Personal Development;Life Enhancement;Achievement
Posts tagged goal setting
A Bit About Goal Setting
Sep 1st
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
As I write this, I am sitting in a coffee shop on the South side of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have just finished walking for an hour around Lake Calhoun, one of the beautiful string of lakes and parks that help to make this city such a delight. Even though I am traveling on business here today, I made time for this walk – regular walking is a critical component to my achieving the goal that I shared last time. (The weather here is so nice today, it really was not a challenge at all to get myself out walking – today the challenge was to quit at an hour!)
I am going to be sharing just a bit more about my health goal for next year. I’m doing this for a couple of reasons. First, I want to clearly state to the world, and of course myself, exactly what I am going to do. (The how I am going to do this comes later – I certainly don’t know all of the how yet, but I have faith that I will find it.) Second, some of the ways that I have formed this goal, and am now committing to it, may be of use to some of my readers.
To recap, last time I shared that I had committed to the goal of getting myself back in shape in the coming twelve months. I made this goal public on this blog to get leverage on myself. Getting leverage on yourself can be a very good thing indeed. So can making a public commitment to getting something accomplished. I realized today that I had not been very specific in the details that I shared about that goal. Here are those missing specifics:
- By July 1st, 2011, I will weigh no more than 195 lbs (dressed in summer workout gear including shoes). This is very specific.
- My bodyfat percentage will be no more than 15% and I will have this professionally measured by a personal trainer at my health club.
- I will also be very aerobically fit. I will measure that this way: I will be jogging at least 3 times per week for at least 30 minutes each time at a pace no slower than 10 minutes per mile. Additionally, I will be bike riding at least 3 times per week for at least 1 hour each time at a pace no slower than 10 miles per hour.
Now that is a decently written goal for me and here are some of the reasons why:
- It is doable in the time frame (barely!).
- It is very measurable.
- It does take into account some larger aspects of my life. (I must be aerobically fit and has a healthy ending bodyfat percentage – it isn’t just about my ending weight.)
- Accomplishing this goal will open up lots of other aspects of my life as well.
Okay. Enough for today about my getting in great shape goal. Here is a question for you: Should you always share your goals publicly? I say no. Next time I’ll talk more about the why and why not of this.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“It is never too late to be who you might have been.” ~George Eliot
Planning for Success Part Four
Feb 7th
Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says, “I am coming.” ~Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), Minor Poems, Copa
Greetings! How have you been since my last entry? Hopefully great! Last time we looked at my list of 20 reasons why I was going to do what it takes to get back into great shape in 2009. I also talked briefly about towards motivation and away from motivation. For many goals, for many of my clients, I will have them only look at towards (positive) motivations. I do this for good reason, negative motivators are by nature stress inducing and one thing most of my clients tend to already have enough of is stress. When you focus just on moving away from something, then you will feel stress.
Is negative motivation always bad then? No. Negative motivation is often, even commonly, more powerful than positive motivation. Given that, when you really need to get something done, and especially if you have tried to make a change in the past and it did not happen, then it becomes a good idea to use negative and positive motivation.
For me, I have been trying to get back into shape since I became a non-smoker. I have gotten most of the way there and gotten out of shape again. I have lost weight again and again only to gain it back. I have lost, conservatively, 500 pounds in the past 12 years and yet here I am, still virtually the same weight. I could be depressed about this; I could even give up, but I am not going to. This time things will be very different and you will see why as this series of articles progresses and the year goes on!
My Vision for Optimal Health
(Here is the first draft of my personal vision that I will use to help me get back in shape. It is a work in progress, I will update it whenever I find a way to make it feel even better, work even better, motivate me even more fully.)
I wake up in the morning feeling great – feeling completely rested and energized. More >
Planning for Success Part Two
Feb 4th
“To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.” ~Seneca
Vision. This entry will talk about the process of creating a vision; creating a vision as part of the process of making a plan to achieve a specific goal. I know that I just finished an entire nine part series about creating a vision and I shared that information on this blog. Still, this will come after “vision” from a slightly different angle and it is information well worth having.
