(Blog4) Living Top 20 means to be the best version of yourself, to live up to your potential by eliminating roadblocks, and to make a positive difference in your own life and in the lives of others. Is Living Top 20 worth the effort? Complaining, blaming and waiting for other people to change are dysfunctional habits that lead nowhere. It’s going to take a little awareness, commitment and effort to hang out in the Top 20 stratosphere, but it’ll be worth the investment! There are three major reasons that this lifestyle will pay off for you.
Reason #3: MAKING DECISIONS
Top 20s avoid making important decisions when they are using their Bottom 80 Thinking. It’s not that they run from their problems. Rather, they do first things first. Before getting to the decision, Top 20s get their thinking right, and then deal with the problem.
There is a tried and true Top 20 principle that has been proven time and time again. When you make a decision in B80 mode, you almost always make a mess. You then have to clean up the mess before moving on.
Think about a parent whose teenager is late for curfew, especially if they are driving a car. Shortly after the teen is due home, the parent starts the slide into Bottom 80 mode: they are nervous, apprehensive, angry…or all of the above. At the same time, the teenager is starting to slide into their own version of Bottom 80 thinking, fearful of the parental response. This is a recipe for disaster. When these two B80s collide (after 1:30 a.m.!), the results are predictably negative. The parent overreacts, the teenager makes excuses, and eventually poor decisions are made on both ends. The parent decides to ground the teenager for a month, only to realize the next day that that decision made no sense. The teenager makes poor decisions as well, telling the parent that they are clueless and overprotective. Both parties make a mess with their B80 thinking.
People who want to be effective are aware of these three concepts. They know that they are constantly developing Mental Habits, they are fully aware that they see things differently when they are in B80 mode, and they avoid making decisions until they can get their thinking straight.
