Latest / Wanzology / Stopping To Evaluate
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- Stopping To Evaluate Do do do do do-do do do do! Do do do do do-do, awwww, that’s the way, uh-huh like it, uh-huh uh-huh!!! HI!! Hey, what's going on? Welcome to another episode of WANZOLOGY!!! I am your host, The Wanz, and yes, I am digging on the fact that it's Wednesday again, and if it's Wednesday, you know there's gonna be another episode of this podcast. I hope that you and yours are doing well. I hope that life is treating you appropriately, meaning I hope that how you're being treated in life is directly connected to how you are acting in life. because actions have the consequences, and if the consequences are bad, it may or may not be because of the action that preceded it. Yes, you may be the cause of your own challenges, but how do you know? How can you be sure? Well, one way you can be sure is to make sure to evaluate. Evaluate where you're at at any given time. I've said it before, anything that has a beginning and an end is a process, but the question usually becomes, where am I in the process? How do I know where I am in the process? Well, that comes from evaluating where you are. Say you went out hiking somewhere, you're in the woods and you've already passed the trailhead, and boom, boom, boom, you're walking, walking, walking. You're in the woods, blah, blah, blah. Well, how do you know? How do you know when you're halfway? You can see where the destination is I mean, there's, there's signs that point you in that direction, but rarely do they tell you how far you have to go they will tell you how far you've gone. So if you don't know how far it is to the destination, how can you possibly evaluate your progress? That works with pretty much any process. How do you know where you are in any process? Well, you have to evaluate where you are versus where you are going. Where's your destination? Is there a faster way of getting there? Maybe you are heading in the wrong direction and it's adding time to how much time it takes to get to the destination. Maybe you need to enlist the help of someone who knows the way better than you. Maybe you're just barking up the wrong tree to begin with, but all these are a result of evaluating where you're at. I have a song called “Ya Gotta”, and the second verse goes, “So where are you at? What's your position? Are you gonna pack it in Or keep it pushin Or turn your head and just ignore Your fear could be your absolution Bet’chu never thought Things could get this deep Where you couldn't see the ceiling or the floor. You didn't get this far Just by being lucky, It took some power to fight for something more You gotta choose what you're gonna do, You gotta trust, you'll make it through, You gotta feel like you're in the mix, Take a deep breath, you got this, You gotta see what comes next, You gotta give all your best, You gotta leave all the rest, Ya gotta! ya gotta!” Yeah, i t's off of my last EP called #NDY, Not Done Yet is what the ‘N-D-Y’ stands for. Back to the evaluation question. How do you measure progress? It's pretty easy when, say you're getting dishes in the dishwasher to start the dishwasher. Some of them you have to rinse off or maybe scrub a little bit, but you put 'em in there and when the dishwasher is full or there's no more dishes, you put the cleaning solution in there or the powder, whatever you use, close the door and you press the button and poof, the dishes are gonna get washed. But if you are trying to fish through to find all the knives to put those in their appropriate slot, and you have to get through the saucers in order to get to the spoons, then get to the knives. When you actually get to the spoons, how many more things are you gonna have to get through in order to get to what you're looking for? That's what I mean by evaluation. What if you decide I would like to get myself some lunch? Well, what is the process that you go through to determine what's good to eat? Is it healthy? Is there a drive-thru? Do I have the money? What's closest? What's gonna take the least amount of time? What's gonna take the most amount of time? You have to know where you are in order to answer any one of those questions. So you see the whole evaluation process could be and should be ongoing. If you monitor your progress as you go, you most often will find out where you are in the process, and that is what helps you determine which way to go next. Makes sense to me. Remember when you were a kid and you were mowing the lawn, it just seemed like it never ended, but all of a sudden you look up and it's, oh, I've only got like two more passes to do, or I may have to empty the basket just one more time and I'll be done. That's evaluation. Or if you're eating something, when there's one or two bites left, you're almost done. What about when you're one or two bites into the meal and you're not close to being done, that's still an evaluation. How do you do this in your day-to-day life? That's a very good question. If you're anything like me, you have many things going on all at once, so this whole evaluation thing can be a challenge. It's not just one process that you're in, it could be like five of them. So being able to understand where you are in five different processes, man, that could be challenging. But what's worse, knowing where you're at, or guessing? Because when you guess there's a good chance you're gonna be wrong and that will cost you time. Since you can't replace time, you must use your time effectively. Namely, the best right answer to whatever question you ask. Evaluation is actually more ongoing than you think it is. When you're at the store getting groceries, how do you know you're taking longer than usual? How do you know you've got to hurry up or you don't have to hurry up because you know you got time. These are results from evaluation. When's the last time you went to a concert? You remember that feeling when the house lights are still on and they're playing the background music, when the hell is this thing gonna start? Oh, there they go. The house lights have been turned off. Everybody starts cheering and now you realize that one part of the process, the waiting, is almost over. Or how do you know when the concert's over and you need to like try to beat everybody out and get to your car so that you don't have to sit in your car forever and a day trying to get to a road that will take you home rather than just sitting in traffic. Well, you don't unless, you understand how many songs the band is gonna play and what an actual ending looks like, sounds like, and then the house lights come on. 'cause the house lights never come on before the show is done. Evaluation is this important? I think it is. I think it's very important to, number one, understand which process you are evaluating, how you are evaluating it, what is determined from that evaluation and how many processes you have yet to evaluate. You're already doing it, you just don't realize that's what you're doing because most of us are pretty intuitive. What do you trust Your intuition? A lot of people say they do a lot of people say, “Oh, I trust my gut.”, well, what if your gut leads you astray and you end up wandering in the woods lost in whatever process you're in? How did you know that was gonna happen? You probably didn't, but once you understand that it has, then what do you do? Guess what? You have to evaluate again, only to figure out how do I get back on track. If the goal is to reach a destination, it always makes sense to take your bearings and know where you are. Not only when you're wandering in the wasteland of the woods, but also when you're in the city streets or when you're driving in the country, walking in the mall or some department store, it doesn't matter. The process is still gonna be the process. You're gonna have to figure out, or at least remind yourself of where you are so that you understand how much more of this you're gonna have to take, or how much longer you get to enjoy whatever it is you're doing. It's all about the process. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. Some processes, you want the middle to be as long as possible, like life. Some processes you want them to be over as soon as possible, like a trip to the dentist for an extraction. What do you think makes sense to you? Sure makes sense to me. Let me leave you with this. If you get lost five miles into the woods, how far are you gonna have to come out to be unlost? Five miles right, but what's the difference? The difference is coming out changed you because of the experience. Not all who wander are lost. There are those who are just exploring for the sake of exploring and usually those folks are those who know where they are in any given process they're in. I'm talking about hiking in the woods, but don't you think that the same ideals can be transposed and imprinted on every process you encounter? Maybe, try it! See what happens! See how you feel! There's no such thing as too much knowledge y'all, and the more you know, the more you can do. So make sure to get your evaluating cap on, be honest with yourself, and don't be mad if you get lost. You're the one who's doing all the navigation. Be accountable, be safe, be real and for God's sakes, take care of yourself. Yeah, that's all I got this week. I'll see you later, BYE!!!