Got Skills?

Successful goal setters are a lot like professional athletes. Professional athletes are not paid big dollars for their skills before they have developed and proven their worth. You are born with exceptional skills, but have you developed and proven them? You see many of us have never really learned proper goal setting techniques, nor developed the skills to become professional goal setters. And if you have, I am guessing that you do not practice these skills enough and analyze them enough to maintain the professional expectations. Now if I am wrong, I am honored to have you reading my blog!

For the rest of you, let us look at a few of these skills.

Road Trip!

If you have ever used google maps or mapquest you are aware of the two key questions they ask if you want directions: starting location and destination. These are the same questions I ask my clients in helping them calculate the directions for their end destinations: their goals. In successful goal setting, you must answer where are you now and where do you want to go.


Now the next step in our road trip is checking our vehicle and planning for any road hazards that we may encounter. This involves maintaining our vehicle before the trip and considering possible problems we may encounter. Before family vacations my father would always get the oil changed, the tires inspected, check the spare, and have the fluids topped off. He was much better at this than I, so I belong to AAA and know that help is only a phone call away. My dad would have made a great pilot. He went through a similar pre-flight checklist that any pilot goes through before taking flight. OK, so how do we do this in our road trip of life? Well it involves considering any obstacles or self limiting beliefs we may have. It means assessing the final destination and considering things that may prevent us from reaching that destination. Now what can you do to check the spare and get the oil changed? Assess the skills you currently have that may need to be used to achieve this goal. Figure out what new skills or resources you may need to acquire to reach this destination, and take steps to get them. Who can you call if you run into trouble? Who can act as your triple A?


On family road trips my mother acted as the Julie, the activities director. She packed things for us kids to do along the way. She was quick to suggest a game for us all to play, like the alphabet road sign game, to keep us quiet. She was the voice of reason on when we NEEDED to stop for food and bathroom breaks. The point is, consider who are your travel companions on this road trip. Who will be impacted by this decision? Which travel companions will help you and which ones are along for the ride regardless?

Finally, figure out where you need to stop for gas and where you are sleeping each night. Break your trip down to smaller, easily achieved legs. You do not want to drive straight through on long trips, especially if you are traveling with others. Shorter legs are safer. Shorter legs help ensure you will survive the trip and enjoy the destination once you arrive. Once you have broken the trip down into smaller legs it is important to realize that all of the previous steps need to be taken for each leg of the trip.

Do you know the way to Carnegie Hall?

Any professional athlete will tell you, practice makes all the difference. As I wrote in a previous entry (How to Get Started) practice involves more than just going through the actions. Practice involves attitude, visualizations, going through the motions, failure, and adaptation. A lot like riding a bike, trial and error can be effective, but more than likely destructive without support and encouragement. So it goes with goal setting, you will need lots of support, encouragement and skinned knees (trial and error). But remember, you must get back on and keep practicing.


Get Drafted


Ever notice how much more exciting it is to drive on long trips when there are other cars on the road? When there is nothing but open road, it appears nice, but quickly your mind loses focus. And after we have been driving a while we get drowsy and the car begins to weave. We will often turn the radio up, unroll the windows or call friends. Life has a way of doing that when we begin to go through challenges alone. We are excited at first and we speed on our way, but we quickly lose focus. Then we spend a bunch a bunch of time and effort just trying to get back focused. Well I suggest find some cars to put on the road with you. Preferably ones that are heading toward the same destination as you.


Professional athletes compete. They participate as members of teams. Even solo athletes, professional golfers, tennis players, cyclists and Nascar drivers have teams. They surround themselves with people that share their goals and people that demand their best. Cyclists and race car drivers practice a technique call drafting. In drafting, two or more vehicles can race faster when lined up front-to-rear than a single vehicle can race alone. Even the lead car benefits from reduced energy expenditure from less drag. Professional goal setters do the same thing. They meet regularly with their teams, they meet with mastermind groups, and report to their coaches. They align themselves to draft the leaders in their organizations or better yet, allow others to draft off of them. They know that by practicing and supporting each other, they all have a better chance at finishing on top. It is easier to maintain focus when the other cars are going similar speeds and heading in the same direction.



Correcting an Eye Problem

I am sure that successful goal setters visit their opthamologist regularly, but that is not what I am talking about here. My neighbor and I were talking one afternoon about fishing the next day. I asked him if he had the following day off from work and he told me he was going to call in because of his eye problem. Concerned I asked him about it. He said, "Yeah I just can't see myself going in."