Before we talk about vision again, I’m going to share a bit of backstory. Some of you know that I am a certified NLP Practitioner. Some of you even know what that means – at least in the field of self-improvement and self-development. For all of you though, and for me, I am going to start sharing some of my NLP history and experiences in this blog. NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is such a powerful set of skills and learnings and it is a key set of techniques that I continually call upon to help my clients and myself. How did I get involved in NLP and what does that have to do with “vision?’ Still more backstory is needed for that.
Backstory
So now, I am stepping into the “Wayback Machine.” (Quick, anyone remember where that phrase comes from?) In 1984, I was hired by a small start-up in Southern California, my first job after college. I was hired as an accountant and what a wild and great experience I had there. The two founders of this company, George Handgis and Bob McNulty, had a vision of creating the largest Home Improvement Centers chain in the USA. Armed with drive, seemingly unshakeable self-confidence, and not much money, they very nearly made it. More >
Planning for Success Part One
Feb 3rd
“Come to the edge, He said.
They said: We are afraid.
Come to the edge, He said.
They came. He pushed them,
And they flew . . .”
~Guillaume Apollinaire – French poet
This is going to be a multi-post series of articles about planning. I am going to show the exact techniques that I teach to my clients and I am going to illustrate these techniques by creating my own plan for getting back in shape.
In the last entry I shared and clarified the goal: “I will return to my optimal bodyweight before the end of 2009.” became “I will return to 195 pounds of bodyweight by the morning of December 31st, 2009.”
So the first step was to clarify the goal – to make sure that it was easy to understand and told my brain exactly what I wanted to achieve by what date. (By the way, if there is some big goal that you really want to accomplish, you might consider taking it through this process with me. I know that you will find it useful.) So, now I have my goal and my deadline. The next question that I am going to ask is: Is it possible to achieve this, is it reasonable to achieve this, in the time that I have allowed? I believe yes, just!
Let me explain. I have 11 months to achieve this weight loss and I currently weigh around 330 pounds. I intend to return to my ideal weight of 195 pounds which means that I must lose 135 pounds in 11 months. Simple math tells me that equals 12.28 pounds per month or approximately 3.07 pounds per week. Is this possible? Yes it is. From my past efforts at losing weight and my research, this is indeed possible. Is it reasonable – probably not completely. It is however exciting, and I will take the excitement over a more reasonable goal.
How about you? Does your goal excite you? Is it possible? If it seems impossible to you, then move out the date or reduce the goal until you get a signal from your brain that you believe it can be done. It is okay to be afraid, we will talk about what that means in this series, but you must at least believe that the goal is possible in the time that you have allowed. If not, make a change in the quantity of the goal and the time allotted until you believe that it can be done. It is okay if it is a stretch. It is okay if it feels a little scary to write it down. It is okay if you don’t know how you will achieve it yet. It is okay if you have failed to achieve this same goal in the past. We will deal with each of these things.
How about excitement? Is this an exciting goal? Make sure that it is very exciting to you and that it is your goal – not a goal that someone else has given you. If you have been given a goal by someone else, then rewrite the goal until it deals with rewards directly related to you and it excites you!
For example, your boss might tell you: “You need to open 50 new accounts this year and they need to each buy an average of $4,000 dollars.” This is actually a more clear goal than most bosses will actually give. Still, it has nothing directly related to you in this goal. There may be an implicit “or else”. This might be: or else we will demote you. It might be: or else we will fire you. There will certainly be some negative consequences associated with a goal that you are given – an “or else”. Rarely, there will be some positive consequences discussed. For example: Do this and we will promote you or do this and we will give you a $10,000 bonus. This may or may not be enough to excite you.
For me, I am not directly excited by money. I am much more excited by thinking about the freedom and the experiences that the money will buy. I don’t know what motives you most – what turns you on – but you do! So rewrite any goal that you have, self created or given to you by another, until in positive terms, it talks about benefits that excite you.
