You will never reach your destination if…

Winston Churchill famously said:

“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”

This time of global change is bringing us many ‘barking dogs’. And if we stop to throw stones at all of them, we will never reach our goal.

The Churning, Inner Leadership contains several tools that can keep us focused and on track:

• The ability to stay calm in a crisis, make clear sense of our situation, and connect with what matters most to us will help us to recognise which barking dogs are important and which can be ignored 
• For the dogs that matter, it is useful to know that we have five options for deciding how much energy to devote to each and five types of outcomes we might choose to create, making ten ways in total that we might choose to respond
• Knowing our values will enable us to deal with each dog more quickly and bring us more energy and enthusiasm as we do so
• And once we have dealt with the barking dog, being clear about our destination, our destiny, the way we want to live our life, will help us quickly turn to face in the right direction  again
• Choosing the next step will get us moving 
• And knowing how to inspire ourselves and others to do what needs to be done will help us to keep moving as we inevitably encounter our next ‘barking dog’

We will never reach our destination if we stop to throw stones at every dog that barks.

Which means that knowing which dogs to ignore, and how to deal more quickly with the ones that matter, are two more steps towards becoming antifragile.

Are there any ‘barking dogs’ in your life at the moment? Which are best ignored? And would you like to find more ways to deal with the ones that matter, and inspire yourself to do what needs to be done? 

Adapted from The Churning, Inner Leadership: a framework and a set of tools for building inspiration in a time of change.

You can sign up to daily posts here.

You can buy the book here and the workbook here.

(And remember: you can’t learn to swim just by reading about swimming, you also need to do the practice.)

Photo from Wikipedia