johnthesearcher
New Member
The week between 'Santa arriving' and the beginning of the New Year is a great time to spend thinking about both - personal and business plans and goals. I have a posted a number thoughts on goal setting in the past but it is always good to review and reflect ..... at the end of the day, week, month or year.
Over the last couple of days I decided to invest a few hours to review what I did right and what I did wrong in 2010 and think about what I want to do in 2011.
This is something you might want to do too. You may even identify with my reflections, as in 2010 I set too many short term goals and got overwhelmed by too many projects, too many challenges, not enough focus and made a number of simple 'errors in judgement' which I thankfully, managed to correct before they did any long term damage. Despite all the books, cd's etc. I would still advocate regular progress reviews to ensure a sustainable 'tight grip on the reins'
To accomplish anything in life, in business, in a fitness regime etc, it helps if you have some idea of what you want to achieve in the long term as the result of your current actions. That's simply called setting a goal. The whole purpose of setting goals is to plan your life rather than take life as it comes.
It never ceases to amaze me how well people can plan for their holidays or a trip to the Sales but how much they struggle with everything else. Perhaps escape is easier to do .....than to actively plan to achieve change!
Personal Development study reminds us that there are only four ways to improve your personal and business life.
You can START something new or you can STOP something which doesn't work for you.
or
You can do MORE of something which worked for you or you can do LESS of something which didn't.
I have colleagues who tell me that "it's ok for you because you have 'more time' than I do! By the time I get home, it's late and then have something to eat, speak to the family, watch a bit of tv to help me relax ..... it's time to go to bed. How can I find time to set goals?"
More Time! We all have the same number of minutes and hours etc but the time factor isn't what's most relevant. It is the determination to apply the principles behind 'having a plan' Perhaps the rationale should be better planning, clearer goal setting .... more frequent reviews as we all need more effective and powerful long range goals to help us deal with the 'inevitable' short term obstacles.
The most important part of goal-setting is knowing exactly what it is you want. Once you decide what that is, write it down! After you have written your goals down, keep them somewhere where you can see them daily. As you achieve each one, check it off .... pat yourself on the back, then quickly ...... add another.
I begin by reviewing my yearly goals. If I've been good this year, I'll be rewarded by seeing that most of them have been accomplished or at least partially accomplished.
Since I got into the habit of reviewing my goals weekly, I've already got a pretty good idea of my accomplishments/shortcomings this past year and how to apply the lessons learned.
In addition to reviewing, I also ask myself the following questions while reflecting on my own goals and progress:
Reflection # 1 Identify Your Greatest Accomplishments In 2010? If you are not sure .....ask a trusted colleague.
Even if 2010 was a particularly challenging year for you, odds are if you look close enough there's something somewhere to be proud of, something you could learn, something you could replicate, something you could change, something you could do better and so on.
Reflection # 2 Analyze What You Learned from Each Accomplishment?
Now that you have identified your greatest accomplishments, go back to each one and consider exactly what you learned or how you were challenged by each of them.
Reflection # 3 Identify Your Biggest Disappointments Of 2010?
Practically every company and individual resists analyzing their mistakes. That's a shame because this is where the best learning originates from.
Reflection # 4 Analyze What You Learned from Each Failure or Disappointment?
No matter how great everything in life is going - we all make mistakes. The trick here is to really analyze them, what preceded them, what could you have done differently, and how can you prevent them in the future.
Reflection # 5 Identify How You Limited Yourself and How Can You Stop It?
Were there certain actions you took or didn't take that came back to bite you?
In order to make sure you don't place yourself in that position again - you need to bring these self-defeating actions to the surface, confront them and most importantly determine what you must do differently to make sure you don't make the same mistakes all over again.
Reflection # 6 Analyze the Information You Have Gathered?
The goal of this exercise is not simply to understand yourself and your business better but to actually use the information gleaned to make certain that projected activity for 2011 surpasses that of 2010.
What are the positive takeaways from answering each question? What do you learn about yourself or your business that you didn't realize or weren't thinking about? Obviously, having this list isn't going to do it all, you still need to take the lesson (s) learned and USE THEM!
By learning to see our challenges as opportunities, we take our power back from the situations, circumstances, and outcomes of our lives. Our ability to appreciate difficulties, learn from them, and use them to our advantage, gives us an important insight into who we really are and how to create success and fulfillment in a conscious, deliberate, and innovative way.
The purpose here is to build in to your schedule, your interactions, your management style or whatever else you've surfaced in the previous questions and build yourself a new and better approach.
Once you complete this activity, consider putting it all together into a solid long term personal strategic plan which is the single smartest thing you can do to position yourself for success in 2011.
