Part 6: Personal Renaissance – Undo the Undone: “Halftime Report”

It’s time to recapture what we’ve accomplished to date. This month’s retrospection is necessary, as we’ve been pursuing our Personal Renaissance together since November 15, 2012. That’s quite a long time ago.

Why is it important to break here at halftime, and do a quick post mortem?

Because following this kind of real-time endeavor can feel somewhat drawn out or “unstructured” compared to a reading a book. If a book titled “Personal Renaissance – Undo the Undone” ever came out you would likely read it in a week or so. That’s not possible here, so stopping for a moment to reflect helps cement your progress.

As the process unfolds 30 days at a time, each month you implement a new initiative, and receive your own “bio-feedback” in real time. By trial, error, stopping, starting, forgetting, remembering, questioning, and, most important, experiencing, you’re beginning to realize the transformative process that is a Personal Renaissance.

Your Personal Renaissance should now be helping you identify what you’re realistically capable of attaining spiritually, mentally, physically, and professionally, and then break the circuitry of self-defeating behavioral patterns that create impediments to you arriving there, and replace them with new, aspirational DNA.

Now, to be sure it sticks, let’s spend this month doing a quick review of the past five parts, reviewing what they were and the most important aspects of each. You’ll see a link to the entire part in each summary below. Be sure to click it and re-read each part in its entirety if the summary isn’t sufficient.

Also, for those who are late or just joining the Personal Renaissance journey, it’s not at all too late to do so. This short review of the Personal Renaissance process to date will get you caught up to speed and ready to finish strong!

If you haven’t already, be sure to join our Personal Renaissance group page on Facebook:

Let’s start at the beginning (https://www.frank-mckinney.com/press.asp?article=168), where I defined a Personal Renaissance as remaking and reconnecting with all that was, is and will be great about you, and exceeding your known definition of greatness in the process.

When I began my own Personal Renaissance, the setbacks, failures, challenges and obstacles to “succeeding in the business of life” had been the most daunting and formidable in all my years in business, as an author, and as one who teaches others. And when I decided to share what I was undertaking, it was because I felt it was the best time to take you on this transformative journey with me, and for you to use me as your test subject with the belief that you, too, would be able to successfully complete a Personal Renaissance that wouldtouch many aspects of your life.

The opportunity to successfully complete a Personal Renaissance doesn’t come around often, perhaps only a handful of times in our lives. So this was a chance to effect lasting personal growth, and to go as far as altering your DNA (the moving from inspiration to aspiration) in order to change the mind of fate itself. It would require focused thought and unswerving commitment.

I invited you. In testament to your own readiness and strength of will, you accepted.

Then we were off and running. In Part 2 (https://www.frank-mckinney.com/press.asp?article=170), you learned how to create a blank worksheet called “My Renaissance” (a revitalized version of my once prized and religiously used priority sheets), but I counseled you to hold off on implementation. You were to TYT—take your time—and choose the focus of your Personal Renaissance wisely, and then let a month pass while these aspirations took root in your mind, heart, and soul.

Think back and consider what you chose for yourself and how you did it. I remember that, for me, the areas came out of some raw reflection on recent events, on some very real failures. I shared those with you, not to provoke some kind of agreement in our complaints about the world, but instead to show you that, just like you, I’m working on a Personal Renaissance with serious meaning in my life. This process of Personal Renaissance would focus on three prime areas. The areas I chose were:

Our guideline was that the first area cover the spiritual, mental, and physical areas of life; the second be about professional highest calling (where you make a living); and the third was to “Undo the Undone.” This last piece is all about finishing something significant that you started, began and failed at, thought you had pursued for the last time—or turning a longstanding dream into a reality. Undoing an initiative that’s undone simply means reversing or altering an initial outcome and completing it beyond your initial expectations.

Once we’d put this all together and set up the worksheets (samples are on the Facebook group page, by the way), what was going to govern our efforts to implement? What was going to keep us accountable? What would keep us on track? What was going to keep the passion fire lit when it dimmed? Enter the “Vision Statement for My Renaissance.”

This is like a personal constitution. Just as the United States has a constitution, so should every individual have one, and you were guided to create an entirely new one that would apply specifically to the three areas of your Personal Renaissance.

