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

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

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.

• Getting Started: How to Make Changes that Stick
• Regaining Control with a Morning Routine
• Making Progress with Specific Work Goals
• Keeping House with a Daily Minimum
• Simplifying Food, Chores, and More with Repetition
• Getting Things Done with Designated Days
• Making Life Fun by Incorporating the Extras
• Ensuring Success with a Nightly Routine
• Following the Plan: Turning Steps Into Habits

Image courtesy of Crystian Cruz.

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 shifted from the Character Ethic to what we might call the Personality Ethic. Success became more of a function of personality, of public image, or attitudes and behaviors, skills and techniques, that lubricate the processes of human interaction. This Personality Ethic essentially took two paths: one was human and public relations techniques, and the other was positive mental attitude (PMA)” (page 19, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People).

Personality is important, but there is a problem when personality supersedes character. Why? Because the veneer strips away in times of duress, conflict, moments of anxiety or pressure or even great joy, accomplishment, and victory; you see that underneath isn’t a piece of valuable, solid wood, but a cheap, ugly sheet of plywood.

Ew.

Nobody wants to be plywood. You can build lots of stuff with plywood; it’s easy to find, easy to cut; it even bends. My husband makes skateboard ramps out of it. But if you put too much pressure on a piece of plywood, it breaks. If it’s left out in the elements, it warps. If you bend it too far, it snaps. If you stick a nail in the wrong part, it splits.

Plywood is limited, because it is just shredded up wood and glue. The substance, the long grains of fiber that are present in unfabricated, real wood aren’t there in plywood.

Then there’s real wood, from real trees. Oak. Mahogany. Burdock. Cedar. All with strength that runs from one end to the other. All with distinct traits. Personalities, you might say. Real wood costs a lot more than plywood (which is, of course, why we use plywood for so much). Real wood costs more because it takes a long time for a tree to grow. And certain trees, the really valuable ones, take longer than other trees. You pay for that time when you buy a piece of furniture crafted from solid oak, or a guitar made out of Bolivian Rosewood.

Character takes time. Character is giving when you don’t have enough to give but you promised you would. Character is being kind even when you are angry. Character is having regard for what is right even when everyone else says it is wrong. Character is firm in times of wavering morals, clear in days of confusing philosophies, empathetic in the stress and anger and push of desperation.

Temperament and personality are part of your package, and you should know about them, know about different types, learn how best to communicate, learn your own personality’s strengths and weaknesses. You should build skills, cultivate a good attitude, and learn techniques to make people comfortable. But you cannot build anything valuable without a steady foundation. Get your footers in place, get your beams up, get your windows framed and your doors hung, then paint the shutters.

Image Credits:

Warped Plywood from Thomas.Tuerke.Net, who has an impressive model railroad blog. I’m not into model railroading, but if I were, I would be hooked. As it is, I like the pictures.

Mahogany tree from Cites.org.

Bolivian Rosewood Guitar from .

Coaching, team development, and personal growth are a big part of business now. I’m not sure I buy into it: seems like a corporate extension of what is often a self-help racket. Can coaching and leadership development really produce increased productivity, magically cooperative team-players, and employees so motivated they beg you for extra projects?

Maybe. Maybe not. As with most broad-sweep solutions to common problems, what you put in is exactly what you get out. A corporation can’t force you to develop yourself any more than you Mom or Dad could. It’s up to you. That said, choosing to exercise discipline, smooth out your rough places, and gain skills is beneficial whether you work in a corporate office or a drive-thru window or from a laptop at your kitchen table.

The coaching concept of business intelligence can involve any or all of four areas: physical, emotional, social, and spiritual.

