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2 keys to help you reach your goals Comments Off

success

Let’s jump right in here. What’s the toughest part about reaching your goals?
Not defining them, usually.
Not figuring out how to reach them.
The path to even the most difficult goals is usually obvious. Action 1, action 2, action 3, acgtion 4, and so on. If you want to write a book and get a great book deal, that’s difficult to do but not difficult to understand how to do.

The difficulty is in the doing, the action, the day-to-day continued commitment.

Why? What happens? It isn’t usually because the work is so hard. It’s because we lose the vision, and then we don’t remember why… and we’re basically lazy… and old habits are strong. So we give up.

Answer? Put something in place to take the place of that rush of vision.

1. Accountability

Accountability means saying in some public way or another, “Hey, I’m doing this! Everybody watch and see!”

It’s almost a dare. It’s exposure. It’s bold. It’s unnerving. And it makes you want to do whatever you said you’d do, because now you’ve got an audience and they’re going to know your failure if you give up.

“Everybody” doesn’t have to be a big group. It could be your spouse, a couple of friends, a small group of folks with the same interest. It could be your blog readership, which might be very small or very large depending. It could be your entire social network.

The size of the group doesn’t matter; what matters is that in some public way you make a commitment. You share the vision and you share the plan, and you say, “Dare you to watch me accomplish this.”

And then you don’t want to quit, because you’ve got a person, or people, or a group, watching you. You don’t want to disappoint them. You don’t want to be embarrassed. And that motivation, of pleasing and impressing people, can be enough to keep you going even when the vision is really vague.

2. Tracking

Tracking means specific actions and deadlines and then keeping track of how well you do at achieving those actions by those deadlines.

Tracking also means collecting information related to your actions or ultimate goals. Keeping a food journal, for example, and recording your daily weight is a way to track your progress on a diet or fitness program.

Tracking can be as simple as writing stuff down on a piece of paper or the calendar and scratching it off once you’ve achieved it.
Of course, there are lots of other more tech-savvy ways to track your progress, too.

  • You can get goal-tracking software or use an online goal-tracking system, such as Joe’s Goals.
  • Join a goal-tracking group, which could be “real-world” ( Weight Watchers, for example), or based online ( 43Things).
  • Put a goal-tracking app on your smart phone: I use Trak for iPhone. It’s free.
  • Or get any other type of system you want in place (calendar, notebook, etc.).

The point is, you track your day-to-day progress and you grab the information that helps you become more aware of your pgoress, your habits, and then obstacles you need to overcome to reach your goals.

And that information can be powerful motivation, a new awareness that keeps you going even when you can’t remember quite why you’re pursuing this goal.

Work It Together

For any challenging goal, the smartest move (if you want to succeed, that is) is to use both tracking and accountability. Tracking can be as detailed as you like, as simple or complicated as you need. Just keep up with it. Look at how far you’ve come. Get the information. get a system in place for it.

Add the tracking to some kind of accountability. Start a blog, join a group, join a forum, take on a challenge with a friend.

Achieving your goals is difficult because it requires you to stretch out of your comfortable boundaries and create new spaces, new habits. You have to stretch, you have to lose old habits, and you have to gain proficiency at unfamiliar and difficult tasks. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Don’t be a loner. Share your vision and it becomes stronger.

If one fails to develop goals that give meaning to one’s existence, if on does not use the mind to its fullest, then good feelings fulfill just a fraction of the potential we possess. A person who achieves contentment by withdrawing from the world to “cultivate his own garden,” like Voltaire’s Candide, cannot be said to lead an excellent life. Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.

Image: success by charliedayartist

3 Steps to Successful Goal-Setting for Moms Comments Off

No. 3 (Washington, DC)
You can have anything but you can’t have everything.

So you have to choose:

what constitutes success in your life right now?

Don’t limit yourself because of fear, but do limit your goals (the ones you are actively pursuing) to as many as you can focus on. I’ve found that I max out at about 3 big goal chases at a time.

What’s wrong with traditional goal-setting

I’ve seen lots of recommendations; the most common among women’s advice circles seems to be to go through the basic areas of your life and set goals for each one. Depending on what you define as a single area, you can have from 5 to 10 areas, and thus, 5 to 10 goals, happening at a time.
For example, a typical area-of-life breakdown might look like this:

  1. - marriage/relationships
  2. - kids/parenting
  3. - home
  4. - work/career
  5. - health/fitness
  6. - personal
  7. - social
  8. - educational/intellectual
  9. - hobbies…

If you take the traditional route of setting one goal for each area, then actively pursuing each goal, you’ll be simultaneously trying to fix your life in 5, 10, 12 areas at a time.
That’s a lot of pressure.

a better goal-setting method

I suggest a different, simpler, and infinitely more effective route; this works for anyone, but it’s especially helpful for Moms who are juggling their own needs along with those of husband, kids, house, job, social life, etc. When your life is complicated, your goal-setting should be simple.
Basically, you need to ask yourself three questions:

Question 1. What in my (current) life bothers me most?

