There is some evidence to support that mantras work. Not in the mystic, woo woo kind of way but the practice of focusing and refocusing our minds daily on our key goal does have a positive effect.
Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, talked to Tim Ferris about this. Business leaders are finding mantras to be helpful in life and work. In practice, we say or write our goal 20 times a day, every day for days, or months, or years and eventually we will get there.
I will the Powerball. I will win the Powerball. I will win the Powerball….
I don’t think that kind of mantra will get me anywhere but setting my sights on goals that are reasonably within my control may.
Which makes me wonder that if personal mantras work how about organizational mantras? Or community mantras? Or even industry mantras?
I wonder if this is a particularly good time to develop a mantra for the association community? Our industry is in the midst of a revolution. Change is happening and it is happening faster and faster which puts a lot of pressure on associations. Additionally we have really urgent daily demands (host the conference, send out the newsletter, get out renewals) which makes it hard to focus on those bigger goals. A mantra may help all of us stay on track.
What should it be? I’m feeling partial to:
Facing our member problems together, moving onward together.
The foundation for our future is about understanding our members’ challenges. Once we understand those challenges we go about developing solutions which move our members and association onward.
I’m open to suggestions however. Is there a mantra that would help us move our associations ahead? If you are a subscriber just hit reply or contact me or send your thoughts to me on Twitter.
Onward!
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