Personal Development;Life Enhancement;Achievement
Posts tagged des moines executive coaching
New Year’s Resolutions Part Three
Jan 5th
“Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.” ~Henry Ward Beecher
Happy 2009! Is this going to be a wonderful year for you and yours? I hope so. I certainly intend that this be the best year that I have experienced so far. How about you? What are your intentions? What are your goals? Would you like to make this your best year ever? Would you more than like it – would you love it – do you want it so much that you can taste it? Then read on (and make a habit of reading this blog. We are going to go on some great adventures together this year!)
Last time I shared my blogging goal. I must tell you that sharing that goal made me a little uneasy. When it was a private goal, I could easily make excuses to myself. But I am tired of making excuses to myself – I want to see my dreams living and breathing right in front of me and accomplishing that will take action and lots of it! So, I made a public commitment. I can feel the power of that commitment even as I write these words.
So, here are all of my Top Five Commitments for 2009
Health: I will return to my optimal bodyweight before the end of 2009.
Family: My wife and I will take our family to New York for a great vacation to celebrate my elder daughter’s completion of her graduate program.
Business: I will blog 5 days per week – every week of 2009.
Finances: I will earn more in 2009 than I ever have before – at least 25% more.
Fun: I will run in the USA’s largest cross-country race: The Living History Farms Seven Miler.
By the way, each of these resolutions or goals is what one of my old bosses called a “bhag” Bhag: a big hairy audacious goal – a goal of tremendous importance that a first may seem daunting or impossible, but upon reflect is realized to be so desirable that you will do whatever it takes to make it happen. I just love that term.
Are these all of my goals for 2009? Not even close. But these are the drivers – these are the goals that will ensure that all of the other ones get done. Next time, I will talk about how I will use these on a daily basis to make sure that I accomplish my goals for 2009 (and have a great time along the way!).
Bye for now…Jack
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” ~Victor Frankl
New Year’s Resolutions Part Two
Jan 2nd
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce
Greetings.
In my last entry I made a public commitment to blogging Monday thru Friday for an entire year. Why did I do this?
1) When I commit in public I am more likely to take the action. I have more motivation to fulfill my promises to others than I have to fulfill my promises to myself. (This is a very common response. At least initially, it is easier to use this than to change this.)
2) I want to get a number of books published – books that I have been working on for years. By writing every day, I intend to get these finished.
3) I want to instill the habit of writing everyday. Some days I may feel like it. Some days I may not. However I feel, however easy or hard writing may be that day, I intend to show up and do my best. This will be a great change for me.
4) I have received so many benefits from blogging already, even with my fitful writing efforts. New clients, speaking engagements, much greater credibility – all of these and more have come about because I have blogged. If I received so many rewards with a little blogging, how much more might I expect with a lot of blogging?
5) A Monday thru Friday focus on blogging will also naturally drive me to complete the other projects in my business growth plans. My own products for sale, affiliate sales, newsletter releases, website enhancement – all of these will be driven and in some ways demanded by regular blogging.
So that is the explanation of the blogging commitment. I also initially decided to set a goal, a resolution, in 5 categories of my life. Those categories are:
My Five Commitments / Categories for 2009
Health
Family
Business
Finances
Fun
I will share more about these in later entries. For now, for you, if you could focus on and create one great goal in each of those five areas for yourself, what would those goals be?
Till next time…Jack
“Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.” ~Author Unknown
Goals Part 4
Oct 12th
“Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.” ~Larry Lorenzoni
I recently had a birthday and I found myself in a very self-reflective mood that day. I believe that I have significant control over my emotional states and reactions and I could have changed this one, since it showed up unplanned, but I decided to go with self-reflection and see what it offered me.
It offered me this: What could I do – achieve, by my next birthday, that would be a wonderful gift to myself? I found this exciting to think about. I have an entire year to work. Now, what can I do in that time, for me, that will make my next birthday a real treat? This was fun! I spent the next hour or so walking around and doing a mini-goal setting session.
What could I achieve related to:
My body – my physical health?
My finances – my savings and investments?
My business – my coaching and writing and speaking?
My family?
My skills and talents – my toolbox of things that I know how to do?
It isn’t that I haven’t looked at all of these things many times in the past. I have. I am a dedicated and habitual goal setter. The difference was that I was looking at the achieving of the goals as a gift – a gift to myself! This change in perspective was powerful for me! Instead of looking at my goals as something that I needed to do, now I had added the feeling that achieving these things was something I got to do and it was a gift. I felt different and more empowered.
So, let me ask you this: What would you like to achieve, before your next birthday, that would be a gift to yourself? What would you like to do that once done, would make you feel great, or proud, or free, or satisfied or whatever way you would like to feel? Try this. If you only have a few days until your birthday, then choose something small – perhaps something you have been procrastinating – and do it and get it done and then on your birthday – celebrate!
If you have more time, then you can go thru an entire goals setting process as I am laying it out here and add the perspective of a gift to yourself. I believe it will make a difference for both you and I.
Till next time…Jack
“Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.” ~Jennifer Yane
Goals Part 3
Sep 15th
“Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.” ~Wayne Dyer (born 1940) a popular American self-help advocate, author and lecturer. His 1976 book Your Erroneous Zones has sold over 30 million copies and is one of the best selling books of all time.
Books and more books! I love them! So, what does that personal admission have to do with goals and how you can achieve them more consistently and rapidly and have more fun along the way? Simple. I bought a bunch more great books, at least highly rated books, about goals and I am going to be giving you the best of these over the next few weeks as I absorb them.
Here is the exciting list of my newest purchases:
Get the Life You Want by Richard Bandler (I started here – Richard is a genius!)
The 29% Solution by Ivan Misner
The Magic Lamp by Keith Ellis
Goals! by Brian Tracy
Write it Down, Make it Happen by Henriette Klauser
Anatomy of an Illness by Norman Cousins (Goals with a medical twist)
I can’t wait to incorporate the best of these into my knowledge base and share it with you! Come back soon!
Till next time…Jack
“To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.” ~William James (1842 – 1910) a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher trained as a medical doctor. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology and mysticism, among others.
Goals Part 1
Sep 3rd
“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.” ~Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885) a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France; perhaps best known for Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Do you like to dream? Have you been known as a dreamer? Have you ever been told to “stop daydreaming and get your head out of the clouds”? Wonderful! Great! Good for you! Those skills will serve you well and the process of goal creation is going to be easy for you.
If you are highly practical, if you like to always stay “down to earth”, if big dreams seem wrong or grandiose or ridiculous to you, then you might find the process of goal creation, as I teach it, a bit of a stretch. Go ahead – stretch with me. You can always be practical tomorrow.
All, and I mean all, of my coaching around goal creation and goal achievement starts with dreaming. I start with dreaming because it works – when my clients and seminar attendees begin with dreaming, they achieve more, faster, and with more pleasure along the way. I also use dreaming as a critical beginning element of the process of goal setting because my teachers and mentors also believe in the power of dreams. Anthony Robbins, Jim Rohn, Lee Pulos, Brian Tracy – all of these great teachers and many more incorporate dreaming into their work.
I am not sure how long this series of articles will be yet. I have been doing some very ambitious goal setting of my own lately and this process has been much on my mind. I also just ordered 5 new books related to goals, books written since my last indepth study of the topic, and there may be some new ideas to discuss. So, this series will last as long as it needs to. I promise you this though, follow along and you will get to your dreams faster and have more fun along the way.
Till next time…Jack
“Dreams are illustrations… from the book your soul is writing about you.” ~Marsha Norman
(born 1947]) is an American playwright, screenwriter, television writer and novelist.