclaimed in desperation, “I think I may be too old to learn this.”  I rode over to where he had fallen, and reminded him that, “two hours ago, you didn’t know how the bindings worked.  Two hours ago you couldn’t stand in place on the board without falling over.  Since then, you’ve ridden the lift up and made it half way down the mountain, most of it looking very good.”  Further I told him, “If you think you’re too old, I took my first lesson when I was 40.”  He looked at me and smiled.  He got up and said, “Forty, huh?” I said, “Yep!  Now let’s make that turn.”  He did it.  And he kept doing it.  He still fell from time to time, but the power of looking at his progress helped him resolve to keep trying.  He ended the day on a high with a feeling of accomplishment.  That is cool stuff!

So back to you, it’s important to set goals or at least dream about where you want to go.  But it’s equally important to look back and see how far you’ve come.