“Do It Now!” I tell myself that about 1,000 times a day.  Saying it reminds me to take action, and it’s a good start, but not enough. What works best for me is starting with a specific target, identifying daily actions that move me in the direction of that target, and then focusing on what I need to do today in order to be successful. I conquer the easiest tasks first and use the resulting momentum to conquer the tough tasks, the things that no one likes to do, as I get closer to the goal. Here are some more questions that I ask myself in order to move closer to my goal, and to really get things done!

What am I doing with my life that fulfills my purpose? What a great, and scary question. You can’t answer it if you watch a lot of tv, eat a lot of fast food, and live far beyond your financial means.  What is my purpose? What does my purpose filled life look like?

What am I pursuing? Creativity, balance, strength of character, integrity, honesty, joy? Can I find any of that consuming garbage? Garbage in, garbage out. How much time do I spend pursuing happiness and joy? Does my job allow me to pursue an ideal life that fulfills my purpose? If not, how can I rework my job or find a new job?

Can I do something poorly until I can do it well? “Anything worth doing, is worth doing __________.” Fill in the blank. If I take that approach, I might miss the chance to try something new, or learn something more complex than I am used to. If I allow my self to be bad at something new while I am learning all about it, then I will be open to asking for help and practicing until I get better. Letting go of my need to be good and competent, diminishes the risk.

“What if I try and fail?” Wow, what a whopper. I get this one a lot. “What if I run out of money?” “What if no one likes my idea?” “What if I can’t finish it on time?” “What if the economy gets worse?” “What if” is another way to say “I’m afraid.” It also immediately stops the problem solving process and stalls all action. Fear is good, it can be a great motivator if you ask it to be. Next time I face the “what if”, my answer is “then.” “If I run out of money, then I will have to earn more or spend less.” If no one likes my idea, then I will find a different audience or rework my idea.” “If I can’t finish on time, then I will have to get help or make more time.” “If the economy gets worse, then I will seek more knowledge, work with more focus and energy, and look for new solutions.”

The most important thing I have learned about getting things done in the last 40 years!

The most important thing I have ever learned about achieving goals, making progress, getting things done, and finding success is: The only difference between successful and unsuccessful people is, successful people do the things that unsuccessful people don’t want to do. Successful people don’t want to do these things either, but they do them anyway because they are focused on their purpose and the outcome of the work. Unsuccessful people want an easy path and will put up with an unpleasant outcome or destination in order to avoid the discomfort of possible rejection, embarrassment, etc…

Do It Now! Pray and move your feet!

One last thought.

Teamwork and collaboration are vitally essential to living a purpose filled, worthwhile life. You might need new teammates at times, or you might need to lead your team with more force than you are comfortable with. When I lead my team through solution finding exercises, I ask them to make a list of all the ways we CAN achieve a goal or desired outcome. I also let them write all the reasons why we CAN’T be successful, but I ask them to write it on their worksheets in the column labeled “Why we CAN’T.” They see immediately how much I value their fears and negative thoughts, when they look down at the paper and see the column is filled with a giant X with no room to write. It quickly refocuses them to become solution focused instead of problem focused.

Matt Pasquinilli is the Executive Director of the non profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio.

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Truth is defined by the nature of our being.  Honesty defines the laws of that nature and is the journey we must take in order to understand truth.  Honesty defines how you are, and knowledge of how you are will guide you toward knowing who and what you are.

At the root of all human suffering is the division of man from truth.  As a result of separation from truth, the capacity of human understanding requires the use of a vocabulary that divides all our experiences into two categories – good and bad.

Emotions do not exist in the nature of the universe; they are necessary only for our survival outside of it.  Humans will challenge the law of nature by trying to control it.  Emotions are contrary to honesty and so the key to living honestly is learning how to control our emotions.

When something happens to us that meets our expectations in a welcomed way, then we understand that event as good.  When the unwelcomed occurs, then it feels bad to us.  The nature of our existence cannot be defined as consisting of good and bad, but instead, the nature of our existence must be defined as simply being.

