Got your attention, didn’t I?
What in the heck does sock sock, shoe shoe mean? Hang on and I’ll get there but let me set the stage first. Most of us have heard the phrase “if you keep doing what you’re doing you’re going to keep getting what you’ve always got”. Guess what? We hear it but how many of us do anything about it? Why is that? Ponder that question for a minute before reading further. Go deep and get out of excuses, I mean symptoms like, “I’m too busy”, “I’m not qualified”, “I’ve tried before and it didn’t work” or the one I really like (not really!) “that’s just who I am”.
Here’s the next question. What do you want to accomplish in your life that you haven’t? Or said another way, what changes would you like to make in the way you live your life? Chances are you’ve explored this before and chances are you’ve had some modest success. You may have even knocked it out of the park, so to speak, and really did something that impressed even you! But, you’re back to the “WHAT’S NEXT” question and don’t know what to do.
Socrates said, “an unexamined life isn’t worth living”. How do you examine your life? Start with sock sock, shoe shoe. Ok, here’s the story. One Sunday morning I’m helping my then 7-year-old daughter get dressed for church. I’m hurrying around on autopilot when she piped up and asked me the most profound question I’ve ever been asked in my life; “Daddy, when you get dressed do you put on sock sock, shoe shoe or do you put on sock shoe, sock shoe?”! I was stunned. I sat down on the bed, looked her in the eye and said “Erica, I honestly don’t know. I have to think about”. When I did think about it I told her I did sock sock, shoe shoe, lace lace because on that day I had laces on my shoes. She proudly stated, “I put on sock shoe, sock shoe”. What happened in that short exchange?
My daughter forced me to STOP and THINK about a routine task that I do most days unless I decide to run around barefoot! I had NEVER once thought about how I put on my shoes. Have you? No? I didn’t think so!
This is the challenge for most of us. We either don’t or won’t stop and think about the things we do every day that are “automagic” but that impede us from achieving our goals. A lot of the automagic stuff we do is great, like breathing! But, how much do we do that we don’t even realize we do and how much of that is productive and moving us toward our goals and dreams?
We’ll address some of the things you can do in a later blog, but for now let me ask you to ponder this question today: which is it? Sock sock, shoe shoe or sock shoe, sock shoe?!
Onward & Upward!
Ed