Quote for the Day: "I used to say that I hoped things would change, until I learned that they would only change ...... when I changed"
Over the last couple of days I decided to invest a few hours to review what I did right and what I did wrong in 2010 and think about what I want to do in 2011.
This is something you might want to do too. You may even identify with my reflections, as in 2010 I set too many short term goals and got overwhelmed by too many projects, too many challenges, not enough focus and made a number of simple 'errors in judgement' which I thankfully, managed to correct before they did any long term damage. Despite all the books, cd's etc. I would still advocate regular progress reviews to ensure a sustainable 'tight grip on the reins'
To accomplish anything in life, in business, in a fitness regime etc, it helps if you have some idea of what you want to achieve in the long term as the result of your current actions. That's simply called setting a goal. The whole purpose of setting goals is to plan your life rather than take life as it comes.
It never ceases to amaze me how well people can plan for their holidays or a trip to the Sales but how much they struggle with everything else. Perhaps escape is easier to do .....than to actively plan to achieve change!
Personal Development study reminds us that there are only four ways to improve your personal and business life.
You can START something new or you can STOP something which doesn't work for you.
or
You can do MORE of something which worked for you or you can do LESS of something which didn't.
I have colleagues who tell me that "it's ok for you because you have 'more time' than I do! By the time I get home, it's late and then have something to eat, speak to the family, watch a bit of tv to help me relax ..... it's time to go to bed. How can I find time to set goals?"
More Time! We all have the same number of minutes and hours etc but the time factor isn't what's most relevant. It is the determination to apply the principles behind 'having a plan' Perhaps the rationale should be better planning, clearer goal setting .... more frequent reviews as we all need more effective and powerful long range goals to help us deal with the 'inevitable' short term obstacles.
The most important part of goal-setting is knowing exactly what it is you want. Once you decide what that is, write it down! After you have written your goals down, keep them somewhere where you can see them daily. As you achieve each one, check it off .... pat yourself on the back, then quickly ...... add another.
I begin by reviewing my yearly goals. If I've been good this year, I'll be rewarded by seeing that most of them have been accomplished or at least partially accomplished.
Since I got into the habit of reviewing my goals weekly, I've already got a pretty good idea of my accomplishments/shortcomings this past year and how to apply the lessons learned.
In addition to reviewing, I also ask myself the following questions while reflecting on my own goals and progress:
Reflection # 1 Identify Your Greatest Accomplishments In 2010? If you are not sure .....ask a trusted colleague.
Even if 2010 was a particularly challenging year for you, odds are if you look close enough there's something somewhere to be proud of, something you could learn, something you could replicate, something you could change, something you could do better and so on.
Reflection # 2 Analyze What You Learned from Each Accomplishment?
Now that you have identified your greatest accomplishments, go back to each one and consider exactly what you learned or how you were challenged by each of them.
Reflection # 3 Identify Your Biggest Disappointments Of 2010?
Practically every company and individual resists analyzing their mistakes. That's a shame because this is where the best learning originates from.
Reflection # 4 Analyze What You Learned from Each Failure or Disappointment?
No matter how great everything in life is going - we all make mistakes. The trick here is to really analyze them, what preceded them, what could you have done differently, and how can you prevent them in the future.
Reflection # 5 Identify How You Limited Yourself and How Can You Stop It?
Were there certain actions you took or didn't take that came back to bite you?
In order to make sure you don't place yourself in that position again - you need to bring these self-defeating actions to the surface, confront them and most importantly determine what you must do differently to make sure you don't make the same mistakes all over again.
Reflection # 6 Analyze the Information You Have Gathered?
The goal of this exercise is not simply to understand yourself and your business better but to actually use the information gleaned to make certain that projected activity for 2011 surpasses that of 2010.
What are the positive takeaways from answering each question? What do you learn about yourself or your business that you didn't realize or weren't thinking about? Obviously, having this list isn't going to do it all, you still need to take the lesson (s) learned and USE THEM!
By learning to see our challenges as opportunities, we take our power back from the situations, circumstances, and outcomes of our lives. Our ability to appreciate difficulties, learn from them, and use them to our advantage, gives us an important insight into who we really are and how to create success and fulfillment in a conscious, deliberate, and innovative way.
The purpose here is to build in to your schedule, your interactions, your management style or whatever else you've surfaced in the previous questions and build yourself a new and better approach.
Once you complete this activity, consider putting it all together into a solid long term personal strategic plan which is the single smartest thing you can do to position yourself for success in 2011.
Quote for the Day: "I used to say that I hoped things would change, until I learned that they would only change ...... when I changed"
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