Often our biggest obstacle is ourselves. Not consciously, but frequently that little voice in our head or our subconscious sabotages much of our success because it can't see us making more than $50,000 a year or it can see us as 30 pounds lighter. Prescott Lecky talks about this as our own self-definition or self-conception. If you limit how you see yourself, all the other preparations and exercises will not work.


The next eye problem we need to be concerned about is losing our objective view. When you look into a scope at a target you are focusing your attention only on the target. You lose your peripheral vision, like a horse running with blinders on. The danger of this is we often miss the roadsigns of life. We miss the opportunities around us and neglect many of the "other" aspects of our life. Imagine yourself sitting at a stop sign, in the pitch black of night, waiting to turn onto the highway of life, but you can only see the 10 feet of light directly in front of you that your headlights cast on the road. What if another car is coming? This limited scope can paralyze us into inaction.


The treatment is pretty much the same for both of these diseases, regular check ups and full doses of an outsiders perspective. Find a coach or mentor. Meet with them regularly. Get involved with professional organizations and mastermind groups. Professional goal setters attend seminars and read books to help them grow and stretch.

Finally, perform self examinations. First close your right eye. Now your left eye. You see we often we see clearer with our eyes shut. Can you see the big picture? Can you clearly see yourself accomplishing this goal? Can you see the details? What do you hear?

It has been proven that your mind cannot distinguish between reality and a vivid image created in your mind. Visualization is an important technique and helpful in keeping an accurate perspective. Visualize the end in sight. Visualize the next step. Listen for the sounds you hear. Become aware of situations where you are telling yourself that you just don't see it happening. Then stop that talk in your head. But closing your eyes to assess where you are mentally and to visualize where you are going is one of the most essential habits of professional goal setters. This review of your situation can allow you to correct course and the more often you do it, the less likely you are to get too far off course.

A quick review:


Know where you are starting from and know your destination

• Plan for Obstacles and know your resources
• Break it down
• Practice
• Ally yourself with others with similar Goals and Find a Coach or Mentor
• Review and Re-assess frequently
  

Write it down and be SMART

Last post discussed writing your goal down. This is a key step. Where do you write it? Excellent question. As your coach through this journey I suggest you get a Success Journal. A journal where you can write your goals and your progress of these goals on a daily basis. I know sounds hokey. But often drills are a bit hokey. I remember doing this tennis drill where we placed tennis balls on five spots on the court. We would run and bring the balls back to the starting point and then we would put the balls back, making sure they would not roll away. It was gruelling and looked silly. In the beginning I often wondered how this was going to make me a better tennis player. Well now as a raquetball player, I can say that I get to most balls. I don't have the stamina I developed back then, but back then I got to most balls. I got there in a controlled way that allowed me to still return the ball.

Drills are merely conditioning for the real thing. They help you develop the necessary skills to be good or even great at whatever task you are taking on. So get yourself a journal. Next is how to write the goal. An undisciplined goal is a lot like a child created dessert, it often looks good, but you just can't stomach it.

OK Smarty-pants, How do I write a Goal?

Follow a simple recipe for sure-fire hit, a SMART goal will lead you to success.
A SMART Goal is an acronym for the necessary ingredients that a goal MUST have in order for it to be achieved. In any recipe there are essential ingredients and then there are personal preference ingredients. These are ESSENTIAL ingredients:

• A goal must be Specific: You must be very clear about what exactly you want to accomplish. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
  
• A goal must be Measurable: You must have a quantifiable way of tracking your progress. How will you knowthat you attained this goal?
  
• A goal must be Achievable: . Your goals must be things that are within your power to control.Your goals must be challenging, but realistic for yourself
  
• A goal must be Relevant: Your goals need to be in-line with your personal mission statement or your purpose in life. Goals that are incongruent with your personal values will not lead to happiness, but rather disconnect.
  
• A goal must be Time Specific: Your goal must have realistic deadlines.

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.” ~ Willie Nelson

One final tip for constructing your goals, write your goals as positive statements, rather than negative ones: Example of positive statements: “I will be smoke free”, or "I will make healthy eating decisions and be 195 pounds." Negative examples might be: “I will stop smoking” or “I will lose 25 pounds”. Your subconscoius doesn't register the negative. Program your mind to think in the positive. To allow yourself, rather than limit yourself.

