Achieving Personal Goals

Anyone who wants to achieve a personal goal is in one of the following phases of the process of making that change in their life:

1. Feeling frustrated or dissatisfied with the way things are (weight, career, relationships, etc)
2. Deciding on a solution that will satisfy the problem (lose weight, change careers, work on being a better friend, husband, etc)
3. Create a plan that will produce the results you are seeking
4. Take the steps necessary to implement the plan
5. Assess your results

If everything works the way you planned, you’re now losing weight, getting better grades, performing better on the job or otherwise achieving whatever goal you initially intended.

But what if you experience the more likely result, that things don’t go the way you intended on your first try?

Step 6 in the process (not shown above), and the one that generally eludes most people, is this:

Figure out why you didn’t get the result you wanted.

In any endeavor, whether it’s Thomas Edison trying to invent the lightbulb, finding your significant other, or trying to lose 20 lbs, there are likely to be setbacks.

What most people tend to do, at least initially, is see that they’ve failed to reach their personal goal and stop there. We don’t like the feeling of failure and disappointment, and after one, two or at most three setbacks virtually 90% of us will say ‘that’s enough’ and stop. Wrong!

The CORRECT approach is to move into “why didn’t this work?” mode. What went wrong, what’s holding me back from achieving the outcome I wanted?

Did I lack sufficient motivation to even get started? Did I start thinking it won’t really work? Did I not make action on a daily basis to start moving toward the goal, because I didn’t make time in my day for the essential activities? Maybe you did everything you said you should but it just didn’t work, i.e. the plan needs to be revised. Until you come up with a satisfactory answer, you should be asking “why did I not get the results I wanted?”.

Unless you’re trying to suspend the laws of gravity and float in mid air, there’s probably a solution to your problem. The right way to handle coming up short in the pursuit of any personal goal is to examine what you did (that’s why we track our progress), and figure out what’s holding you back.
 
How do you think this should be solved? I’ll give you my answer to that question in my next post.

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We know that a critical part of achieving a goal is to take regular action each and every day to move closer to it. Making time for those activities generally requires that we make some sacrifices.

The following is my list of the top 5 sacrifices that, if you identify them as potential time wasters up front, should make your daily planning easier and greatly improve your progress toward your goal.

Turn off the TV

The statistics on how much time we spend, or rather waste, watching TV are astounding. The TV is a fine creation and a nice way to unwind and relax, but we all know that 15 minutes of TV can turn into 2 hours before you know it. There are plenty of ways to relax and unwind, and leaving the TV turned off will put more time back into your week for goal related activities that can change your life.

Beware of the internet

There, I said it. Advice to turn away from the internet, delivered on the internet (kind of ironic, ain’t it?). I’ll admit that surfing my favorite web sites and drifting off to research some less than critical idea on the web are two of my greatest time wasters, so much so that I just have to consciously make myself close the browser window.

Of course, this advice includes Google searches, surfing, FACEBOOK(!), YouTube, blogs and all the rest. We’ve got important work to do, things that can change our lives and the lives of others. Accomplishing those things generally doesn’t involve surfing the internet.

I appreciate how hard it is to manage this, and that’s exactly why it’s #2 on the list. It helps me to remember that we’re looking for progress, not perfection. Less surfing, more goal activity.

Poorly Planned Day (no list, objectives)

Not having a to do list, agenda or set of objectives for the day is just another opportunity to end up chasing unimportant or unnecessary tasks, instead of those that will move your life and outcomes in the right direction. Having a list of key things you want to get done each day, and working on those tasks first until finished, dramatically improves personal productivity.

Saying “Yes”

Someone is standing in front of you, it’s not a big request, should only take 30 minutes, and you don’t want to say “no”. It happens to all of us, sometimes many times a day. If we say “yes”, we stop doing what we need to be doing, venture of in a different direction, and when we come back it takes 10 minutes just to get back into what we were doing.

The only useful antidote for this time waster is awareness. Staying aware of the list you created in time #3 (above), knowing the important things you need to accomplish today, are essential to making the right decision when someone is trying to divert your attention.

Telephone

Stephen Covey describes the 4 quadrants of activities are those that are:

• Urgent
• Not Urgent
• Important
• Not Important

Most of the time, the telephone is classified as a Not Urgent, and frequently Not Important. I know that sales people and other professions are required to spend time on the phone with clients. Time spent talking to real clients about real problems is not what we’re talking about. This time waste involves time on the phone with friends, family, co-workers, you name it – just chatting or killing time. I’m not advocating seclusion, just throwing up red flags for those things can can silently derail your progress and ultimate success.

Summary
I know that we each need time to relax, and that’s a critical part of a well balanced day. But web surfing, chatting on the phone, taking interruptions or zoned out on TV can be time wasters whose use result in diminishing who and what you can become. No one’s advocating that they be eliminated, but they are “high risk” zones and should be approached with extreme caution!

You have three great resources: Your time, your money and your energy. Use them all wisely.

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This is a big learning point for me and just one example, but it’s verrrry typical, so thought I’d share it here.
 
I recently posted an job on eLance looking for someone to research a topic for me, for a speech I’m going to give. I get several interesting replies (and a couple of weird ones), narrowed them down and pick one. This particular researcher, who had experience and was interested in my topic, took several days then completely flaked out – no where to be found. Which led me to say “well, I screwed up, I should have offered more $, required more references, screened them better, etc”.
 
Ever do that? It’s certainly my pattern, borne of a lifetime of always trying to get things perfect, always looking for the flaw in the plan. But wait, he said ….. maybe there’s a better way!
 
I’ve recently been introduced to the idea of looking those moments not as failures, but simply necessary, unavoidable steps on the path to achievement. What a difference that makes! I don’t feel so bad about myself or foolish now for not getting it right the first time, it’s easier to learn something from the situation (start checking their references!) and make necessary adjustments so it goes better in the future, etc.
 
As I write this I realize it probably sounds so simple as to be profound, and I suppose it is, but don’t let that hide the important message:
 
Mistakes are essential, unavoidable, important aspects of any learning process. Our biggest challenge now is to just make them QUICKLY, so that we can learn from them, adjust and do it better next time.
 
I’m not sure if this will be a useful post to anyone or not, but if just there’s one reader who is ready for the message and gets it, that’ll suit me just fine.
 
So go achieve your next goal, start taking action, and know there will be plenty of lessons learned (not “screw ups”) along the way!
 
Next Post: Forget about tomorrow!

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