Again, I counseled you to TYT. To be patient. To reflect. To review Part 2 more than once in the time that passed between this effort—defining the areas of your Personal Renaissance, putting together your worksheet, writing your vision statement—and the next step, which would be implementation, coming in Part 3.

Once you’d taken the time to contemplate and commit to your Personal Renaissance and your vision statement for it, you were ready to make your first entries into your boxes on the My Renaissance sheet, then get going with them! Time to start! Implement! Execute! No more planning.

To help you with the process and make it easy to see how the sheet might be completed, I uploaded some samples and gave a full description of the process (https://www.frank-mckinney.com/press.asp?article=171).

The objective in this first month of using the My Renaissance priority sheets was to help you gain confidence by “banking” some early successes with your first few entries. To do this, you made sure they weren’t overly ambitious—not yet—and gave yourself plenty of time to implement them in order to increase your chance of success.

There was one exception regarding not being too ambitious just yet, though: the first entry in your first box, which was about turning around to the imaginary chalkboard of life and preparing to erase what you wanted cleansed from your being. To use a more technical metaphor, it was about rebooting, but doing so not just by hitting restart, but also by turning off your internal hard drive altogether, taking it out and cleansing it in the purest manner you can imagine.

What kind of cleanse did you choose for yourself? The key was to break the circuitry of unproductive habit, a sort of shock therapy to jolt you from your impediments and clear the way for all the good that you have laid out in front of you.

I undertook what some may think is extreme, a “master cleanse” that touched and cleared all three aspects (spiritual/physical/mental) simultaneously. While I was performing this most important (and difficult) first element, I did not try to tackle anything else. I wanted to devote my full energy to the cleansing process before moving to the rebuilding. I didn’t even look at My Renaissance sheet for those 6 days, although I had already filled it in, with 10 of 15 available boxes awaiting my action.

Whatever you chose, it was to last a minimum of 6 consecutive days to allow the circuitry to clear. This should have promoted then induced an actual physical cleanse, which led to the mental purifying, and finally spiritual clarity. Once complete, you were completely ready to begin the rebuilding, rebranding and resurrecting.

So the first week was about cleansing, and the next three were about action: moving forward toward the Personal Renaissance you had envisioned and then designed for yourself.

Periodically throughout the month—once a week or if you experienced a significant breakthrough or challenge—you were to turn over your worksheet and jot down your thoughts on how you felt you were doing in progressing toward the completion of the initiatives on the front. By the end of each given month the back of your My Renaissance sheets would be full of reflections.

Take a minute now to turn over your worksheets and read what you’ve written there. By now, you should have three of these to review … What successes and setbacks were you experiencing?

In this installment (https://www.frank-mckinney.com/press.asp?article=174), we confronted the inevitable. We prepared for what to do when the excitement of starting your Personal Renaissance began to subside. Indeed, it happened to me, and it probably happened to you: the passion flame that blazed so bright that first month dimmed or even burned out completely.

But I got through it stronger than ever, and if you’re reading this, I know you did, too!

It’s part of our nature to be stimulated (often overstimulated) by the pursuit—the chase, the idea, the concept, the promise—and then become discouraged or even bored when we feel we aren’t seeing results as quickly as we want. Sadly, and to the detriment of our highest calling, we seldom allow ourselves to complete something important we started. It’s true with something as small as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or as big as a process as a Personal Renaissance.

Believe me, I understand. In the beginning of something new, there’s a rush. Adrenaline. Infatuation. Whatever you want to call it, we experience some sensation as the endorphins flood the body and the mind feels expanded by new possibilities. And that’s exactly what we need to get the flywheel spinning, the momentum underway. It’s a wholly natural process that dates back to the days when humans had to hunt to survive.

Yet there’s another, equally powerful part of our nature that we can tap into after the initial thrill is gone but before we’ve “caught” whatever we’re chasing. Back when we were running after our dinner, we were also taking the time to make our own tools, to carve our spears and arrows. (Hmmm, TYT.) Day after day, we weaved baskets and ground grains. We took days to walk or ride distances we now cover in hours.