Now write your goal down in 2 places: 1. in your success journal and 2. on a 3 X 5 card and place it somewhere that you will see it often. Maybe on your computer at work. Possibly the mirror in the bathroom. Put it somewhere that you will see it often and you can check -in with yourself to see how you are doing.

How to get started

All right, so last night I attended a Boulder Entrepreneurs Meetup group and we spoke about blogging. It made me realize how delinquent I have been. I have been writing down new ideas in my journal about topics that I want to blog about, but have not been developing them here. So I am doing it now. A question came up last night about how often to blog and being that I talk a lot about communicating expectations I thought I should lay out what my expectations are for this blog.

I plan to write here once a week. But that is a goal, and I will be working to create that habit. Sometime after I get into the habit of sharing my thoughts and ideas here I hope to increase that to about 2-3 posts a week. The more feedback I get from others and subscribers I get, I am sure my commitment will increase.

Goal Setting Basics

So there it is. Step one in goal setting, write it down and share it with others. Sounds easy. Blogging sure helps with the share it with others part. This one is obvious though, you will easily be able to check on my progress and hold me accountable.

Goal setting is such an interesting skill. We all say we know how to do it, but many of us choose not to do it. Or we only do it half committed. I asked a friend of mine if she has goals that she is working on, and her response was "well yeah, sort of."

"Sort of" having goals is like being a "little pregnant". Either you are pregnant or you aren't. You either have goals that you set and are taking steps to reach them, or you aren't. Pretty simple.

As a coach I remind people to set goals. I help them develop a plan to accomplish those goals. I support them in becoming aware of and overcoming what Zig Ziglar calls "stinkin' thinkin'. " And I help them celebrate their accomplishments. These are all little steps in goal setting, but essential steps. After working with many clients I have come to realize, most people do NOT have the skill of goal setting.

Most people have dabbled with the resources of goal setting, but they have never learned the skill of goal setting. No different then, I own a harmonica. I have instructional books and DVDs on how to play the harmonica. I can even play some notes on the harmonica and can string enough notes together to play simple tunes. I cannot play the harmonica. I have all the necessary resources to play and some people might watch me play a simple tune and believe I can play a harmonica. I am not playing the harmonica. I am playing with the harmonica, just as my son plays with his toys.

Now that is not to say that I cannot learn to play the harmonica and develop the skills to play. I simply have not done that yet. The same is true for most goal setters. The resources are there, they just haven't developed the skill set to be a goal setter. So how do you get there?

What is the quickest way to Carnegie Hall? Practise, Practise, Practise. As any good musician will tell you, practise makes all the difference. Many take lessons to learn from a teacher or mentor. They practise chords in their head (visualization) and hear music in their dreams. And they screw up a bunch before getting it right.

So it goes with goal setting. Learn the chords, find a mentor or coach, and practise, practise, practise. And remember it is OK if you don't get it right each time, that is why we are practising. A great place to start is one of my favorite books on goal setting is See You at the Top, by Zig Ziglar. Don't have enough time to read it get the audio book.

Loving the Little things

Much of my focus lately has been teaching myself to be grateful. Gratitude is a never-ending lesson. There is so much to appreciate around us, yet it seems to get lost in the desires of something new. Autumn is a wonderful time to work on this lesson. The air is crisper, the world is full of color, the trees are full of their fruitful bounty, and of course there is football. But fall offers us a great perspective on the lesson of gratitude, because fall doesn't last very long, and very frequently it is gone before we take the time to truly appreciate it.

Take the time today to soak in the glory that is your world around you. Excite your senses by seeking out and noticing the many stimuli around. Stop and smell your world. Do you remember what crushed dried leaves smell like? What does that remind you of? Have you listened to the cooler nights? Or observed the wind conducting its symphony with the trees and leaves? Have you appreciated the brisk morning air as it fills your lungs? When was the last time you laid down in the grass, listened to the sounds around you and watched the clouds?

My son still reminds me to take pleasure in the little things. Often on a hurried morning as I try to get him off to school (his daycare) he sees the sun and says "good morning sun. Boy you are awfully bright this morning. Thanks for being warm and bright." It stops me cold and makes me grateful for the lessons he has learned and now teaches me. It makes me slow down and seek the many blessings I was missing.

