Is Your Life based on the Floor or the Ceiling?
Each new day in a person’s life represent a starting point. Where you start from matters and can immediately determine what the rest of your day is going to look like.
If you choose to begin the day with a “ceiling” attitude, every action you take will be based on being satisfied with doing “what’s required” at work, home, and in the community and nothing more. The mentality is that you’ve lived up to the expected requirements and that’s good enough. You didn’t break the law, hurt anyone, create any problems for yourself, nor make any poor decisions. If life were a game with two choices determining our final outcome in life, beginning each day with a ceiling attitude is selecting choice 1: the “playing not to lose” option in the way you play your personal game of life.
Most of us begin our day with a ceiling attitude because we’ve developed habits and routines that move us through the day without challenges (be they negative OR positive). That way, we’re not required to engage our imagination and creative minds (which studies show stopped growing around the age of seven). We comply. We exist. But were we really put on this earth to live life “playing not to lose?” I mentioned that if life were a game, there could be two choices. Offered to each of us is an alternative to the “playing not to lose” option. It’s choice 2: “Playing to Win” in the way you play your personal game of life.
In my old office I had a saying up on the wall across from my desk that I’d look at every day. The saying said “Mediocrity: Any time we settle for less than who we really are.” It prompted me every day never to settle for the ceiling in anything I was doing. Over time I came to realize great benefits from beginning each day with a floor attitude. The easiest way to explain what this meant is that no matter what I would encounter each day, there was no place to go except for up. By up, I mean a mindset that was always pushing forward…in a positive direction…to a place that was better than where I was starting from…in a place where ceilings didn’t exist.
I worked hard to get past the ceilings didn’t exist part. To do that, I came up with the thought process that acknowledged I would hit ceilings often, but that they were only a temporary barrier that I needed to break through to continue my pursuit of success and excellence on the other side of it. You wouldn’t believe how powerful this mindset is each time you’re faced with problem-solving throughout the day. From simple ceilings to super-hard ceilings, it was this thought process, this mindset that opened up possibilities to break through barriers and enjoy the joy and happiness of getting through the temporary ceiling I had encountered to the place where I previously didn’t know I could get to. It’s been so powerful.
From simple to huge, problem-solving each day determines our level of joy and happiness. If you awoke at the proper time to get ready for work, make the coffee and prepare breakfast for the household, let your dog outside to do their business, get the kids off to daycare and school, calculate if the weather or traffic would impact drive-time, and arrived when you intended at work, your problem-solving skills allowed you to start your day from the floor and there’s no other place to go but up.
Consider what it feels like if you had overslept, didn’t have time to make coffee let alone breakfast, threw the kids in the vehicle with pop-tarts, hadn’t noticed that it had snowed last night slowing traffic down, dropped the kids off late at daycare and school, and walked into work an already defeated individual 20 minutes late. At that point the ceiling height has doubled and your chance of reaching where you minimally need to be that day, just to have a mediocre day, has all but vanished.
I read something recently that pertained to the floor versus ceiling perspective I’m sharing today. It said: You don’t rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your habits. Dreams are easy. Discipline is rare. What you do on the hard days matters more than what you plan on the good ones. This also reminds me of an Abraham Lincoln quote: Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most. I’m convinced that what we all want most in life is consistent joy and happiness.
Two choices each morning to begin your day. With time, one of these choices will become a habit for you. You can start your day from the floor, playing to win, with no ceiling in sight, or you can start your day from the self-created ceiling that you’re just going to attempt to reach in hopes of having another mediocre day of life.
Please don’t begin your day with a ceiling or “playing not to lose” approach. You were given a brain that has the ability to do anything that anyone else’s brain can do. You were given an education where your brain learned how to flex its muscles and grow in its ability to problem-solve. Your skills and abilities will constantly grow until the day you leave this earth. There really isn’t anything that isn’t possible for you, if in your heart you truly want it and it’s good for you and others. Get busy beginning each day from the floor with no ceiling in sight. Hey…I Believe In YOU! GiddyUp!