If you’ve read my books, you know about the “lunch-pail approach” (Part 3, pages 109-150 of my book Make it BIG!). That’s exactly what I mean here: showing up every day, no matter what, ready to do what needs to be done. I call it the lunch-pail approach because it’s what I see on construction sites: guys arriving at the job, lunch pail in hand, prepared to put in a full 8+ hours of backbreaking labor. That kind of work ethic is at the heart of every true business success. Truly, it’s at the heart of any hard-earned success.

So, I offered these 4 simple tips for keeping your passion fire blazing and suggested you refer to them often:

1) Accept. These lulls in enthusiasm are part of human nature. When the urge to quit pulls at you, remember you’re not alone, that this is predictable, and that you can get past it. While it’s perfectly normal for the blush to wear off the rose, you also have an innate ability to persevere. Even if you haven’t demonstrated much self-discipline recently, you absolutely have it in you. Use it! Stay with it.

2) Appreciate. Look at last month’s worksheet. What did you do well? What would you have missed out on if you hadn’t ever started your Personal Renaissance? What would you have not accomplished if you quit a month early? Revisit your early successes. Appreciate and celebrate them again. Remind yourself of why you began in the first place.

3) Simplify. If managing your My Renaissance sheets gets tedious or complicated, or if they feel like work, then strip it down. Write less. Do more.

4) Reconnect. Recognize that there are things on our lists that are more exciting than others. So it’s important to remind yourself that they’re all connected, that the mundane, lunch-pail items support and reinforce the ones that give you more juice. Be sure you don’t rush to the juicier ones—TYT and use the anticipation to keep you fired up.

Now we’ve come to a very important aspect of successfully completing your Personal Renaissance, “Undoing the Undone” (https://www.frank-mckinney.com/press.asp?article=175). Let’s start by restating the definition: Finishing something significant that you started, began and failed at, thought you had pursued for the last time; or turning a longstanding dream into a reality. Undoing an initiative that is undone simply means reversing or altering an initial outcome and completing it beyond your initial expectations.

Inside this definition, you identified an initiative in your life, considering four questions: 1) What did you start that you didn’tfinish? 2) What did you start and fail at? 3) What have you thought you’d pursued for the last time? 4) What long-standing dream would you love to turn into a reality?

Certain initiatives may have crossed over into more than one, or even all, of the four areas, and that’s fine—that’s ideal, really, if you think about what a Renaissance Man or Renaissance Woman really is. Your completion of undoing at least one undone in your life is crucial to re-establishing self-building behavioral patterns. Undoing at least one undone has a bearing on the quality of the rest of your life. It’s just that important!

My own Undo the Undone is the Badwater 135-mile Death Valley ultramarathon. As I shared with you before, I failed to finish this race in 2012, despite having successfully done so six times before. That DNF (“did not finish”) broke my heart, but not my spirit. In February, I submitted 2013’s application to the Badwater race selection committee and prayed that I’d receive an invitation. No guarantee that I’d get to run again: typically 100 people are invited from a pool of close to 1,000 qualified applicants. There are often more than 20 countries represented by those 100 invitees.

I was humbled and honored to have received my acceptance into this year’s race later that month. So I’ll return to Death Valley on July 15 this summer, ready to toe the line for 135 grueling miles in pursuit of my seventh finish there.

July will be the same month we finish this “race” we’re running together, the Personal Renaissance. So I had to ask, What would you consider your life’s Badwater? What one thing exemplifies the “rebuilding” part of your Personal Renaissance? What one thing, when you attempt it and possibly achieve it, will reconnect you with all that was, is and will be great about you, and exceed your known definition of greatness in the process?

Undoing an Undone in your life has been in front of you since defining and beginning your Personal Renaissance process. It is so important that an entire Part (5) of this 9-part real-time process was devoted to it. Look again at the definition. Realize the importance of undoing an undone in your life.

I leave this part asking you a very important question. Have you identified at least one, and are your pursuing it?

So that’s where we are today. We’ve come quite a way since November, haven’t we?!

See you soon for Part 7…, and let’s finish strong!

P.S. We may have one or two spots left for our www.HaitiTrip2013.com. Email me or call Doug at 585.721.9922 if you would like to reserve the last seat.

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