Not just that nagging tooth ache you need to make an appointment for, though certainly you should go see your dentist about that… But what is happening, or not happening, in your life that bothers you on a daily and deeply?
Goal #1: Fixing/eliminating the problem you identify in Question #1.

Question 2. What do I dream of pursuing someday?

For Moms, maybe you’ve put your career on hold until your kids are in school; or maybe you dream of what life will be like when you’re financially able to quit your job and stay home; or maybe you have a career and kids and you’re loving both but you’ve put off some other dreams, like traveling or learning a new language or learning to cook or getting in shape or volunteering. What are you putting off, waiting on, putting on hold while your life continues around you?
Goal #2: Taking action to reach that dream you identify in Question #2.

Question 3. What can I do to simplify and de-stress my life in a practical/logistical way?

You want to keep your life above the survival level, but you can’t fix everything all at once. That’s where most of us mess up; we get inspired, motivated, frustrated enough to declare war on the way things are. We’re going to fix the kids, fix the husband, fix the finances, fix ourselves, fix the house, all by February 15, so help me God.

And that just doesn’t happen… so we give up, right? The point is, it’s simply too much to try to fix it all. The point of Question #3 is to help you figure out one goal you can reach to simplify your life, thus reducing stress (and improving the quality) of all your life. Maybe it’s declutter the closets, finish the kitchen remodel, join a gym, get a new wardrobe, or get a regular babysitter. Maybe it’s quit your job, get out of debt, or simplify your social life. You decide; what rings truest with you right now? You can tackle the other stuff later.
Goal #3: Simplifying/reducing stress in your life by tackling one practical/logistical area you identify in Question #3.

Printable Goal-Setting Worksheet

I’ve put together a down loadable, printable worksheet so you can sit down with these three questions and your purple Sharpie (oh, is that just me?) and set some goals that you’ll actually reach. Download it by clicking here.

Image: No. 3 (Washington, DC) by takomabibelot

The Get-Your-Life-Together Plan 4

It’s a funny thing about life, especially when you have kids involved: just when you start to figure things out, everything changes. If you’re in the midst of babies, diapers, and frequent feedings, if you’re juggling toddlers and finger foods, if you’re trying to teach phonics and make dinner, if you spend more time in the car than at home…it doesn’t matter where you are in the process of life, work, and mothering. Change comes.

We might welcome change, but it always causes a setback in terms of knowing how to deal with the new day-to-day. Sometimes the setback is small and you adjust without really thinking about it. Sometimes it takes a few weeks before you realize that what did work isn’t working any longer. And sometimes it isn’t easy to figure out what will work now – new routine? New schedule? Drop something? Add something? More restriction? More freedom?

Whatever the change you’re dealing with, there’s a way to start getting back in control instead of scurrying through your day confused and overwhelmed. This series will walk you through the 8 essential steps of dealing with your life, figuring out what works, and making it happen. Go through the steps one at a time; you may have the initial enthusiasm to take them all on, but that will quickly become overwhelm and fatigue. I’ll give you recommended starting spots, and you can adjust to match your own priorities.

The articles will be appearing over the next week in the order listed below; once they’re all live, however, feel free to choose the one that makes most sense for you. What area frustrates you the most right now? Pick the step that deals with that area and make that change first, give yourself a few days, and then tackle the next. You’ll find as you go that you gain momentum, so though you may need a few days or even a week between steps 1 and 2, by steps 5 and 6 you will have gained more enthusiasm and energy, and you’ll progress through each step faster.

The first article is a primer on how to apply these changes so they make a real difference; the last article is the final step – an overview of how to successfully establish a habit – as well as tips, ideas, and reminders to help you succeed in these changes you’ve just made.

Image courtesy of Crystian Cruz.

Principles of Personal Growth: Character Comments Off

The Basics

  1. It’s about character, not personality.
  2. You’re a responsible creator, not an (un)empowered victim.
  3. Your choices today determine your life tomorrow.
  4. There is justice in the world.
  5. Hard work isn’t just a fad.

Quite the Character, Aren’t You?

<1> It’s about character, not personality.

Stephen Covey explains this well, so I’ll just let him do the talking: “…shortly after World War I the basic view of success continue reading…

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