What about my goal? Does “I will return to 195 pounds of bodyweight by the morning of December 31st, 2009.” excite me? Yes it does. Does it clearly state why I am excited about this? No. It doesn’t. Next time, I will show you how to create a vision to go along with the goal that will do this very thing.
To recap:
- Write down your goal
- Make sure your goal has a clear and easy to measure “What by When”
- Check for reasonableness or possibility – can this be done?
- If it can’t or feels impossible, the rewrite the goal, changing the amount or the time frame until you can believe it.
- Check for excitement. Make sure that you are excited about this goal.
- If this a goal that was given to you by another – check for all of these same things.
Till next time… Jack
“Courage is being scared to death—but saddling up anyway.” ~John Wayne
Your Vision of the Future Part Seven
Jan 28th
“Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.” ~Jonathan Swift
I thought I would share my personal vision today for the next twelve months. Seeing my example, built from my top five goals might be useful.
Here again are my top five goals for the next twelve months:
- 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.
Here is the vision that I built from those goals:
It is the morning of December 31st and I have had a marvelous year. I feel More >
Your Vision of the Future Part Six
Jan 27th
vision: noun – the ability to see or a vivid mental image produced by the imagination or great perception of future developments
So, how did it go creating your vision of the future based on your top five goals for the next twelve months? Do you get excited when you read your vision? Does it feel great when you imagine yourself in the vision – in the time when these five goals are now your reality? If it doesn’t then go rewrite your vision until you absolutely love how it sounds and feels and you can’t wait to make it happen.
Now, here is your first assignment with your vision – tape record it on to a small portable recorder. If you don’t have a small digital recorder, then go get one. They are a marvelous tool for personal development. Once you have your vision tape recorded then I want you to start to listen to it at least twice per day. Listen to it first thing in the morning. Listen to it just before you go to bed a night. Each time that you listen to your vision, make it even more real for yourself – really be there. You will almost certainly find that you can enhance your vision quite a bit a first; you will be able to add details that make it even more compelling. This is a very good thing. A compelling vision makes it easy to take the necessary action to make that vision become real.
In the next entry, I will talk a bit about using your newly created vision to stay motivated and on track for achieving your goals. Later in this series I will talk about creating visions with business partners and also problems that I commonly see with visions. I also want to give you a sample of my vision – my vision for the next twelve months and my vision for the next ten years.
Till next time…Jack
“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” ~Louisa May Alcott
Your Vision of the Future Part Four
Jan 22nd
“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.” ~Grandma Moses
Did you balance out your goals so that you have a nice mix of short, medium and long-term things written down? Great! Now here is your next task: I want you to go thru all of your goals for the next twelve months and choose five of them to focus on. Choose the five most exciting and compelling and empowering goals. Many of my seminar attendees have a problem making this decision at first. “But I want all of my goals!” – I hear this all of the time. And I understand! I want you to have all of your goals, but you cannot focus on all of them at one time and be successful. It just doesn’t work.
What you can do is choose the five goals, spread across the categories of your life, that by accomplishing in the next year, you will almost as a side effect accomplish your other goals. I call these goals the drivers. As an example, here is a recap 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.
Are these all of my goals for 2009? Not even close! But by focusing on these, by putting my concentration here, I can virtually guarantee that I will succeed in manifesting these goals and along the way, most if not all of my other goals for 2009 will also happen.
So, go ahead, choose your “Top Five” for 2009. Make sure that they are not all in one category and make sure that they are exciting. If they aren’t exciting, then rewrite them until they are. Next time we will take these goals and put them into a workable vision – something that you can use and enjoy and benefit from every day.
Till next time…Jack
“My life has a superb cast but I can’t figure out the plot.” ~Ashleigh Brilliant
Vision Review and a Question
Jan 20th
“Change always comes bearing gifts.” ~Price Pritchett
America is very excited today. Barack Obama will shortly become the president of the United States – a monumental occasion for many reasons. Mr. Obama was not my choice for president; my choice did not make it through the primary process. Still, I wish him the absolute best. He is taking over a country with many serious issues and we need some new ideas and a strong leader. May that be Barack Obama!