A brief definition of each:

• Physical Intelligence: being aware of your body’s needs, responding before you crash and burn from too much stress, too little sleep, sickness, fatigue, or poor diet; providing your body with the energy, rest, and fuel it needs to complete the work you give it; being sensitive to the cues your body gives you.
• Emotional Intelligence: being aware of your own emotions, being able to manage them even in stressful situations, producing sufficient inner motivation to keep you moving, noticing the emotional responses of people around you and handling them positively.
• Social Intelligence: an extension of emotional intelligence, really; being able to gauge the group atmosphere, interaction between team members, potential problems and points of strength; exercising leadership in groups to move people toward positive, productive interaction and decision making.
• Spiritual Intelligence: the newest development in business intelligence potential; being able to see and/or seek a deeper purpose in work, business, and company mission; working from a motivation that is more universal and lasting than profit; being aware of how to make your work correspond with your greater purposes and goals in life.

Now that we know what our four possible areas of intelligence are, let’s look at some ideas for enhancing them.
Most of us can easily identify which particular “intelligence” areas we are weak in. I know my social intelligence isn’t that great, though my emotional intelligence is keen. I can easily sense the emotions of others, but when it comes to providing group leadership and moving an emotional atmosphere toward something positive, I draw a blank.

My husband, on the other hand, has a natural social intelligence. He seems to interact and move through groups with an instinct both graceful and effective. We all have natural strengths and weaknesses, so once you identify yours you can more efficiently smooth things out. Building skills is smart for business or personal success.

Read on for 80 Ideas to Enhance Your Intelligence.

Ideas to Enhance Your Physical Intelligence

1. Stretch every morning for ten to fifteen minutes, and again at some point during the day (lunch break, afternoon coffee break) for five minutes.
2. Once every hour or so, push your chair back from your desk, lean your head back, close your eyes, and just take a few deep breaths. If you notice that you are feeling very tense, get up and take a five minute break.
3. Get a Pilates workout dvd and use it at home or join a Pilates class at your gym. Even weekends only is great.
4. When you walk, check your posture. Straighten your back and release your shoulders. Tighten your abdominal muscles.
5. Climb the stairs instead of using the elevator.
6. Get an anatomy book (one with good illustrations) and spend five to ten minutes per day reading about part of your body.
7. Do puzzles over your lunch hour to give your brain some stretching time, too.
8. Keep a food journal for a week or so.
9. Create some clear space in your work area. If your office is cluttered and your desk is covered, you are creating unnecessary anxiety and tense muscles. Clear things out a bit. Keep your desk surface neat, and only keep papers out while in use.
10. Plan healthy meals for a week. See how much better you feel at the end of that week.
11. Get up at the same time every morning for a week. Then get up ten minutes earlier the next week.
12. Keep an exercise journal for a week or so.
13. Try a new sport, something you’re totally unfamiliar with that will force you to use your muscles in new ways.
14. Subscribe to a fitness/health magazine and read the issues as they come. Try to implement an idea or suggestion from each issue into your routine.
15. Schedule a session with a personal trainer at your gym.
16. Get a full-body massage.
17. Notice how tired or energetic you are at the end of the work day before you make evening plans. If you’re feeling peppy and excited, go out, have fun, spend time with friends. If you’re tired already, give yourself a break. Go home, eat a healthy meal, read a relaxing book for a while, and go to bed early.
18. Buy and wear comfortable working shoes.
19. Pay attention to the way you sit and use a computer and phone. Are you aggravating or stressing muscles by your posture? Shift your body a little until you hit a comfortable position.
20. Consider your clothing. Are you comfortable? Is your waistband tight? Is the material scratchy or warm? Try to build a wardrobe that is both comfortable, functional, and flattering. This takes time, but the sooner you start the sooner you will appreciate the benefits.