If a child is running on the sidewalk and falls, he might receive a cut on his knee.  The physical pain comes and goes quickly, but the fear caused by the fall and the sight of his blood causes emotional pain that can last a lifetime.  The truth of his experience is that his knee was cut and he felt physical pain.  While it is true that the fear may cause him to be more cautious in the future, it might also cause him to stop exploring his world with the appropriate amount of physical action necessary to keep him fit.

Many relationships are broken by our difficulty with understanding truth.  Words and actions are translated into the dualistic language of emotions.  Love and hate, happy and sad, and like and dislike are the words that can confuse and frustrate us.  Honesty is the weapon we must use to defeat the emotions that threaten to break our relationships.

Honesty in relationships starts with confidence in our selves.  If we have a poor self-image, then we will rely more upon the acceptance of others for validation of our worth.  That means a man with low self-esteem will need the constant reassurance of his partner, demonstrated as possessiveness and sometimes, paranoia, to make him feel worthy.  The man’s jealousy and constant worrying about his partner leaving him is a clear sign of his emotional dependence on his partner.  If the man improves his self-image, he can begin to rely less on feeding his emotional self through the relationship, and honesty can be sought and discovered within the relationship.

When an emotion comes into your heart, look for its root.  If you feel anger, what was said or done to you and how did that challenge your image of yourself?  Is your anger a defensive action that your ego is taking in order to protest your self-image?

When you are embarrassed, is the root of that embarrassment a challenge to your ego that has made you question your beliefs about who and what you are?  If so, then try to see how you are and accept it – this acceptance of how you are is your honesty.

“If you fall down, get up and keep going.”

I ask the children to run a lot in every class.  When a student is first beginning the program and he or she falls while running, they will usually look to the parent to see the parent’s reaction.  If they see that the parent is watching and looks worried then they cry immediately and will run to the parent.  If they don’t see the parent, or if the parent is not watching, then they will stand up and quickly return to running.  (The floors are covered with safety mats so there is seldom any real injury that would force the child to stop.)

When I see a child begin to fall, I say, “If you fall down, get up and keep running.”  This distracts them and directs them back to the running, avoiding any need for them to stop and experience emotional pain.  If I were to go to them and show fear (a natural thing for parents to do when their child falls down), then they would learn that fear is associated with falling.  After a few weeks of classes, the students have an honest understanding of the physical pain associated with falling down while running.

Matt Paquinilli is the Executive Director of the non profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio.

We are encouraged to know ourselves by defining who we are.  This is misguided because the definition of who we are is tied into knowing the truth of how we are.  So first, set out to know how you are.

Some good clues to how you are will be evident in how you react to others.  The weakness of others might really anger you, and there is an answer to the question of how you are.  Prejudice is born of self-hate.  Examine what you hate most about the people you despise, and then examine yourself closely.

Let go of your shortcomings

Your mistakes are proof that you are alive and making progress.  The older we get, the harder it is to forgive ourselves for being imperfect.  Children learn to beat themselves up over their failure by watching us strive to be perfect.  We need to model humanity for our children by accepting and forgiving our shortcomings when they arise.

Learning forgiveness changed my life

This work is very hard and emotionally draining at times.  The most difficult thing about my job is the constant assessment of my personal behavior and, as a result, constantly seeing my shortcomings.  The greatest danger comes when we lose sight of our humanity and deny our weaknesses.

In the fifth year of doing this work, I told a child to shut up.  It was a major breach of self-control and I was devastated.  I wrote a letter of resignation and prepared to quit this work for good.  Because I had expected myself to be perfect, I was shocked when I fell short.

My instructor is a very wise and gifted man.  He refused to let me quit and called me arrogant and proud.  I was shocked and offended.  I thought that of all the things I was, arrogant was not one of them.  My life had been dedicated to serving others through the martial arts.  I made less than ten thousand dollars a year and slept on the floor of the martial arts school.  How could I be proud and arrogant if I were so giving of myself to other people?  His answer changed my life.

“Your success is written on the face of every child you teach.  You can’t see that because you are focused on your one tiny mistake.”  Wow!  The power of that observation allowed me to forgive myself and accept my failure for what it was.  My instructor had turned me around so that I could see where I had come from instead of focusing on where I had not yet gone.