Now, to Your Vision - I thought it would be useful to recap what I have talked about so far regarding creating a life vision before we move forward on the process.
1) Having a clear and exciting and compelling vision of your future is a critical element for success. With the right vision, you can become fearless. With the right vision, you are naturally focused. With the right vision, stress disappears and you are pulled towards your dreams by great positive feeling of anticipation. You create this vision with smart questions and self analysis.
2) Answer this question for yourself: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? What would you attempt to become or achieve or do, if you knew that it was impossible to fail?
3) Create an inventory of your dreams. I want you to pretend that it is Christmas Eve and you have been very good indeed – Santa is going to bring you whatever you wish. This should be a comprehensive list that looks from today all the way forward to 20 or more years from now. I don’t want you to worry at all about how you will accomplish any of these goals. I don’t want you to put any limits on these goals. I just want you to dream, across all categories of your life, and write these things down.
I’ll give you some categories to help your creativity. Try to end up with at least a dozen notes in each of the following categories of goals. Spend anywhere from a minimum of 5 minutes to whatever amount of time feels right to you.
Goal Setting Categories:
- Your Physical Body Goal
- Personal Development Goals
- Family Goals
- Relationship Goals
- Business Goals
- Spiritual Goals
- Financial Goals
- Fun / Delight Goals
- Possessions
- Emotional Goals
For those of you that have taken one of my annual goal setting workshops, you will notice that this process is very similar so far. The process of creating your goals for a year and creating your life vision are closely connected. When you create compelling goals for yourself, you are creating parts of your life vision.
Here is the question for today: Really, it is more of a task than a question. Take all of these goals, hopefully a long list of things, and put a timeline on each of them. How soon do you expect to complete each of your goals? 6 weeks, 6 months, 6 years, 20 years – whatever it is, write your estimated completion time next to each of your goals. Simple enough huh?
Till next time…Jack
“Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.” ~Christopher Reeve
Your Vision of the Future Part Two
Jan 15th
“Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth.” ~Martin H. Fischer
Hey. Did you answer the question from the last entry? Let me repeat it: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? What would you attempt to become or achieve or do, if you knew that it was impossible to fail? How did you do with that question? For me, I can still remember the first time that I heard this question, more than 20 years ago now, and how frightened I was by it. Yes, frightened.
It was frightening to me to put down on paper what I really wanted – the secret dreams of my heart, without knowing how I would accomplish them. Somehow it was safer if I kept these dreams locked up in my mind without even a piece of paper to incriminate me. Funny reaction I know, but some of you might also be finding some resistance to this question. The question does not ask you to formulate a plan, or be logical, or be reasonable – all of those things come later. What it does is presuppose that you will find a way and that the best way to proceed is to come from a place of certainty: I don’t know how I am going to get there, but I know that I will.
So, what was your answer? Write it down and let’s move on to the next question. Actually, before that, let’s do the “priming” that I had mentioned in the last entry. I have written about this before and any of you that have attended one of my live seminars have experienced priming first hand. As a recap, priming is a very powerful technique designed to help you to enter optimal, peak states. I’m not going to go over how it works today. Just follow these instructions – read these words:
Destiny Destined for Greatness Explorer Achievement Powerful Self Confident Successful Unstoppable Grateful Deeply Fulfilled Excited Adventure Satisfaction Playful Delight Ready to learn Fun Ready for new experiences Dreams Heart’s Desire Marvelous Gifts What Matters Most to Me What I truly want My Dreams My Passions My Loves
Great. Now let’s move on to question two. Question 2) Let’s create an inventory of your dreams. I want you to pretend that it is Christmas Eve and you have been very good indeed – Santa is going to bring you whatever you wish. This should be a comprehensive list that looks from today all the way forward to 20 or more years from now. I don’t want you to worry at all about how you will accomplish any of these goals. I don’t want you to put any limits on these goals. I just want you to dream, across all categories of your life, and write these things down.