Ideas to Enhance Your Emotional Intelligence

1. Write out a definition of emotions and give examples of three strong positive emotions and three strong negative emotions.
2. Read a basic overview of personality types.
3. Notice your tone of voice next time you’re having a conversation that could escalate into conflict. Consciously force yourself to speak in a quiet, calm, and kind tone of voice, no matter what you are saying.
4. What is your personality type? If you don’t know, find out.
5. Write a paragraph describing the most exciting, thrilling, and/or fulfilling day of your life thus far.
6. Write a paragraph describing the most depressing, discouraging, and/or unproductive day of your life thus far.
7. Smile at strangers.
8. Start noticing body language. Arms folded? Leaning forward? How do different people stand, sit, and gesture? Look for the signals that tell you what they’re feeling.
9. Start noticing your own moods. Are you in a good mood or a bad mood most of the time? Describe a good mood and a bad mood for yourself (a brief statement for each will do).
10. Find someone who knows you well and ask him or her what your moods are like. Do the answers correspond with your answers from #9?
11. What triggers your anger? Do you know? Quickly list five things that make you mad.
12. How do you respond when you are mad? Quickly list a typical response to the five things from #11.
13. Now consider how your typical mad response from #12 would affect the people near you or involved in the situation. Quickly list what you think someone else’s response might be to your five typical mad responses from #12.
14. List three people you know well. Think about how they act, speak, and move when 1) happy and relaxed, 2) angry or frustrated, and 3) stressed and under pressure.
15. What is the purpose of emotions? Answer that question for yourself. Do a little reading and research if you want, but come up with your own answer.
16. Listen to a conversation between teenage girls. Really listen.
17. Listen to a conversation between businessmen. Really listen.
18. What emotional differences do you notice between the conversations from #16 and #17?
19. Notice the expression on the faces of strangers.
20. Smile, broadly, for no apparent reason, every hour on the hour.

More ideas…

Ideas to Enhance Your Social Intelligence

1. If you’re not a naturally outgoing person, find and memorize a few greeting and exiting lines. Use them. People like repetition.
2. What’s your typical response to conflict? Ask yourself, then ask someone who knows you well. Compare answers.
3. How can you tell when people are stressed out, anxious, tense, and uncomfortable? List at least five physical cues that you can look for.
4. How can you tell when people are angry, irritated, annoyed, or about to lose it? List at least five physical cues that you can look for. Not everybody yells, you know.
5. What physical cues do you display when you get anxious or angry? List at least three for each scenario.
6. Find and memorize five humorous one-liners. Funny helps mad go away. They’re not foolproof, of course, but it’s better to have something handy than draw a blank when you’re desperate.
7. Who was/is the mediator in your family? How did/does that person mediate conflicts?
8. Who is the most popular person you know (besides yourself!)? Next time you are around that person, notice at least three particular gestures, expressions, or movements.
9. Start asking people something besides the standard “How are you?” or “What’s up?”. Try for something that requires more than a Yes/No, Fine/Nothing answer. Then listen.
10. Respect personal space. Don’t get right in someone’s face, don’t stand extremely close, and don’t talk louder than is necessary to be heard.
11. Read a book about how to resolve conflicts.
12. Keep at least a minimal knowledge of current events and pop culture so you can have a conversation with anyone.
13. Walk with confidence.
14. Read a book about mingling.
15. Smile when you talk to people.
16. Send clear signals about what you are doing when entering a group. If you want to shake hands, put your hand right out there. Don’t be wishy washy. People will respond if they know where you’re going.
17. If a topic is touchy, pull out a deflection line: “Perhaps we could continue this conversation tomorrow, in my office,” or “Would you be willing to email me your thoughts on this so I can be sure I understand them?” Then change the subject.
18. Don’t assume people agree with you on religion, politics, and morality. In fact, assume that they don’t agree, and assume that they can teach you something. Discuss the big issues with an attitude of trying to solve a problem together.
19. Use names, first names when appropriate.
20. Close each conversation gracefully. Memorize a few closers if needed. Extend thanks. Say nice to meet you, or see you, or whatever fits. Smile, and walk away.