If you want to have great success in your life, then you must expect to make a lot of mistakes.  In order to survive the guilt from these mistakes, you must learn to forgive yourself.  Additionally, if you cannot forgive yourself, you will never be able to fully forgive others, and all of your relationships will break or suffer great distress.

Forgiveness is the message of many of our religions.  When we think of forgiveness, we very often think of forgiveness of others and not ourselves.  The truth is that we will suffer the greatest harm from our own actions and our own words.  We will beat ourselves up far more viscously than anyone else ever can.

In order to forgive, we must see our emotions for what they really are.  A creation of our mind, our emotions are products of a set of beliefs about how we are and how we should be.  No one of us strives to be mean, but at times we are mean.  We don’t want to overindulge, but at times we do.  In some Christian faiths, the Ten Commandments are seen as a list of how every one of us are, the absolution of our souls by the death of Christ is seen by some Christians as forgiveness of our human nature, and a message that we cannot progress in our humanity until we forgive ourselves.  The key to obtaining enlightenment and happiness in many religious beliefs is the acceptance of our humanity.  A famous Buddist koan, (or question asked in order to guide a follower toward enlightenment), asks, “Who was I before I was born, who am I after I am gone, who am I now?”  To answer this question, the student must first confront his or her humanity.

Refusing to forgive ourselves is a defense mechanism that we use to avoid the emotional pain of guilt.  By avoiding this guilt, we are destined to repeat the same mistakes.  In order to face our weakness, we must accept that we are weak and live in the pain of guilt.  Knowing how we are is the first step to forgiving ourselves for being human.

Pride is the enemy of forgiveness and forces us to reject our humanity.  We place ourselves above human frailty by refusing to acknowledge our weaknesses.  Lowering yourself and bowing before the truth of being human is very difficult because of the pain of failure.  Many men and women experience great success in their lives after a great awakening.  The awakening is always precipitated by some great failure, which cannot be overcome by pride.

As children we were encouraged to strive toward independence as defined by self-determination.  The adults in our lives modeled behavior, which taught us that we could control our own destiny if we only work hard enough.  The phrase, “you can do anything if you put your mind to it.” has misguided many of us to believe that we need only to work harder in order to avoid all mistakes and reach the highest level of attainment and achievement.  But success is recognition of our progress and we cannot make progress if we avoid knowing how we are.

Matt Pasquinilli is the Executive Director of the non-profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio.

Respect is widely used when talking about issues that confront our self-esteem.  Human beings have a basic need to be accepted by the rest of humanity.  When rejected by a friend, a lover, a child, or even a stranger, we feel attacked in the center of our being.

Recognizing that disrespect is a form of rejection allows us to isolate our emotion from the reality of the action or words of the person who has shown us disrespect.  By doing so, we will then be able to communicate our needs and wants to that person in order to determine whether or not their action or words were really meant to reject us.  This is an important skill to teach a child who is easily angered by the words or actions of his or her peers at school, or siblings at home.

A child can be taught to control their emotions by using deep and slow breaths, focusing techniques, and other physical and mental tools described in this book.  When a child complains that they feel disliked and unwanted by friends at school or by brothers and sisters at home, then the child can be encouraged to talk to the other child or children about what has happened without the use of emotional language.

Showing respect to parents and teachers

If a parent is to feel respected by their child, that child must apply three skills with consistency.  The first skill is attention, which consists of eye contact, body control, and mental focus.  The second skill a child must apply in order for the parent to feel respected, is doing what the parent tells the child to do.  The last skill a child must apply is completion of his or her own work.  This means keeping their room clean, their body, hair and teeth clean, preparing for and going to bed on time, etc.

Teachers will feel respected when the child applies the same set of rules in the classroom.  Focusing on the teacher during lessons, following the rules of the class, and doing their class and homework.  Because teachers and parents may not always be consistently modeling respectful language and behavior for the child to follow, training the child with these three skills will allow them to consistently apply respect, and the result may be that the adult no longer feels stress from the relationship with the child.  It is sometimes this stress that triggers the adult’s negative response to the behavior of the child, causing the child to be exposed to inappropriate language and behavior.

Matt Pasquinilli is the Executive Director of the non-profit Asian Arts Center Taekwondo School in Dayton, Ohio.