The other morning it wasn't Jackson that gave me my reminder it was the boy across the street. He said "hi". Actually he said "hi" about 4 times until I stopped what I was doing and acknowledged him. Then he said very matter-of-factly, "clouds". I replied, "yeah look, clouds" and I went on to get into my car. He then yelled and pointed, "clouds!" I paused for a minute and looked up. I saw clouds. I was preoccupied with getting in my car. I was thinking about the order I was going to run my errands. After I got Jackson buckled in his seat, I looked over at the boy. He was fixated on the sky. I took a minute and looked to the sky with him. They weren't just clouds, they were beautiful. There were 3 different types of clouds. There were birds flying with the clouds as a backdrop. As I took 20 seconds to soak up what was so captivating to this boy, I again received my reminder to see the blessings around. Then I knew I had done it right, because the boy across the street began yelling and clapping his hands, "Clouds! Clouds!" He looked over to me and smiled as he kept clapping.

In this day and age of constant contact and 24 hour media coverage, don't lose sight of the small things. The smiles. The sound of nature. Watch a child. Watch their interest in the little things. Let it remind you to be grateful for all those little things. Look around and count your blessings. Take the time to say thank you for all those blessings.

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” -Robert Brault

OK, time to turn over a new leaf

I find it a bit amusing that I started this blog back in August and the first post I chose to write about was making time. Now here it is November already and I am finally making time to blog.

I am learning coaching is all about creating new habits, small consistent behaviors that take us closer each time the the bigger goals and destinations we have in mind for ourselves. Well for me, right now the habit I will be working on is blogging. Sharing with you my perspectives, observations and thoughts. Without further ado the original first blog.

So life is too short. The summer is too short. Vacation is too short. Often we feel that there is not enough time to really enjoy whatever it is we want to enjoy. STOP! No it is not. We are just in too much of a hurry. Take the time to enjoy it. Figure out how to enjoy it more.

Search on the web for articles and advice on how to find more time in the day and you will be reading for quite sometime. It is easy to get caught up in the daily routine of life and convince ourselves that we just don't have enough time.

1. Unplug. Turn off the computer, the TV, the stereo, the ipod and take some time for yourself. You want to start reading more? Use the time that you normally would watch TV to relax after the day and read a book. That list of electronics can be very useful tools, but they are also the biggest time wasters. Encourage your children to do the same. Make it a family affair. Let everyone know that from 7pm - 8pm is quiet time in the house. Let the kids know that they can work on homework, draw, read, write in their journal, etc, as long as it is quite and doesn't involve electronics.

2. Schedule it. Have you been putting off cleaning the garage or painting the spare bedroom? And then the weekend comes and it is so filled with other activities that you put it off again? Our minds are conditioned to function within time organization. That is why many do better when we have clear deadlines and expectations. Schedule your tasks. Want to take a class? Find the class you want to take, register and get it on your calendar. We often are good about this for large vacations, but it works for the smaller situations too. Schedule it! Need a date night? Or family game night? Schedule it!

3. Small bites. I work with my clients on breaking down their goals into easy to achieve steps, steps they can begin today. No matter what the task is, break it down into smaller steps. What do you wish you had more time for? A hobby that would take your mind off of work? Spending quality time with your family? Whatever it is, break it down. Define it as a series of smaller steps, just like you are writing a recipe, except this is a recipe for success. Then schedule when those steps will be completed. Unplug and get to it. Complete the first step.

4. Outsource it. Often we take up so much of our time doing tasks that we are not good at, or dread doing. Outsource that task. Now maybe it is not practical to hire a chef to cook dinner everyday, but look into Supper Solutions or Supper Made Simple once a month. This is a cost effective way to create healthy meals, that will make dinner prep much easier and free up a little more time for you. Consider hiring a painter to paint that spare bedroom. Or hire the kid down the street to mow your grass or rake your leaves. Then you will have a few hours to write a letter to your son in college or catch up on emails to old friends.

5. Be honest. Maybe it is more about being honest with yourself. Do you REALLY want more time to do the things you say you want to do? Or is that just a convenient excuse? If you really had more time what would you do with it? What is that worth to you? If it is truly important you can and will find the time .

So no matter how much you think "there is not enough time," I am here to tell you, there is. God has given us an abundance of time, the question is how do you choose to spend the time you are given?