Ideas to Increase Your Spiritual Intelligence

1. Sketch or describe your idea of the perfect life.
2. What is altruism? Write out your own definition.
3. Read a short passage from the Psalms each day.
4. Read a chapter from the book of Proverbs each day. (The numbers correspond to the date.)
5. Find a few inspiration quotations and memorize them.
6. Volunteer at a local charity or non-profit organization.
7. Give away ten percent of your paycheck to your church, a charity, or an individual in need.
8. Write a mission statement for your life.
9. Write a quick list of the five greatest problems in the world. Now write a list of what you can do to help solve those problems.
10. Spend five minutes when you first wake up (or while you’re in the shower, or having your first cup of coffee) to think about your larger goal for the day, the week, the year.
11. Offer to help your co-workers when you see them struggling with a project or problem.
12. At least one day per week should be “off-work” day. Don’t bring it home, don’t run to the office, don’t take the phone calls, don’t check your work email. Your mind needs time to reflect and renew.
13. Read an allegorical book.
14. Read some poetry by Rabindranath Tagore.
15. Answer this question: if you didn’t need money, how would you spend your life?
16. Spend some time baselining.
17. Donate some time to help a friend finish a project.
18. Once a month, take an hour or so to review your life goals and the direction you are heading.
19. Talk with your spouse about his/her goals, dreams, and life mission.
20. Write a sentence or two describing how your current work fulfills your mission at this point in your life.

We want others to like us, to emulate us, to approve of us, to admire our decisions, our lives. We want a pat on the head. We want the general consensus of others around us to be that we’ve got it pretty well figured out. So we take the paths that seem familiar because we know instinctively that, like us, others tend to approve of what is familiar without ever questioning it. We get the approval. But do we ever get the life we really want?

As women, we are especially susceptible to seeking the approval of others around us. Something in our emotional construction longs for the security of knowing we have pleased, we are approved, we have somehow met the mark. But how often do we stop to ask whose mark we are so desperately trying to meet? Is someone else’s standard my only measurement for a successful life?

I seem traditional to some people, but the catch is that the traditions I uphold in my life I have chosen consciously, recognizing what they are and the value they hold for me. The traditions that have no validity and no value I choose to reject: not because I hate the past or because I want to rebel against my family legacies, but because blind adherence to tradition never improves my life. I am a stay-at-home mom and a work-from-home writer. I enjoy traditional “domestic” activities like cooking and gardening; I also love playing guitar, traveling, meeting new people, and going to skateboard parks with my husband. I spend a lot of time trying to improve how I do what I do, and probably an equal amount of time trying to improve who I am. Personal growth is a big part of life improvement for me.

Take adventures in seeking, constantly, to improve your life by questioning assumptions, examining cultural norms and traditions, and taking time to think through both your daily habits and your lifelong beliefs. Such activity is not for the faint-hearted or the close-minded. We all have strong emotional attachments to our assumptions. A defense system we don’t even recognize most of the time jumps into action as soon as something dear to us is questioned, even if the questioning will lead us to a better, safer, and freer life. Questions frighten us. We have made decisions based on assumptions and we fear that questioning those assumptions will cause our lives to crumble around us.

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” (Semisonic)

Without questions, without honesty, without risk, our lives will crumble. At best we will live and die in mediocrity. The atrophy of a mind and heart never fully used will cause our lives to deteriorate into something passionless, useless, and pointless. Life was not meant to be lived without purpose and freedom. It is only by asking difficult questions and seeking real wisdom that we find both purpose and freedom, and in finding them we find a passion for life.

I hope you are open-minded enough to seek more than the rut you have been walking. I hope you are willing to take risks, to ask questions, to examine your own life honestly, to put aside assumptions, to seek true value. Do you want comfort, or do you want real wisdom? Do you want familiarity, or do you want freedom?

Improving your life is more than sitting around, theorizing about the big questions in life. Our lives are composed of a collection of small things, mostly, and thinking about those small things is how we make our lives richer and better. All the little things – from how you cook a meal, or organize your desk, or shop for birthday gifts to how you implement frugality, change your morning routine, or choose what book to read next – make the big differences that take us from mediocrity to excitement.

I said before that no one has it all figured out; I certainly don’t. My mission is to find out what I can and continually change and improve my life with every day. Many of the things I write about are very simple, practical applications for the daily business of life: how-tos, recipes, life hacks, tips, methods. Some are more theoretical, my own process of examining the “bigger” things in life.

Take risks. Let life be an adventure and not a drudgery. Trade in those assumptions for something real. You may walk away with the same basic lifestyle and beliefs, but they will be grounded on your own decisions, not on a past that you may or may not want to become your future. Reject the fear and the passivity and seek what is real. “Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister.’” (Proverbs 7:4)