I’ll give you some categories to help your creativity. Try to end up with at least a dozen notes in each of the following categories of goals. Spend anywhere from a minimum of 5 minutes to whatever amount of time feels right to you.
Goal Setting Categories:
- Your Physical Body Goals
- Personal Development Goals
- Family Goals
- Relationship Goals
- Business Goals
- Spiritual Goals
- Financial Goals
- Fun / Delight Goals
- Possessions
- Emotional Goals
Have fun! It is impossible to do this wrong and we will debrief the results next time.
Jack
“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I am with you kid. Let’s go.”" ~Maya Angelou
New Year’s Resolutions Part Five
Jan 9th
“Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.” ~Pietro Aretino
Well hello. I am looking out at a beautiful winter scene as I write this entry. I spent much of my youth in Chicago and the winters there were often quite extreme. I can remember one Christmas break from college, I was working at Amtrak between college semesters, and we had a nice cold snap. For two weeks the temperature hovered near 50 below zero (Fahrenheit) and with wind chill – wow! It turned out to be a real blessing for me. Amtrak could not turn off the diesel locomotives, it was so cold that they could not be restarted, so I was paid overtime everyday to stay and tend things. For a college kid, this extra money was a great gift. I am still grateful more than 30 years later.
I was thinking about this time today when others around me were complaining about the weather. Winter doesn’t bother me. I know it will end. I know it is a natural part of life and needed for all of the plants and animals that are native to this area to rest and rejuvenate. I also know that I cannot change it and I will not allow something that I cannot change or influence to have control of my moods. I was also thinking about how sweet spring will be after this cold winter. So, thanks winter!
I was also thinking that every rough patch in my life, and there were some very rough patches indeed, always had a gift for me – if I was smart enough to find it. Even looking back at the darkest times in my life, poor, getting divorced, living in the back of my car, fighting for custody of my daughter – there were gifts for me in that experience. Now I was not smart enough to see them, those gifts, at the time. It took years of growth and reflection before I could achieve that place. Today, when I find myself in a rough patch, I ask myself two questions: 1) What is great about this and 2) What could be great about this if I looked at it from the right perspective? And you know what? There always is a gift waiting for me!
Last time I had you put your 5 driving goals on the front of three by five index cards. Here’s why. I want you to put the following questions on the back of the index cards:
- Why is this goal important to me? Above and beyond the goal itself, what will the accomplishment of this goal allow me to do or be or experience or feel?
- How great will it feel when this goal is accomplished?
- What do I need to change about myself to ensure that I accomplish this goal?
- What is the most important thing that I need to do today, to move myself along the path of achieving this goal?
- What else can I do to make it even more certain that I will achieve this goal?
- What can I do to make sure that I have fun, a blast, as I work to achieve this goal?
So, add these questions to the back of the cards. Do you have that done? Great! Now here is the critical part. Keep the cards with you and every single day, at least a couple of times per day, review your goals, all five of them, and then flip the card over and answer the questions. Within a short time you will feel the difference, you will begin to find the answers you need, make the changes required and you are very likely to achieve those goals! I know lots of more techniques, but I know of none easier and more certain at the same time.
And now a bit of fun and trivia: Some of you know that I am related to Robert Burns the Scottish Poet and that I have visited his hometown and gravesite in Scotland. Did you know that when you sing, on New Year’s Eve, “Auld Lang Syne”you are singing one of Robert’s most beloved creations? Since this is the last entry that will talk about New Year’s Resolutions, at least for awhile, I thought it would be fun to give you the poem/song here (sing with gusto!):
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and days of auld lang syne?
CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!
And surely I’ll buy mine!
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
and days of auld lang syne?
CHORUS
We two have run about the slopes,
and picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
since days of auld lang syne?
CHORUS
We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared,
since days of auld lang syne?
CHORUS
And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give us a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
and days of auld lang syne?
Till next time…Jack
“Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.” ~Plutarch, Moralia